Indiana will have had nine days off between its deflating loss to Rutgers and a showdown against Illinois.
IU was scheduled to play Michigan on Saturday but due to the Wolverines' two-week shutdown, the game was postponed and no makeup game was put in place.
It will not only have been a chance to get healthy, once again, allowing the team to focus on an extra week of practice time to continue sharpening its tools, and more importantly to focus on getting back in the right mindset mentally.
"Have to take inventory on where we are physically," IU head coach Archie Miller said on his radio show. "If we played this week, I'm not sure if we'd have Trey Galloway (back) or Armaan Franklin (ankle).
"It's a devastating grind in this league. Everyone who wins (a game), thinks they're a champion and everyone who loses thinks they may never win another game... We just have to stay in the thick of things."
Indiana currently sits at 8th in the Big Ten with a 9-7 (4-5) record on the season.
Its next stretch of basketball not only provides IU with a chance for quality wins, but also some games against opponents that sit near the bottom of the conference.
IU has Iowa at home after Illinois and then games against Northwestern and Michigan State sandwiched around Ohio State and Minnesota.
