Illini Basketball 2024-2025 Team Grade

B, for Better than I thought.

The program could have absolutely bottomed out after returning only one contributing player. This time last year and even into early June, there was a real possibility of doing significant damage to the Illini Basketball brand. If we cratered, it would be easy to point to BU's success as simply Ayo/Kofi and TJ. He showed that this program is back on a consistent track regardless of the names on the roster.

The 2024-25 Illini were certainly entertaining, albeit frustrating. Lots of talent. When it clicked it was awe inspiring. When it didn't, it was spectacularly difficult to watch. We were the "box of chocolates" Forrest Gump compared to life.

From a team building standpoint, this was square one. Assuming we bring back some of the key pieces, this was a successful rebuilding year, even if at times it felt like it should have been a re-load. More often than not, "Re-load/not re-build" is just coach speak. It works occasionally, but rarely.


If this team represents the floor of our program, better days in March are ahead.

B-

Quantitatively, the season is a little bit below the standard Brad has set for himself and this program.

But we also had to overcome a lot this year. Not every year is going to be above average. So as a down year, I'm ok with the result. They were 2 games short of what I predicted going in. So slightly below expectations but can't be too mad about it.

B- for the on-court performance of the 25 Illini

A+ for the content provided the past 11.5 months by our beloved MBB program

Go Illini

Well, let's see. Based on the most recent draft projection i saw, we had the #12 and #22 picks on our team. Plus Ivisic, who will be at least a 2nd round pick in a year. Plus Morez, who I've seen projected in the 2nd round next year. Plus some really good supporting players in KB and Tre. The only other times we had this much talent on the roster we won Big 10 titles and earned #1 seeds in the tourney. Hard to give us anything above a C- given the talent on the roster

mysterio2525 said:

In the portal era, you have to assume your players aren't staying more than one year. So if you decide to go with really talented freshman you need to win right away. Until I see these players stay then I'm judging them only on this year. If we retain several of the players then I can judge them on a longer timeline and this year can be looked as more developmental and graded easier. If they all transfer again (we lost several players because TA left and that's still party of Brad's grade) then I stand by what I grade that the results we got today are the bottom end of passing.

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I get that. But if your floor is 20 wins and NCAAT, if we had brought in a bunch of Sr and Jr this year, you would have expected them to win right away too. No guarantee that type of team would have done better as they still would have had to mesh as a team.

I get that people look at last year’s results and think old equals better. And old when two of those old players are TSJ and Marcus (plus CoHawk) does equal better. But they were never going to be on this team. And absolutely no guarantee and I’d say pretty unlikely they were going to bring in two seniors as good as TSJ and Marcus.

Like I said in first post, I don’t have an issue with your C grade. Don’t necessarily agree with it, but that’s your opinion. It is the logic of your original 2nd paragraph that makes no sense to me. So if a good core stays together, you change your grade to B? And if more leave than ideal, then do you lower the grade even though that doesn’t impact on-court results from this year?

A B because this was a very young team and very young teams typically do not go very far. We should do much better next year.

C-
Underperformed. Undercoached
Until we start insisting on more, we will not get more.

Could beat just about anyone by 20+ (and it wouldn't be as close as the score appears) or just as easily lose to anyone by 20+ (and it wouldn't be as close as the score appears).

Tremendous frustration and disappointment weighs heavier for me than the fleeting and inconsistent/unreliable success and positive moments. Every loss felt demoralizing in some way or another.

C-.

Man, so many B's. Looking over the last 5 years:

20-21: 2 double digit losses at neutral sites - 1 to the eventual NC
21-22: 5 double digit losses at road / neutral sites
22-23: 7 double digit losses - 2 at home (!)
23-24: 1 double digit loss at neutral site to the eventual NC
24-25: 7 double digit losses - 3 at home (!), 1 neutral loss setting a program record for margin. Some of those losses could still be to an eventual NC

This team is closer (and arguably worse than) the much derided 22-23 team than any other recent year. That's a D for me.

EyeoftheIllini said:

I get that. But if your floor is 20 wins and NCAAT, if we had brought in a bunch of Sr and Jr this year, you would have expected them to win right away too. No guarantee that type of team would have done better as they still would have had to mesh as a team.

I get that people look at last year’s results and think old equals better. And old when two of those old players are TSJ and Marcus (plus CoHawk) does equal better. But they were never going to be on this team. And absolutely no guarantee and I’d say pretty unlikely they were going to bring in two seniors as good as TSJ and Marcus.

Like I said in first post, I don’t have an issue with your C grade. Don’t necessarily agree with it, but that’s your opinion. It is the logic of your original 2nd paragraph that makes no sense to me. So if a good core stays together, you change your grade to B? And if more leave than ideal, then do you lower the grade even though that doesn’t impact on-court results from this year?

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I would likely change it to B-/C+ because it changes the view of this year from isolation to more of 2 year progression... But that depends on who stays. To me if you go into this year as a 2 year plan (which a lot of people said) that's fine but you have to close on retaining the players. So I'm that sense we aren't done with the season. Otherwise we are just in the calipari lite model and each year is graded in isolation... In which this is pretty meh and a C (I'll give a little bump due to injuries and sickness) . 20 wins and NCAA tourney should be the floor and the lowest passing grade of C - regardless of old or new players.

pweo said:

Man, so many B's.

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Yep, if anything this poll tells us how loud the extreme minority of folks are

pweo said:

Man, so many B's. Looking over the last 5 years:

20-21: 2 double digit losses at neutral sites - 1 to the eventual NC
21-22: 5 double digit losses at road / neutral sites
22-23: 7 double digit losses - 2 at home (!)
23-24: 1 double digit loss at neutral site to the eventual NC
24-25: 7 double digit losses - 3 at home (!), 1 neutral loss setting a program record for margin. Some of those losses could still be to an eventual NC

This team is closer (and arguably worse than) the much derided 22-23 team than any other recent year. That's a D for me.

