In its first trip to Southern California’s Galen Center, Illinois posted the program’s largest margin of victory in a Big Ten Conference road game since Jan. 19, 1946.

February 19, 2026

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

LOS ANGELES — Everybody in orange and blue can certainly consider the front half of this Los Angeles road trip a rousing success.

In its first ever game at the Galen Center and first road game against Southern California in 51 years, Illinois executed the program’s biggest margin of victory in a Big Ten Conference road game since Jan. 19, 1946 when they won at the University of Chicago 70-29.

The No. 10 Illini led wire-to-wire for a 101-65 victory in a game where the deficit for the home Trojans got as high as 39 and Illinois’ offensive output was its most in a league contest since posting 109 at Oregon last season on Jan. 2, 2025.

Seven different Illinois players posted a double-figure scoring night but Andrej Stojakovic’s return to the state of California, where he played two years of college basketball (at Stanford and Cal-Berkeley) high school basketball and AAU basketball, resulted in the 6-foot-7 wing posting 22 points in 18 minutes off the bench.

Illinois (22-5, 13-3 in Big Ten Conference) made 13 of 29 from three-point range and were a near-perfect 24 of 26 from the free throw line on Wednesday night.

Whether it was a combined seven three-pointers from Jake Davis and Ben Humrichous or the dribble penetration of guards Keaton Wagler (10 points and four assists) and Kylan Boswell (12 points, eight assists and five rebounds), Southern California (18-8, 7-8 in Big Ten) had no answer for an Illinois offense where they shot over 50 percent from the field in each of the two 20-minute halves of basketball.

The 54 points that Illinois accumulated before halftime is the most by the program in a Big Ten game this season and the most for the Illini any contest since early November. After building a 8-0 lead following the opening tip, there was a stretch of four minutes and 17 seconds early in the first half where Illinois didn’t miss an attempted field goal (5 of 5 including two three-pointers) to stretch its lead to 21-8. The outmatched Trojans could never regain any momentum in front of an announced crowd of 7,327, which consisted of several sections of Illini fans.

Since turning the calendar page to February, the combined margin of the Illini’s last three victories over Northwestern, Indiana and USC are 96 points. On a team which leads the nation in adjusted offensive efficiency (130.9), owning what currently stands as the highest offensive rating in the history of the kenpom era (since 1996-97), Illinois simply didn’t need a ridiculous effort from Wagler, who attracted several NBA scouts in attendance, as he had help from double-figure nights of David Mirkovic (14 points), Tomislav Ivisic (10 points). Wagler still stretched his streak of 19 straight games with a double-figure scoring total, and team-leading 24 times on the 2025-26 campaign. Nobody on the Illini’s eight-player rotation cracked the 30-minute plateau in the program’s biggest Big Ten victory of the season.

USC’s second-leading scorer Alijah Arenas, the son of former NBA star Gilbert Arenas, was held to eight points in just 18 minutes by Boswell’s defensive effort that included Arenas getting just one field goal attempt in the second half. Arenas was coming off a stellar two-game stretch against Indiana and Penn State that earned him the Big Ten Freshman of the Week award on Feb. 9. Against Indiana, he set multiple career highs with 29 points and six rebounds. Arenas led the Trojans in scoring and scored 19 of his 29 points in the second half to help the Trojans pull away from the Hoosiers. Then against Penn State, he led all scorers with 24 points, including 11 in the final four minutes and the game-winning layup.

Illinois will complete this Los Angeles double duty with the program’s first trip to Pauley Pavilion since Dec. 30, 1997 on Saturday night on FOX with a 7 p.m. CST tip against UCLA reeling from back-to-back road losses at Michigan and Michigan State.