Illini Basketball 2025-2026

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#26      
Fighter of the Nightman
Don't really have a point here, but I thought it would be interesting to list out this year's and last year's results vs. Power Conference opponents by our three point shooting percentage.

2024-2025
Over 50%
56.3% ... W 95-74 at Minnesota
55.2% ... W 109-77 at #9 Oregon

40% - 50%
48.4% ... W 90-77 vs. #19 Arkansas (Kansas City, MO)
46.2% ... W 106-94 vs. Iowa (BTT in Indianapolis, IN)
40.0% ... W 86-73 vs. Xavier (NCAAT First Round in Milwaukee, WI)

34% - 40%
39.3% ... W 83-78 vs. UCLA
37.8% ... W 93-73 at #15 Michigan
36.7% ... W 88-80 vs. #18 Purdue
34.4% ... W 94-69 at Indiana

30% - 33%
33.3% ... L 87-100 vs. #8 Alabama (Birmingham, AL)
33.3% ... L 74-95 at #11 Wisconsin
32.3% ... W 91-52 vs. Penn State
------ 2024-2025 Season Average ------
31.0% ... W 81-61 vs. Iowa
30.8% ... W 80-77 vs. Missouri (St. Louis, MO)
30.3% ... W 86-80 vs. #20 Wisconsin

25% - 30%
28.1% ... W 83-74 vs. Northwestern
28.1% ... L 75-84 vs. #18 Kentucky (NCAAT Second Round in Milwaukee, WI)
26.5% ... L 66-70 in OT at Northwestern

20% - 25%
23.8% ... L 74-80 in OT at Nebraska
22.2% ... L 65-88 vs. #11 Maryland (BTT in Indianapolis, IN)
21.9% ... L 72-82 vs. USC
21.4% ... L 70-91 vs. Maryland
21.4% ... L 73-82 at Rutgers
21.2% ... L 65-79 vs. #11 Michigan State
20.8% ... L 78-80 at #12 Michigan State
20.0% ... W 87-79 vs. Ohio State

Below 20%
19.2% ... W 81-77 at Washington
17.4% ... L 64-66 vs. #1 Tennessee
7.7% ... L 67-110 vs. #3 Duke (New York, NY)

So while there are some obvious exceptions (e.g., almost beating #1 Tennessee while shooting 17% or getting demolished at Wisconsin while shooting above our season average), a general pattern is crystal clear. If we make over half of our threes, good luck beating us ... but even if we make over 34% - which ISN'T that good! - we were 9-0 last year. Conversely, if we made less than 30% of our threes, we were 3-11. Now, I have been vocal in saying it's a dangerously counterproductive attitude to think, "Hey, if we could only hit threes at a decent clip, everything would be rosy" ... because we arguably just don't have the personnel to do that, last year or this year. Speaking of this year, here are the three games vs. Power Conference teams.

2025-2026
34.4% ... L 86-90 vs. #11 Alabama (Chicago, IL)
31.8% ... W 81-77 vs. #11 Texas Tech
20.7% ... L 61-74 vs. #5 UConn (New York, NY)

A tighter range so far, with no especially good performance and our worst performance (UConn) still a bit better than some of our worst duds last year. The Alabama game was more about free throws, but we took 29 3-point attempts vs. UConn, and we made just 6. Shooting around 34% from three would have equated to 4 more makes and 12 more points ... COMPLETELY different game. Again, I am not on board with tying our success to better shooting that may or may not materialize, but we simply HAVE to hit open threes at a percentage approaching basic competency for D1 basketball players...
 
#27      
OB positive
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Not sure if this should be in some type of Bracketology thread, but here is an updated list of our results / upcoming schedule by Quad classification.

Quad 1 | 0-2
vs. #1 Michigan
at #3 Purdue
L 61-74 vs. #8 UConn (New York, NY)
at #10 Michigan State
L 86-90 vs. #11 Alabama (Chicago, IL)
vs. #22 Tennessee (Nashville, TN)
vs. #24 Indiana
at #25 USC
at #32 Nebraska
at #34 Iowa
at #49 UCLA
at #60 Northwestern
at #63 Ohio State

Quad 2 | 1-0
vs. #32 Nebraska
W 81-77 vs. #37 Texas Tech
vs. #53 Wisconsin
vs. #60 Northwestern
vs. #65 Missouri (St. Louis, MO)
vs. #81 Penn State (Philadelphia, PA)

Quad 3 | 1-0
vs. #88 Washington
vs. #123 Minnesota
W 84-65 vs. #145 Colgate
at #178 Maryland

