Illini Basketball 2026-2027
I like the thought experiment of the roller coaster of what some of these wins and loses would look like... also the detractors will be oozing out of the woodwork if we start 3-2 with a loss to a JT Toppin-less (and potentially Donovan Atwell-less) TTU team haha
Don’t understand the Mullins hype at all. He was borderline bad last year. High volume low efficiency shooter and is slow. 29% three point shooter in the tournament. We have much better wings and guards. Just my opinion…
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
Meh. Play the games. Let's see where our beloved Mirk ends up
Is he practicing already?
Will he be able to play in game 1?
Obviously out of the boot. Rehabbing and doing things individually. I think if game 1 was a tournament game he’d play. If you catch my drift.
Interesting.
I have just penciled him in as taking a big leap - based off the pedigree and he was coming back from injury last year.
But to your point, I think everyone is just assuming his big leap without thinking much about it.
I think people are doing the same thing with the other sophomore, Hines, on UConn Too. Heck even Khamenia
stlrunner
jakeyjakey
- St Louis, MO
Great...what am I supposed to panic about now?
Tomi's... "condtioning", Vaaks "isn't a point guard" , we're running out of pizza hut parking lots, and last but absolutely not least....USC's notoriously deep roster.
Football NIL
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I see more home games for harder teams and away games for the easier teams…
stlrunner
jakeyjakey
- St Louis, MO
Oh yeah...how could I forget about USC and their depth.
Dont forgot big Zs hand.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
I went back and forth on Texas Tech. Predicted a loss because even though I imagine Mirk will play, with him missing a month or two of practice, I could see this team taking a few weeks to gel & find their roles.
Illini Basketball 2026-2027
I saw that TTU/UK exhibition was announced for late October, and I was curious about what TTU and Illinois looked like in terms of ratings considering respective power forward injuries... FWIW, if you remove JT Toppin from TTU's roster on Torvik, they drop from 13 to 26, and if you remove Mirk...
www.illinoisloyalty.com
I wrote about it last month, and I could be wrong, but if Toppin isn't a factor, it feels like the 3" average height difference is simply too much for TTU to run an effective offense or defense against us. We had them by 13 at half last year, and Toppin went nuclear in the second half to get it close. Without him, I'm not sure they have anyone who can provide that kind of spark.
Forget his name for a second.
If we had a kid transfer in who averaged 12 & 3 and shot 29% from deep… I don’t think any of us would pencil him in as our AA level guy.
NCAA version of Andrej S.was very good. Keep it up during the year and he is a AA level player.
I saw Vaaks and Andrej at the Target in Champaign last Saturday. A girl approached Andrej for a picture and asked Vaaks to take it. Big time assist. I think we can stop worrying about his ability to help a teammate.