Aesthetically, I agree ... but that team was kind of famous (at least at the time, at least to me!) for NEVER wearing the navy jerseys one time that year. I would not be shocked if they were the only Illini team to ever do that in a season in the last 25+ years. It seemed they literally wore orange if they could and only wore white vs. teams with only a red away jersey like Wisconsin or Arizona. So, I think any branders or whatever will consider the orange more associated with that team.
But for fun ... I tried to look it up, lol. 2005 game by jersey:
WHITE vs. Delaware State
WHITE vs. Florida A&M
WHITE vs. Oakland
ORANGE vs. #24 Gonzaga (Indianapolis, IN)
ORANGE vs. #1 Wake Forest
ORANGE at Arkansas (Little Rock, AR)
ORANGE vs. Chicago State
ORANGE at Georgetown
ORANGE vs. Oregon (Chicago, IL)
ORANGE vs. Valparaiso
ORANGE vs. Missouri (St. Louis, MO)
WHITE vs. Longwood
ORANGE vs. Northwestern State (Las Vegas, NV)
WHITE vs. #22 Cincinnati (Las Vegas, NV)
WHITE vs. Ohio State
ORANGE at Purdue
ORANGE vs. Penn State
ORANGE at Northwestern
ORANGE vs. #23 Iowa
ORANGE at #18 Wisconsin
[
Orange Flyin' Illini Throwbacks] vs. Minnesota
ORANGE at #12 Michigan State
WHITE vs. Indiana
ORANGE at Michigan
WHITE vs. #20 Wisconsin
ORANGE at Penn State
ORANGE at Iowa
ORANGE vs. Northwestern
ORANGE vs. Purdue
ORANGE at Ohio State
ORANGE vs. Northwestern (BTT in Chicago, IL)
WHITE vs. Minnesota (BTT in Chicago, IL)
WHITE vs. #23 Wisconsin (BTT in Chicago, IL)
WHITE vs. (16) Fairleigh Dickinson (NCAAT First Round in Indianapolis, IN)
ORANGE vs. (9) Nevada (NCAAT Second Round in Indianapolis, IN)
ORANGE vs. (12) UW-Milwaukee (NCAAT Sweet Sixteen in Rosemont, IL)
WHITE vs. (3) #9 Arizona (NCAAT Elite Eight in Rosemont, IL)
ORANGE vs. (4) #4 Louisville (NCAAT Final Four in St. Louis, MO)
ORANGE vs. (1) #2 North Carolina (NCAAT Championship Game in St. Louis, MO)
BTW, Illinois' website had a picture of every game so this was SO much less difficult than I thought it would be!
I guess they actually wore the white more than I thought, the orange just stuck in my memory because they wore it for EVERY road game and also a significant number of home games.