Quad 4 | 4-0
vs. #176 Oregon
vs. #178 Maryland
W 87-73 vs. #185 UTRGV
vs. #189 Rutgers
W 98-58 vs. #198 LIU
W 113-70 vs. #223 FGCU
vs. #260 Southern
W 113-55 vs. #345 Jackson State

Some Changes & Notes
- Nebraska home game fell to Quad 2 (as we all might have expected, lol).
- Mizzou plummeted from #51 to #65, so hopes for Braggin' Rights to be Quad 1 anytime soon are probably gone ... still probably safe as Quad 2, though (requiring MU to be in the top 100).
- The Washington home game is now Quad 3 ... so no messing around on that day!
- UCLA made a dramatic jump from #76 to #49, so our road game there is now safely Quad 1.
- While it was great to protect home court, that Texas Tech win is only Quad 1 if TTU gets back into the top 30 (they are at #37). That is the advantage of neutral site games, where you get a much more lenient Quad system (Q1 #1-50 and Q2 #51-100) without having to play in a true road environment. We could REALLY use that win in Nashville!

Also, while all games are important and the rankings could change quite a lot, there are a couple games I am identifying as early ones that either (A) we must win because they're such golden opportunities or (B) absolutely cannot lose because they could sink us.

Golden Opportunities
vs. #22 Tennessee (Nashville, TN) ... This will almost CERTAINLY remain a Quad 1 game, and the Committee has stated in the past that it does put some positive weight on victories at neutral sites, given it's a Tournament-like environment.

at #49 UCLA ... This is very unlikely to slip to a Quad 2 game, UCLA looks pretty "meh" so far and it is one of the less intimidating environments in the conference for road teams. Need to get a W here.

CANNOT Lose
vs. #123 Minnesota ... The Gophers just knocked off an at least decent Indiana team, so they're not completely inept. Conversely, their metrics are highly unlikely to improve to the point where a home loss to them wouldn't be absolutely disastrous for our resume. Plus, this will be one of those dreaded 11:00 am weekend games where we have often seemed to be asleep at the wheel to start, and it will be played after two potentially emotionally draining road games at Iowa and Northwestern ... with very little rest. Need to show up this game!!

at #178 Maryland ... It's absolutely wild that a game AT Maryland would be Quad 3, but here we are. They have obviously had our number and it's always tough to play on the road, so we will need to come out with proper energy and effort to avoid an ugly stain on our resume in the season finale...
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Its great that you take the time to keep track of all that information and statistics. Thank you for your contributions to this board. Everyone seems to put so much emphasis on what quad games fall in but I just mostly care that we get to at least 20 wins and have 2 or 3 of them be over top 15 teams. It looks to me like the tournament committee mostly uses the quad games statistics for who gets in the tournament but they don't carry as much weight in the seedings. That's why we always have some real head scratcher seedings and pairings in the tournament every year.
 
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#28      
21ChampaignSt
OB positive said:
Its great that you take the time to keep track of all that information and statistics. Thank you for your contributions to this board. Everyone seems to put so much emphasis on what quad games fall in but I just mostly care that we get to at least 20 wins and have 2 or 3 of them be over top 15 teams. It looks to me like the tournament committee mostly uses the quad games statistics for who gets in the tournament but they don't carry as much weight in the seedings. That's why we always have some real head scratcher seedings and pairings in the tournament every year.
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Actually, there's a pretty strong correlation between Q1 record and seeding. It might be true that no other single factor matters more to the committee.

Edit: I think I did a little regression analysis on this last year and either Q1 wins or NET ranking had the strongest influence over seed.
 
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#29      
pweo
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Can anyone provide a hypothetical reasoning why (A) Braggin' Rights tickets never even go on sale until like the very end of November and (B) why people never receive their tickets until like 10-15 days before the game?? It seems so bizarre, lol. Is it just related to the logistics of the 50/50 crowd setup and not having a random spattering of Illini and Mizzou fans in every section?
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Ticket requests opened 10/16 and closed 11/14. Another week or so to figure priorities, upgrade folks if there are any left, etc.

Why they don't deliver until mid December is dumb.
 
#30      
Chi2La
I feel like secretly they know he’s done and somehow Ty becomes the Chester Frazier of the Underwood era and becomes a coach. I know nothing but a hunch. Wish him the best in basketball and/or beyond.
 
