Two basketball teams searching for answers cross paths tonight at Value City Arena. And that’s where the similarity between Ohio State and Illinois ends.

Ohio State is trying to figure out how to make more baskets to stay on track to play for a third straight Big Ten championship on the final day of the season.

Illinois coach Bruce Weber should be so fortunate as to have 22 victories. He wouldn’t have to be wondering where he might be coaching next season.

The Buckeyes have lost two of their past three games to fall to a No. 8 ranking nationally and a game behind Michigan State in the Big Ten standings. In the two losses, to Michigan State and Michigan, they made less than a third of their field-goal attempts.

That’s nothing compared to the Fighting Illini, who have lost eight of nine games, five by five points or less, since upsetting Ohio State on Jan.10. The skid has fueled speculation that, with a new athletic director in charge, Weber’s ninth season at the school will be his last. An 80-57 loss at Nebraska on Saturday might have removed any doubt.

“I think all the close losses, the disappointment, the emotion, just finally took a toll on our guys and it kind of all unraveled,” Weber said yesterday.

Ohio State, by comparison, although not playing like the team that drummed Duke by 22 points in November, doesn’t appear to be a lost cause despite despair setting in among some fans.

Weber views OSU as many have since the season began: a talented but largely inexperienced group that has been unable to replicate the perimeter shooting and intangibles David Lighty and Jon Diebler provided the past several years.

“I said since the beginning they weren’t as good as a year ago,” Weber said. “I thought Lighty was MVP (of the Big Ten) last season, and Diebler was special.

“They’re still a very, very good team. But the conference is more balanced from one to 12, and, more than anything, that’s been (the reason).”

Another reason is the Buckeyes’ atrocious shooting in their two recent losses. They shot a Value City Arena-record low of 26.4 percent and lost to Michigan State by 10 points on Feb. 11. They shot 38.8 percent and lost by five at Michigan on Saturday. In each game, they limited their opponent to less than 60 points.

Senior William Buford has caught much of the flak. He made 5 of 24 shots and scored 10 points in the two losses after preceding each with games of more than 20 points. But coach Thad Matta said yesterday, “I don’t want to hang on Will that we lost the (Michigan) game because of him. We didn’t lose the Kentucky game (in the NCAA Tournament last year) because of him. We had other chances (in both games).”

Michigan “made some difficult shots,” Matta said, “and we didn’t.”

Matta and sophomores Aaron Craft and Deshaun Thomas mentioned “little things” such as screening, ball movement and missed opportunities to score in transition that have kept the offense from getting better scoring chances. Matta said he would like to see the Buckeyes in “attack mode” more than they have been.

“He’s been talking about it a lot . . . that we can get easy shots for each other, anybody can score, the play is not just for one person,” Thomas said.

“We can get easy buckets in transition. We haven’t gotten that in a couple games.”

Craft said he could look to fast-break more than he has to create man-advantage scoring chances.

“I think we’re pretty positive. We’re still able to reach the goal we set out for at the beginning of the year, and that’s to win the Big Ten championship,” he said.

But “time’s running out. There has to be a sense of urgency on our team now. I think we’re starting to understand that. There are four games left, and each one is going to be a big one.”

bbaptist@dispatch.com