2012-13 Illini Basketball Schedule Released

[Dan]

OCTOBER
22 Orange & Blue Scrimmage
27 Lewis (Exhibition)

NOVEMBER
4 West Chester (Exhibition)
9 Colgate
12 St. Francis
16 at Hawaii
19 vs USC (Lahaina, Hawaii)
20 vs Texas/Chaminade (Lahaina, Hawaii)
21 vs TBD (Lahaina, Hawaii)
25 Gardner-Webb
28 Georgia Tech

DECEMBER
4 Western Carolina
8 at Gonzaga
11 Norfolk State
16 Eastern Kentucky
22 vs Missouri (St. Louis)
29 vs Auburn (Chicago)

JANUARY
2 Illinois at Purdue
5 Ohio State at Illinois
9 Minnesota at Illinois
12 Illinois at Wisconsin
17 Northwestern at Illinois
22 Illinois at Nebraska
27 Michigan at Illinois
31 Illinois at Michigan State

FEBRUARY
3 Wisconsin at Illinois
7 Indiana at Illinois
10 Illinois at Minnesota
13 Purdue at Illinois
17 Illinois at Northwestern
21 Penn State at Illinois
24 Illinois at Michigan

MARCH
2 Nebraska at Illinois
5 Illinois at Iowa
10 Illinois at Ohio State

http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-baskb...083012aaa.html

[illinifan31]

Why is the Ohio State game always over winter break? The one time where my season tickets don't count.

[Dan]

This is the 3rd time in the past 4 season that Ohio State gets to play at Illinois on a weekend, when the games are typically early in the day and crowd kinda dead.

There are no enormous breaks in the B1G action this season, nothing like last season's extended bye week from January 10th-19th.

The longest break in the B1G season is near the end when it'll probably be nice to rest up: Sunday Feb 24 at Michigan - Saturday Mar 2 vs Nebraska.

Only once does Illinois have back-to-back B1G road games- Mar 5 at Iowa and the regular season finale Mar 10 at Ohio State.


Illinois' Big Ten single plays-
Home: Indiana, Penn State
Away: Iowa, Michigan State

This season Illinois will play 14 non-conference games- 7 at home (4 in Hawaii). Last season UI had 13 noncons, 8 at home.


When Are Tickets Available?

Illini nation is showing strong support for the beginning of the John Groce era, with season tickets currently renewed at a 92-percent rate. A limited number of C-level season tickets are now on sale for new season ticket holders. Those tickets can be purchased online at FightingIllini.com, by phone (866-ILLINI-1 or 217-333-3470) or in person at the Assembly Hall South Box Office.

Student season tickets also are on sale now. Students can purchase their season tickets exclusively at FightingIllini.com and must order by Sept. 21 to receive priority seating.

Single-game tickets will go on sale on Oct. 23 at 9 a.m., online, by phone or in person. via

[Philly Boy]

One thing I noticed with pleasant surprise is that it does not look like we'll be facing that daunting, murderers row end-of-season schedule we had the last couple of years.

I wouldn't say any of the last games are guaranteed wins for us, but we may have at least a fighting chance with them, playing NW, Iowa, Nebraska, and Penn State in four of the last six. This may represent an entirely different dynamic from recent years when the shallow bench and tired legs -- along with some other factors -- spelled big time doom and swoon for the squad.

[Foo G]

Yikes!

That's a brutal way to start the Big 10 season.
Even if Purdue is supposed to be down, they always play us well at Mackey.

Then the 5-game stretch in late-January/early-February starting with Muck Fichigan is really tough, even with 3 of them being at home.
Fan support will definitely be a must this year!

[WesterveltVictoryCigar]

Only 2 conference games in December this time around.

[JimmyChitwood]

top end 22-10, lower end 20-12

Should be a fun season regardless

[scubadunk]

A great opportunity to be 20-12 and 10-8 in the big ten with a NCAA birth. Need some big wins though.

[ryls]

Glad the schedule is finally out, first 11 games are rough, tough schedule, I predict 10-8 in the league

[DanvIllini]

Non conf games will not draw the city folks down... but Ill be there. Just look for the only guy in the middle of A..

[OrchardDowns]

17-15 overall before Big Ten tourney. Hopefully NIT bid!

I'm keeping my expectations low and then will be pleasantly surprised when we go 22-10 and get an invite to the Big Dance!!

[BrooksTaylorFan]

No 32-0 predicitions yet? :laugh: I'm confident that we'll be in that 22-24 win stage. This team has talent and we finally have a coach who will use his bench and play to the strengths of his team. Transition points are key and we'll see a lot more of that this year. 4-5 eacy transition buckets per game makes a huge difference.

[UIUC1867]

Non-con: 12-2
B1G: 10-8

22-10

[trevdv]

Non-con: 11-3
B1G: 9-9

20-12 & a lower-seeded tourney bid...