#32      
21ChampaignSt
Just got a social media flashback to when I attended the last game we played at the UC against OSU in 2018, 7 years ago today. What a massive massive difference 7 years makes. The UC was so empty. Swaths of red seats everywhere. There was no energy or buzz in the building. It didn't feel like a quasi home game at all. We might as well have been a mid major playing in a small gym at a holiday tournament somewhere that night.

And the thing I remember about watching us play that night (which seems strange to me looking back at our roster because we had some good pieces) is how physically outmatched we were. We looked hopeless out there against an OSU team that would earn an 11 seed in the tournament. How that team went from that, to beating a top 25 Maryland team at MSG 7 or 8 weeks later and then followed that up by beating a top 10 MSU team, I do not know.

Fast forward to this year, I think the game we played at the UC may have been the best "home" environment I've ever been part of...at least in the last 20 years. It was electric and we went toe to toe with one of the quicker, more athletic teams in the country.

There may be no better microcosm of the program's transformation than to compare OSU in 2019 vs Bama in 2025.
 
#33      
Fighter of the Nightman
21ChampaignSt said:
Just got a social media flashback to when I attended the last game we played at the UC against OSU in 2018, 7 years ago today. What a massive massive difference 7 years makes. The UC was so empty. Swaths of red seats everywhere. There was no energy or buzz in the building. It didn't feel like a quasi home game at all. We might as well have been a mid major playing in a small gym at a holiday tournament somewhere that night.

And the thing I remember about watching us play that night (which seems strange to me looking back at our roster because we had some good pieces) is how physically outmatched we were. We looked hopeless out there against an OSU team that would earn an 11 seed in the tournament. How that team went from that, to beating a top 25 Maryland team at MSG 7 or 8 weeks later and then followed that up by beating a top 10 MSU team, I do not know.

Fast forward to this year, I think the game we played at the UC may have been the best "home" environment I've ever been part of...at least in the last 20 years. It was electric and we went toe to toe with one of the quicker, more athletic teams in the country.

There may be no better microcosm of the program's transformation than to compare OSU in 2019 vs Bama in 2025.
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I wasn't at any of the previous UC home games, but I could not agree with the bolded more! I have seen Illini fans invade Carver-Hawkeye Arena multiple times, most notably in 2005 when we had literally SIX THOUSAND orange-clad fans, plush the Krush ... it was insane, and our fans were so loud and energetic. I have also been to two Braggin' Rights games, where the truly unique and special atmosphere simply speaks for itself. I have obviously been to Champaign multiple times, including games where I've witnessed firsthand our crowd being absolutely deafening, including our runs vs. #11 Arizona in 2021-22 and #11 Michigan State last year, where the high point of each run made it seem like the roof was about to blow off.

With that said, I have never seen an Illini fan contingent so cohesively active, involved, passionate and LOUD from start to finish as at the UC this year. Students (and props to so many for being there!!), little kids, older alumni, random non-alum fans wearing Bulls gear, mid-30s couples who got a babysitter and were like 10 beers deep like us ... it didn't matter. EVERYONE seemed to see themselves as more than a casual spectator; they seemed intent on INFLUENCING the game by being loud and affecting momentum! It was so fun to be a part of. Here's to hoping that the Tennessee return game next year is on a Saturday, and it can be a true party!
 
#34      
phats22
someone has to step up their comical gifs game for a bit. im at the hospital with my wife who is in labor with our first!!!!

volcano-volcán.gif
 
#38      
Bigtex
21ChampaignSt said:
Just got a social media flashback to when I attended the last game we played at the UC against OSU in 2018, 7 years ago today. What a massive massive difference 7 years makes. The UC was so empty. Swaths of red seats everywhere. There was no energy or buzz in the building. It didn't feel like a quasi home game at all. We might as well have been a mid major playing in a small gym at a holiday tournament somewhere that night.

And the thing I remember about watching us play that night (which seems strange to me looking back at our roster because we had some good pieces) is how physically outmatched we were. We looked hopeless out there against an OSU team that would earn an 11 seed in the tournament. How that team went from that, to beating a top 25 Maryland team at MSG 7 or 8 weeks later and then followed that up by beating a top 10 MSU team, I do not know.

Fast forward to this year, I think the game we played at the UC may have been the best "home" environment I've ever been part of...at least in the last 20 years. It was electric and we went toe to toe with one of the quicker, more athletic teams in the country.

There may be no better microcosm of the program's transformation than to compare OSU in 2019 vs Bama in 2025.
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reaction to bolded.

Underwood recruited/designed a team that is TALL and suppose to be good shooters. Most night Illinois will be playing teams more athletic but the game plan needs to be how does Illinois take advantage of their strengths.
 
