Illini Basketball 2024-2025
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TheDukeUIUC
- Twin Cities, MN
It's honestly not really news. We knew it after the michigan game and it's been over a week since he was reportedly sick. He put up decent numbers against purdue and hit the dagger 3 to seal it. It's a non-issue, imo.
chrisRunner7
- San Diego
That you fell for their clickbait headline, as did I
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Fun fact … if any of you happened to have gone to our disastrously embarrassing home football loss to Louisiana Tech in 2012, a still-up-and-coming Brett Eldredge played in Grange Grove before that game! We drove over for that one, and I knew who he was at the time but my parents had zero idea.
Kinda like the '1 word' headline I clicked on earlier as well.... ;-)
Bigtex
- DFW
The dreaded "cough" Yes i clicked.
Illinois coach Brad Underwood shares unfortunate Kasparas Jakucionis update before Big Ten MBB Tournament | Sporting News
Despite railing to beat Purdue for the first time since the onset of the global pandemic, Illinois might take a step back ahead of the Big Ten Tournament.www.sportingnews.com
@Fighter of the Nightman it's been a pretty good two weeks since your post here haha
KenPom's Metrics Are High on Illinois Basketball's NCAA Title Hopes
Based on historical KenPom measures, the Illini are one of the nine likeliest teams to hoist the national championship trophy
www.si.com
It seems that it was the sickness and injuries (primarily Tomi) that were the key to our stumbling. I've seen lots of different sets and much better ball movement since our game against Duke. His newfound two-man game with Will was so effective against Purdue.
My biggest complaint still with this team is the volume of threes despite our lack of success at shooting them. Now that we've gotten healthy and had some rest, it looks like we've found our shooting legs again.
This is the first time all season we've shot 31%+ in three consecutive games. We kind of did it before (30.8% against Missouri), with Chicago St and Oregon, but were bookended with <20% outings. If we shoot 30%, we can beat most teams. If we shoot less than that, we can lose to anybody.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
I couldn't care less about the AP and Coaches poll rankings. This and Torvik are all that matters.KenPom's Metrics Are High on Illinois Basketball's NCAA Title Hopes
Based on historical KenPom measures, the Illini are one of the nine likeliest teams to hoist the national championship trophy
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Lol, you can say that again! Of course, our expectations and whatnot naturally change with each result, as they should. At that point, we had every reason to be down ... to its credit, this team has rose to the occasion.
Also, semi-OT, but there were a lot of posts about winning 20 games for a sixth straight season. While getting to 20 wins isn't QUITE as impressive as it once was with more games being played, it has still long stood as a sort of gold standard for a season that was at least marginally successful. So, I thought it would be cool to look at Big Ten programs by the number of 20-win seasons all-time:
ILLINOIS - 38
Indiana - 37
Ohio State - 37
Purdue - 33
Michigan - 32
Maryland - 32
Michigan State - 31
Iowa - 30
Wisconsin - 24
Minnesota - 17
Nebraska - 14
Penn State - 13
Rutgers - 10
... and our newer members, which are kept separate since they haven't even been with us for a full season:
UCLA - 55
Washington - 29
Oregon - 26
USC - 25
OTOH anything new with Morez? We were supposed to learn whether he's good to go in the BTT today, weren't we?
DevILLDawg
- Meredosia, Illinois
Again, Fletch and Paul are witch doctors. Less than a month from a broken wrist?!
Joel Goodson
- how was I to know, she was with the Russians too?
AEX
- West Lafayette
If I remember correctly, the commentators had been going on and on about how Ayo always went right, and then on that play he makes the slightest move right before going left of his defender. Totally took him out of the play.
PizzaHutParkingLot
- Vodice, Croatia
People always comment on the finances, so here is some data from the UIUC athletics 2024 tax report.
Balance sheet:
~122M revenue / funding (Mostly TV rights & conference share, ~9.8M football tickets, ~9.35M Men's BB tickets and 0.32M Women's BB tickets.)
~57M donations
~174.5 expenses
~4.5M profit, ~53M loss without the donations. (Expenses exceed revenue by ~43% w/o donations.)
Big expenses:
~34M coaching staff (includes assistants)
~31M administrative staff
~25M facilities maintenance
~20M debt service
~12M scholarships (Only counted if non-athletes are non-eligible for the scholarship.)
~7M athlete health insurance, extra food costs.
~10M team travel expenses (recruiting is separate)
None of this includes NIL.
The interesting item to me is that even if all the coaches worked for free, the athletics department would still be losing money w/o the donations.
Balance sheet:
~122M revenue / funding (Mostly TV rights & conference share, ~9.8M football tickets, ~9.35M Men's BB tickets and 0.32M Women's BB tickets.)
~57M donations
~174.5 expenses
~4.5M profit, ~53M loss without the donations. (Expenses exceed revenue by ~43% w/o donations.)
Big expenses:
~34M coaching staff (includes assistants)
~31M administrative staff
~25M facilities maintenance
~20M debt service
~12M scholarships (Only counted if non-athletes are non-eligible for the scholarship.)
~7M athlete health insurance, extra food costs.
~10M team travel expenses (recruiting is separate)
None of this includes NIL.
The interesting item to me is that even if all the coaches worked for free, the athletics department would still be losing money w/o the donations.
Brad Underwood revived Illinois Basketball
BU has turned the Illini from an afterthought into a perennial contender.
www.thechampaignroom.com
Comparison data:
IL Men's BB revenue is near the top of the league (IU 15M, UI 9M, PU/MSU 8M, UCLA 7M are top 5)
IL FB revenue is near the bottom of the league. It is 10-15M/year below an average team and way behind the top teams who pull ~8M/home game.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
If I'm reading this correctly, Humrichous is eligible next year.
And if the logic here is that non-NCAA years don't count, I guess maybe they might give him two more years? (This current ruling applies only 2025-26 to be clear, but if you extend the logic...)
Two interesting tidbits:
Illinois average margin of victory vs high major teams - 15 points. Average margin of defeat vs high major teams - 14 points.
Dra Gibbs Lawhorm last 5 games: 42 minutes, no points, 0-8 FG, 1 rebound.
Illinois average margin of victory vs high major teams - 15 points. Average margin of defeat vs high major teams - 14 points.
Dra Gibbs Lawhorm last 5 games: 42 minutes, no points, 0-8 FG, 1 rebound.
Next. I hate saying that.
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
Not sure exactly where to put this, but apparently Luka Garza lost a bet to his teammate TSJ on the Iowa-Illinois game. (Glad the throwback jersey was chosen and not the crappy standard one).
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