Groce: Illinois belongs in NCAA tourney

"At this point, I think we've done what we needed to do, but again that's out of my hands," Groce said following Friday's loss to Indiana in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals. "We have 22 wins. We play in the best conference in the country. We won seven of our last 11 games. Three of those four losses were on the road to teams who were a combined 51-5 at home.

"The fourth one is to Indiana today, who has been ranked No. 1 in the country more than anyone all season. We play good basketball. We're in a good league. We got six top-25 RPI wins, third most in the country. But again, I don't make those decisions. That's them."

Scott Powers