Illinois prepares to take on Xavier in 1st round of March Madness tournament

MILWAUKEE (WLS) -- University of Illinois basketball fans are geared up for March Madness as NCAA Tournament matches got underway Thursday.

The Fighting Illini take on Xavier University Musketeers Friday in Milwaukee.

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Getting to practice Thursday was really the first taste of this stage for a lot of the young Illinois freshmen, including Lithuanian guard Kasparas Jakucionis, who admitted he only started watching the tournament in the last couple of years.

However, Jakucionis did watch Wednesday night as Xavier rallied to beat the Texas Longhorns to earn the first round date with the Illini.

The Musketeers are no easy match up. They're older, obviously more experienced and have some momentum coming off a play-in win

But the Illini are confident too. They have not been completely whole and healthy for most of the season, so they believe their best basketball is ahead.

The Fighting Illini's record in Big Ten games is 13-9, and their record is 8-3 in non-conference games. Illinois leads the Big Ten with 83.8 points and is shooting 45.0%.

The Musketeers are 13-8 against Big East teams. Xavier is the best team in the Big East scoring 15.2 fast break points per game.

Illinois scores 83.8 points, 12.6 more per game than the 71.2 Xavier allows. Xavier has shot at a 46.9% rate from the field this season, 4.7 percentage points higher than the 42.2% shooting opponents of Illinois have averaged.

Jakucionis is scoring 15.0 points per game with 5.6 rebounds and 4.6 assists for the Fighting Illini. Will Riley is averaging 15.4 points and 5.4 rebounds while shooting 48.8% over the last 10 games.

Ryan Conwell is shooting 41.7% from beyond the arc with 3.0 made 3-pointers per game for the Musketeers, while averaging 16.7 points. Zach Freemantle is averaging 18.7 points and 6.6 rebounds over the last 10 games.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.