[IlliniFan3]

cant wait to see them when they come to minnesota

[FeelYourPaign]

I was curious as to just how equal these schedules are in terms of difficulty, so I did a little analysis. It is a little arbitrary, but it is my system, so my rules.

I rated teams in the upper third of the conference (Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State and OSU), the middle third (Illinois, Minnesota, Purdue and Wisconsin) and the bottom third (Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern and PSU).

Then I counted the number of times that each school plays a 1, a 2 and a 3. Sum up the rankings and the lowest number has the toughest schedule. No reflection of road / home, by the way. Here are the results. The columns before the last one are number of games against 1 rated schools, 2 rated schools and 3 rated schools. The final number is the total season difficulty.

School 1 2 3 Tot
Illinois 6 6 6 36
Indiana 6 6 6 36
Iowa 5 7 6 37
Michigan 6 6 6 36
Mich State 6 7 5 35
Minnesota 6 5 7 37
Nebraska 6 7 5 35
Northwstrn 6 7 5 35
Ohio State 6 6 6 36
Penn State 6 6 6 36
Purdue 7 4 7 36
Wisconsin 6 5 7 37

Hope that spacing works out. Looks fine on my input screen.

Virtually no difference in difficulty of schedule. I was a little surprised by that, but pleasantly surprised. Iowa gets a small break, in that they only play a "1" five times. And Purdue gets a little abuse, as they play a "1" seven times. That is two each against Indiana, Michigan and Michigan St. Pretty rough

Looks like no one gets an easy road and the winner of the regular season will have earned it, at least in my opinion. And our degree of difficulty is absolutely average at 36 points in 18 games. No complaint here.

[Philly Boy]

Paign, thanks for doing the work on that analysis. I like those kinds of comparisons and was curious, too.

As I had previously posted, we have one big difference from last season's schedule -- it's easier at the end than the beginning. Dunno what that will portend, but at first blush you've gotta like it given our late-season swoons over the past couple years.

[FeelYourPaign]

Originally Posted by Philly Boy

As I had previously posted, we have one big difference from last season's schedule -- it's easier at the end than the beginning. Dunno what that will portend, but at first blush you've gotta like it given our late-season swoons over the past couple years.

I actually would prefer the opposite this year, in that I think that Groce will play a lot of guys. I'm predicting that we aren't gassed at the end and are playing our best ball, instead of plateauing. If I'm correct, then I would prefer to play the big boys later. But what can you do? The league made a fair schedule and we'll just have to play it.

I don't want to wish my life to speed up, but MAN ! I'm ready for some basketball.

[BrooksTaylorFan]

Let's hope we can now beat the likes of teams like Iowa, PSU, and Nebraska. Losses to lower tier teams will keep us out of the tourney. I have faith that Groce will put an end to the yearly bad losses we seemed to have under Weber. It's all about toughness.

[Railsplitter]

Originally Posted by BrooksTaylorFan

Let's hope we can now beat the likes of teams like Iowa, PSU, and Nebraska. Losses to lower tier teams will keep us out of the tourney. I have faith that Groce will put an end to the yearly bad losses we seemed to have under Weber. It's all about toughness.

My wish is that all of the games are televised. My computer just isn't fast enough to watch games on it, or rather my level of wireless internet.

[Foo G]

Originally Posted by BrooksTaylorFan

Let's hope we can now beat the likes of teams like Iowa, PSU, and Nebraska. Losses to lower tier teams will keep us out of the tourney. I have faith that Groce will put an end to the yearly bad losses we seemed to have under Weber. It's all about toughness.

...and focus and preparation.

Originally Posted by Railsplitter

My wish is that all of the games are televised. My computer just isn't fast enough to watch games on it, or rather my level of wireless internet.

I think everything was televised last year except for one ESPN360 game.
The November games that were streamed live online were rerun on the Big 10 Network a day or so later.

[joekam]

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/...e/schedule.pdf

Link to the .pdf print out for those of you who like to pin it up in your cube like me.

[ryls]

I see in the league we only have 3 Saturday games, I know it's because of TV but that's a small number

[jhayton]

Originally Posted by joekam

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/...e/schedule.pdf

Link to the .pdf print out for those of you who like to pin it up in your cube like me.

I like your thought process. I usually have one on my fridge, but seeing as I work 70 hrs a week and stare at the wall a large portion of those hrs, putting a schedule up might keep me motivated... or at least keep me from missing games.

[joekam]

Originally Posted by jhayton

I like your thought process. I usually have one on my fridge, but seeing as I work 70 hrs a week and stare at the wall a large portion of those hrs, putting a schedule up might keep me motivated... or at least keep me from missing games.

Haha.

I just noticed the times are still TBA. But we're getting closer!