No. 22-ranked Ohio State will travel to No. 15-ranked Illinois for the marquee college basketball matchup on Thursday (9 p.m. ET on FS1). The fight for the Big Ten regular-season title will be on the line tonight — along with a better seeding for the NCAA Tournament come March.
Illinois is a game back from Wisconsin and a half-game behind Purdue for the Big Ten lead, while Ohio State is a close fourth in the conference and 1.5 games back from Illinois.
But there's another race broiling in this matchup: Kofi Cockburn vs. E.J. Liddell for the Wooden Award.
Cockburn, the Fighting Illini's star center, has shot up the oddsboard to No. 2 after slipping during the middle of the season. Meanwhile, Liddell — the second-best favorite in January — has struggled to hold pace after a series of average to below-average performances for the Buckeyes forward.
Liddell's odds were just +800 about a month ago but have fallen to +2000. At BetMGM, he's tied for the 10th-best favorite to win the award granted to the best college basketball player in the country.
Below is a list of players with at least +4000 odds to win the Wooden Award via BetMGM.
Wooden Award Odds: Kofi Cockburn vs. E.J. Liddell
| Player | Odds |
|---|---|
| Oscar Tshiebwe | +275 |
| Kofi Cockburn | +500 |
| Ochai Agbaji | +700 |
| Johnny Davis | +1000 |
| Paolo Banchero | +1200 |
| Jaden Ivey | +1400 |
| Drew Timme | +1600 |
| Keegan Murray | +2000 |
| Bennedict Mathurin | +2000 |
| E.J. Liddell | +2500 |
| Jabari Smith | +2500 |
| Chet Holmgren | +3000 |
| Trayce Jackson-Davis | +4000 |
| Zach Edey | +4000 |
The top 10 vote-getters are given All-American status.
Illinois are six-point favorites at home as of Thursday morning with the total set at 141 (check real-time college basketball odds here). Read below to see what our best bet is for tonight's contest — and our rationale behind it.