#39      
Kernal12
Fighter of the Nightman said:
I wasn't at any of the previous UC home games, but I could not agree with the bolded more! I have seen Illini fans invade Carver-Hawkeye Arena multiple times, most notably in 2005 when we had literally SIX THOUSAND orange-clad fans, plush the Krush ... it was insane, and our fans were so loud and energetic. I have also been to two Braggin' Rights games, where the truly unique and special atmosphere simply speaks for itself. I have obviously been to Champaign multiple times, including games where I've witnessed firsthand our crowd being absolutely deafening, including our runs vs. #11 Arizona in 2021-22 and #11 Michigan State last year, where the high point of each run made it seem like the roof was about to blow off.

With that said, I have never seen an Illini fan contingent so cohesively active, involved, passionate and LOUD from start to finish as at the UC this year. Students (and props to so many for being there!!), little kids, older alumni, random non-alum fans wearing Bulls gear, mid-30s couples who got a babysitter and were like 10 beers deep like us ... it didn't matter. EVERYONE seemed to see themselves as more than a casual spectator; they seemed intent on INFLUENCING the game by being loud and affecting momentum! It was so fun to be a part of. Here's to hoping that the Tennessee return game next year is on a Saturday, and it can be a true party!
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Agree the Alabama game at UC was an outstanding atmosphere. I will say that I put that game as the second most raucous I can recall among the Illinois UC games. My memory of the game against Arizona in I think 2000 -- when Lute Olson wanted to wring Lucas Johnson's neck -- is that crowd was even more intense. Great that we are back generating that level of passion from the fanbase!
 
#41      
Fighter of the Nightman
Another long one, lol ... I'll try to throw in some section breaks so at least someone reads my main points and can skip past my rambling, including a TL;DR at the bottom.

Preface / Types of Teams in the Underwood Era
I wanted to do a follow-up post to my previous post looking at our results last year and this year, organized by our 3-point shooting in each game. It got me thinking that since Underwood really turned this program around starting in the middle of the 2020 season, we have had three types of teams that very neatly fit into each category, while acknowledging each is different, of course. Even in the era of the portal and NIL changing so much, it is probably not a coincidence that these categories of teams occurred in the order they did, either.

1) Teams that were legitimate threats for deep NCAA Tournament runs, being 2021 and 2024. Obviously we stubbed our toe vs. Loyola and were sent packing and the 2024 team was outmatched by an elite UConn team, but we went into both NCAA Tournaments believing for objectively good reasons that we could be playing in the Elite Eight or beyond. Our goal of a Sweet Sixteen or better wasn't based on hope these years, it was based on a reasonable outcome because we simply had the pieces and chemistry to make that happen, at least in theory.

2) Solid teams that had a low floor but also a pretty low ceiling, being 2020 and 2022. The 2020 team never got its chance to go on a run due to COVID, but I feel somewhat confident in saying that at that stage, its prospects were somewhat similar to 2022. 2022 was solid all year and brought us a Big Ten championship, but how many fans were entering that Second Round date with Houston with much more than hope that we would get red hot from three and Houston would have an off game? We were sort of running on fumes, even after a very good season.

3) Talented but inconsistent teams that just never could put the pieces together long enough for an actually great season, being 2023 and 2025. I'm not saying 2023 wasn't MORE of a mess than last year, because it obviously and unambiguously was ... but the point is, both teams had some real high highs and some real low lows, and when the lights were brightest and it mattered most, we went home early. And very few people were probably surprised either time. We entered both March Madness campaigns literally just hoping that one or two of our players would have a career night and propel us to the next round, but most fans probably knew that if we used up that kind of luck in one game, the next one would probably be a reversion to cold shooting and we'd be sent packing.

My Point About Shooting
Sooooo, back to my complaint that this team will severely cap its ceiling in March if we are simply reliant on getting hot from three. ANY team is better when it makes its shots, and to be a good team, we simply CANNOT miss so many open shots. I think everyone agrees with that, and it's really not necessary for folks to point out that our current shooting is unacceptably bad ... like, this is obvious. What worries me is that even great teams will have games where they just aren't shooting well, and if that happens to be vs. a decent opponent in one-and-done March Madness, there goes everything. Thus, I wanted to see if there were any particularly impressive wins by our 2021 and 2024 teams where we shot below our season average, either from three or for total FGs.

