No. 10 Michigan State is facing real adversity for the first time this season. A matchup against the hottest team in the Big Ten only adds to the Spartans’ concerns.

No. 5 Illinois rides a 12-game winning streak into Saturday’s clash versus Michigan State at East Lansing, Mich.

Michigan State (19-4, 9-3 Big Ten) lost last weekend at home to rival Michigan, then hit the road and wound up with a bad loss, falling to Minnesota 76-73 on Wednesday. The Golden Gophers snapped a seven-game losing streak.

Reserve guard Divine Ugochukwu suffered a left foot injury in the first half of that game. He was ruled out for the remainder of the season on Friday.

Star point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. continues to injure his reputation. Wolverines coach Dusty May called out Fears for making dangerous plays in last week’s game, including an apparently intentional effort to trip a Michigan player in the late going.

Fears was assessed a technical foul on Wednesday for making a kicking motion to the groin of Minnesota guard Langston Reynolds after Reynolds fouled him.

Head coach Tom Izzo threatened to pull Fears from the starting lineup on Saturday.

“I did not see what happened on the play,” Izzo said. “I saw him get pushed and I saw his leg come up and I didn’t think he hit anybody, but if he did, then he deserves it, I guess. But if he didn’t, I questioned it. So are they baiting him? Well, of course. And it’s his fault.”

Izzo needs to get his team refocused quickly after its clunker in Minneapolis. The Spartans trailed virtually the entire game. They nearly erased a 16-point deficit in the late going but their woeful start — 21 first-half points — doomed them.

“What a strange game,” Izzo said. “I can’t figure out why we started out so poorly. Disappointed in my upperclassmen, if I was to be honest. And the coach, because the coach has to get a team ready, and playing three games in a row now that we have not been there at the beginning.”

The Illini were dominant throughout their last outing, pounding Northwestern, 84-44, on Wednesday. The Illini (20-3) are 11-1 in Big Ten play for the first time since the 2004-05 squad won its first 15 league games as part of 29 straight victories to open the season.

A change in defensive strategy has helped to fuel the Illini run.

“We’re giving up more (three-pointers) because we’re trying to not give up as many twos and as many layups,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood said. “Those are 100 percent shots. … We’re going to give up some threes, but we’re going to count on not giving up twos and not giving up the 100 percent shots as much.”

The Illini barely gave up anything against the Wildcats, who went 19-for-65 from the field and just 4-for-25 from 3-point range. Northwestern coach Chris Collins heaped praise on the red-hot Illini afterward.

“They have tremendous length, so it’s really hard to score at the basket,” Collins said. “Their two-point defense is terrific. They’re doing such a good job eliminating your easy baskets. We took 25 threes. We needed to make double figures, and we only made four.”

Andrej Stojakovic had a team-high 17 points for Illinois against Northwestern.

–Field Level Media

Tampa Bay Lightning forward Curtis Douglas was fined $2,018.23 Friday for serving as the aggressor in his team’s latest melee with the archrival Florida Panthers.

The NHL issued the maximum allowable fine to Douglas for fighting an unwilling opponent, Panthers defenseman Niko Mikkola, in the third period of the Lightning’s 6-1 home victory Thursday night.

Douglas was retaliating for Mikkola’s earlier unprovoked hit on Lightning superstar Nikita Kucherov, which helped trigger a line brawl.

Douglas’ five-minute fighting major and 10-minute misconduct contributed to a whopping game total of 147 penalty minutes. Lightning defenseman J.J. Moser was ejected in the third period along with Panthers defenseman Gustav Forsling and head coach Paul Maurice.

A 6-foot-9 rookie enforcer, Douglas ranks fifth in the league with 92 penalty minutes in just 29 appearances. He fought Florida’s Luke Kunin when the Lightning beat the Panthers 4-2 in their previous meeting on Dec. 27, another rough game that produced 136 penalty minutes.

Tampa Bay claimed Douglas off waivers from the Utah Mammoth in October.

Thursday’s game was the last for both teams before the three-week Olympic break.

Winners of 19 of their last 21, the Lightning co-lead the Eastern Conference with 78 points, while the Panthers have 61 points and are eight back of a playoff spot.

–Field Level Media

Nick Boyd’s production is helping Wisconsin position itself nicely in the Big Ten standings while Lamar Wilkerson’s impressive output has not been enough for Indiana to climb out of the middle of the pack.

Two of the conference’s top scorers oppose each other when Boyd and Wisconsin visit Wilkerson and Indiana on Saturday afternoon in Bloomington, Ind.

Boyd’s 20.0 points per game are fourth in the conference and nine of his 13 games with at least 20 points have come in conference play. The Badgers (16-6, 8-3 Big Ten) are 10-3 when Boyd scores at least 20 and he is coming off consecutive 21-point showings in home wins over Ohio State and Minnesota last week that required comebacks.

Boyd shot 6-of-15 in last Saturday’s 92-82 win over Ohio State as the Badgers overcame an early nine-point deficit.

John Blackwell, who led the Badgers with 22 points, is eighth in the conference at 18.5 points per game. He was among five in double figures during Wisconsin’s ninth game with at least 90 points to date.

Coming off its long layoff, Wisconsin is tied with Purdue for fifth in the standings and is about to start a stretch where five of seven games are on the road. The Badgers visit No. 5 Illinois on Tuesday and host No. 10 Michigan State three days later.

“I think it was good just to come up for air a little bit,” Badgers coach Greg Gard said. “We’ve been in a pretty consistent routine of game, practice, practice, game. And I think just giving our guys a chance to get a day to relax a little bit and then also work on ourselves here.”

Indiana (15-8, 6-6) won three consecutive games by beating Rutgers, Purdue and UCLA following a four-game slide. The Hoosiers were unable to stay above .500 in league play when they shot 41.3% in Tuesday’s 81-75 loss at Southern California.

Wilkerson scored 33 points for his second-highest total this season while Tucker DeVries continued his slump. DeVries is averaging 13.7 points but shooting 32.8% from 3-point range and was a combined 3-of-17 from the floor over the past two games.

“I didn’t think we had the same juice and energy to start the game,” coach Darian DeVries said on the Indiana radio network after his team allowed 80 points for the seventh time this season. “As we started going, we never could get into sync. Every time we clawed back in it, we could never get enough stops to sustain anything.”

–Field Level Media