Tisdale bulking up to muscle the competition

Illinois freshman center Mike Tisdale had "no idea what I was geting into'' and found out the hard way about the rough-and-tumble Big Ten Conference from Penn State power forward Jamelle Cornley in January.

"He's so low to the ground, it was kind of tough,'' said Tisdale, the former Class A star at Riverton High School. "It's a lot easier to gain weight by playing against big guys in the Big Ten. You hear it's big and rough. You don't realize it until you start playing, then you want to gain the weight.