Illini Top Dartmouth, Improve to 9-1

The Illini men held off a late rally and beat Dartmouth 72 to 65 Tuesday at the State Farm Center.

Rayvontay Rice led a balanced Illini scoring attack with 13 points. Joseph Bertrand, Jon Ekey and Nnanna Egwu dded eleven apiece, Malcolm Hill ten, and Tracy Abrams nine.

Egwu led the charge in praising Hill as the player of the game.

"I've never seen anyone draw as many fouls as this kid," he said.  "It's unbelieveable some of the things he does to draw fouls.  He stays aggressive.  And the one thing I've liked about him is he's grown a lot from the summer to now, where he forgets about the last play, and moves on to the next play.   He did that lot (Tuesday.)  One of the shots he missed - he came back, and took another one."

New Trier graduate Connor Baim and Gabas Maldunas led the Big Green with 17 points apiece.

The Illini improve to 9-1, and next play at Oregon on Saturday.