Here are the stats for each:

2021 Team Season Averages
FG: 50.0%
3P: 37.3%

2024 Team Season Averages
FG: 46.9%
3P: 34.9%

Again, obviously some of both teams' (and any team's!!) best performances are when you are exceeding your average shooting. However, consider just these three examples of games where both were shooting below average.

2021 Team
W 82-71 vs. #5 Iowa (BTT Semifinals) | While we shot just under average for FGs (48%), we only made 20% of our threes. Thankfully, we only took 15 and, more importantly, won this game with DEFENSE. Iowa averaged 84 PPG, averaged 47% FG shooting and averaged 39% from three. We held them to 71 points, 40% FG shooting and 33% 3-point shooting. Fran's teams were stereotyped as finesse players that could bury you if you let them get hot shooting but that also lacked physicality ... the latter part was not going to fly vs. this Illini team, period.

W 75-71 in OT at Indiana | This was statistically our worst shooting night of the year (38.6% from the field), and we played crucial minutes down the stretch without Ayo due to some truly awful officiating. Of all the games that just did not go our way this year, this is near the top of the list for just about everything. However, we simply refused to lose and WILLED ourselves to do whatever was necessary to scrape out a victory in crunch time. This wasn't some display of "making open shots" or another tactical issue ... it was pure toughness.

2024 Team
W 72-69 vs. #4 Iowa State (NCAAT Sweet Sixteen) | The game that literally declared our program ALL the way back and got the Second Weekend monkey off of our backs. We shot 42% from the field and only 31% from three ... but we held Iowa State to under 40% from the field (their average was 46% FGs). This wasn't a game where Iowa State was missing a ton of open shots, missing a bunch of free throws (they shot 81%) or turning the ball over a ton; in fact, WE only shot 52% from the free throw line! We won this game by simply not backing down vs. a very good opponent who came to play.

TL;DR
Again, shooting the ball well is quite literally an objective necessity for a good basketball team, and nobody alive denies that. My point has never been that we don't need to start hitting these open shots. Also, obviously some of the 2021 and 2024 teams' best performances also involved great shooting; as one obvious example, perhaps the 2021 team's most iconic win at #2 Michigan without Ayo involved shooting over 46% from three to help bury them. My point is simply that every team, no matter how good, is going to have a bad shooting night ... and given the nature of the postseason in college hoops, if that occurs at the wrong time, it's all over. Plan A should ALWAYS be to hit shots, but we need toughness on the defensive end and the ability to force the ball to the hoop when the shots simply aren't falling ... last year's team lacked both, and it's why we were not a protected seed and went home before the Second Weekend.

I want better for this year's team, and the UConn game looked a little too much like last year. Let's PLEASE go start making shots all over the place in Nashville and for the rest of the year, but if they aren't falling ... have the guts to find another way to win that is more in our control than hoping they start to fall.
 
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#42      
Fighter of the Nightman
phats22 said:
someone has to step up their comical gifs game for a bit. im at the hospital with my wife who is in labor with our first!!!!

View attachment 45485
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Congrats! I'll never forget watching us demolish Missouri in the 2023-24 Braggin' Rights game from our hospital room after Little Fighter was born. Assuming you will still be there on Saturday, here's to hoping you enjoy a similar beatdown of Tennessee!!
 
#48      
Stevegarbs
Fighter of the Nightman said:
I wasn't at any of the previous UC home games, but I could not agree with the bolded more! I have seen Illini fans invade Carver-Hawkeye Arena multiple times, most notably in 2005 when we had literally SIX THOUSAND orange-clad fans, plush the Krush ... it was insane, and our fans were so loud and energetic. I have also been to two Braggin' Rights games, where the truly unique and special atmosphere simply speaks for itself. I have obviously been to Champaign multiple times, including games where I've witnessed firsthand our crowd being absolutely deafening, including our runs vs. #11 Arizona in 2021-22 and #11 Michigan State last year, where the high point of each run made it seem like the roof was about to blow off.

With that said, I have never seen an Illini fan contingent so cohesively active, involved, passionate and LOUD from start to finish as at the UC this year. Students (and props to so many for being there!!), little kids, older alumni, random non-alum fans wearing Bulls gear, mid-30s couples who got a babysitter and were like 10 beers deep like us ... it didn't matter. EVERYONE seemed to see themselves as more than a casual spectator; they seemed intent on INFLUENCING the game by being loud and affecting momentum! It was so fun to be a part of. Here's to hoping that the Tennessee return game next year is on a Saturday, and it can be a true party!
Click to expand...
10 beers deep at the UC- did you take out a second mortgage?!?!
 
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