INDIANAPOLIS — For the second time this season, No. 5 Iowa and No. 3 Illinois will meet for an AP Top 25 showdown — though Saturday’s matchup between the two teams will offer much higher stakes than their Jan. 29 contest.

Illinois and Iowa’s second meeting of the year will come in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals at Lucas Oil Stadium.

The Illini coasted to the penultimate round of the Big Ten Tournament, picking up a 90-68 blowout victory over Rutgers Friday night.

The Hawkeyes had to claw their way to the fourth day of the Big Ten Tournament, as they trailed Wisconsin, 32-26, at halftime. After a 0-of-10 3-point shooting performance in first half, Iowa rallied in the second half to down sixth-seeded Wisconsin, 62-57.

The first contest between the Hawkeyes and Fighting Illini this season was decided just moments before the final buzzer sounded, as C.J.Fredrick-less Iowa fell in controversial fashion in Champaign, Illinois, 80-75.

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At the time, Iowa was ranked seventh in the nation, while Illinois sat at No. 19.

A lot more than the rankings have changed since then. The Fighting Illini have picked up three wins over ranked teams — including a 23-point victory over No. 4 Michigan in Ann Arbor and a 73-68 win over then-No. 7 Ohio State in Columbus.

Iowa has since grabbed three wins over Wisconsin — two of which came while the Badgers were ranked — and a 16-point win over then-No. 7 Ohio State in Columbus.

“[Illinois is] a team, they have a lot of weapons,” Hawkeye head coach Fran McCaffery said. “They can hurt you in so many different ways, but they also defend. A lot of really good offensive teams don’t and they do. You put a game plan together. There’s a lot of things you have to look at. You know, we’re a team that’s sometimes hard to guard as well. So, we’ve had three great games with them the last two years, and we hope we have another one.”

One of the weapons on the Fighting Illini’s roster is guard Ayo Dosunmu, who some considered to be a Big Ten and national player of the year candidate.

Despite a 20.9-point, 6.2-rebound, 5.2-assist average stat line this season, Dosunmu could not edge out Hawkeye center Luka Garza — who has averaged 23.8 points and 8.7 rebounds per game in 2020-21 — in the race for the Big Ten Player of the Year award. Garza has already been named National Player of the Year by Sporting News and Bleacher Report.

Freshman guard Andre Curbelo has also emerged as one of Illinois’ best players this season, as he claimed the Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year award Tuesday. Over his last six games, Curbelo has averaged 13.7 points and 3.5 assists.

Illinois center Kofi Cockburn joined Dosunmu and Garza as an All-Big Ten first team selection by both the media and coaches. Hawkeye guard Joe Wieskamp was also named to the All-Big Ten second team by both the coaches and media.

“Illinois is a great team,” Wieskamp said. “We got a lot of respect for them and what they’ve accomplished this year, but at the end of the day, we were not satisfied with the outcome the first time. We’ll be ready for tomorrow.”

Illinois has won two-straight against the Hawkeyes — counting the two squads’ March 8, 2020, matchup in Champaign that saw Cockburn block what would’ve been a game-tying jumper from Garza at the buzzer.

Prior to the season, Garza, Cockburn, and Dosunmu all considered leaving their respective universities for the NBA.

The winner of Saturday’s Big Ten Tournament semifinal matchup between Iowa and Illinois will move on to play the winner of the Michigan-Ohio State semifinal game.

According to Hawkeye point guard Jordan Bohannon, the results of Saturday’s semifinal games could factor heavily into the seeding decisions the NCAA Tournament selection committee makes on Sunday.

“It’s just going to be another Big Ten battle,” Bohannon said. “We feel like that this game will decide on No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament. People say Illinois might be lock, but we’re going in thinking that we still want the one seed and our résumé is good enough to get that last one if we win this thing. I think our talent and our experience has a chance to do that. Illinois is a very well-coached team, a lot of talent on that team. It was a really good game when we played them at Illinois, but we have some revenge to do because we felt like we played pretty well over there and just didn’t come out with a win. We just have to continue to play connected like we did [Friday].”