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The Illini also had 3 double-digit victories over ranked teams (two that are in the S16), which includes a 32 point road win in Eugene (ranked 9 at time) and 20 point win in Ann Arbor.

The Illini got derailed in January after illness and injuries plagued the team. Given expectations after the historic win in Eugene, I understand the lower grade you provide, but I disagree with claiming the season was arguably worse than 22-23. That team was worse in almost every metric, did not win a game in the tournament, and had no locker room cohesion. This year's team should never be compared to the 22-23 squad, IMO.

NarrowJ said:

Yep, if anything this poll tells us how loud the extreme minority of folks are

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At the moment the poll is ~50% Bs, and ~50%C/Ds. Are you quiet when your kid brings home a C?

I do wish that the outspoken ones were less repetitive. I also wish the orange tint crowd was less repetitive.

pweo said:

Man, so many B's....

This team is closer (and arguably worse than) the much derided 22-23 team than any other recent year. That's a D for me.

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Not realistic expectations. Illinois has 1 Sweet Sixteen appearance in 20 years across three coaches. In the modern tournament (considered 1979 on) era on (first one with full tournament seeding, expanded from 32 to 40 teams, which became 48 a year later and then 64 five years after that), Illinois has made the Sweet Sixteen 9 times in 47 years (46 tournaments).

Illini_Rich said:

I’m going with a C. I get all of the minutia ie roster turnover, injuries etc, but in the big picture I expect a top 5/6 BIG finish and a tournament birth every year at a minimum. I would also expect a 2nd weekend run every 2-3 years. So how I see it this team hit the minimum so it feels average to me.

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Had a hard time deciding between B and C. I'd go B-/C+ if it could be dialed in more. I agree with a lot of what people are saying. Just happy we're finally to a point where tournament wins are consistently expected now. Sounds like if we can get the core of KB, Ivisic, Morez, and possibly TW to return, we'll be far ahead of where we were to start last offseason basically losing the entire team. Bring in a rim protector, sharp shooter, Sarr, and another good portal shooter/defender and hopes should be high heading into next season.

Reality is Illinois is 9-13 in the Round of 32 in the Modern Tournament era. Making it to that point means a solid season, making it any further means a very good season.

One Man Fast Break said:

Not realistic expectations. Illinois has 1 Sweet Sixteen appearance in 20 years across three coaches. In the modern tournament (considered 1979 on) era on (first one with full tournament seeding, expanded from 32 to 40 teams, which became 48 a year later and then 64 five years after that), Illinois has made the Sweet Sixteen 9 times in 47 years (46 tournaments).

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Cherry-picking a bit, but the split at 2005 is:

8 in 26 years
1 in 19 years

My glasses are orange tinted from attending UIUC for 3 of them.

I don't like getting blown out at home once - seeing it this many times in one year was something else. I'll still be at the home games next year with my unrealistic expectations.

One Man Fast Break said:

Reality is Illinois is 9-13 in the Round of 32 in the Modern Tournament era. Making it to that point means a solid season, making it any further means a very good season.

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I consider that underachieving considerably for a top 16 program historically. And I've always considered Illinois a sleeping giant given it's location, resources, fanbase, and conference.

Voted C :

The good: Had some great wins. Blew some good teams out of their home gyms.

The bad: So inconsistent...... Some really unexplainable losses to bad teams. Team came out flat and played uninspired against Kentucky during the tourney...... Coaching staff struggled all year to make in game adjustments of any sort.

Illinois fans deserve better!!

Grade C-

Nobody on those board would have been satisfied pre-season with a 7th place finish in BT, getting blown out on Friday of BT tourney and losing in the round of 32 in a game where Underwood got out coached again in March. The expectations were WAY higher. If you don’t believe me go read the pre season threads.

In my opinion, a B season was more a top 4 finish in the BT and a Sweet 16.

Illini2010-11 said:

The Illini also had 3 double-digit victories over ranked teams (two that are in the S16), which includes a 32 point road win in Eugene (ranked 9 at time) and 20 point win in Ann Arbor.

The Illini got derailed in January after illness and injuries plagued the team. Given expectations after the historic win in Eugene, I understand the lower grade you provide, but I disagree with claiming the season was arguably worse than 22-23. That team was worse in almost every metric, did not win a game in the tournament, and had no locker room cohesion. This year's team should never be compared to the 22-23 squad, IMO.

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I can tell you with relative certainty which one BU enjoyed coaching more...

mysterio2525 said:

I consider that underachieving considerably for a top 16 program historically. And I've always considered Illinois a sleeping giant given it's location, resources, fanbase, and conference.

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A top 16-25 program historically doesn't mean you make the Sweet Sixteen perennially or anything close to 50 % of the time though, because there's naturally a lot of year to year ebb and flow as well as high/low extended periods. A period with a bunch of Sweet 16s in a relatively short time period is a historically great period for Illinois. That doesn't mean 1 in 20 years should be the "norm", not by any means, that's quite bad. But I also think expecting it as some sort of baseline for a solid season is unrealistic. There are maybe 5 programs that can expect that throughout the modern tournament era and then maybe another 5 at a given time based on where they are presently. 00-06 is basically the golden age of Illinois basketball post World War II. Until further notice, that's basically the program's "ceiling" (which is not a bad ceiling to be at to be fair), and while it's great to set high expectations, we also shouldn't pretend it's baseline. Illinois got a bit unlucky to get Self poached at the exact time Illinois could have really solidified itself as one of the preeminent programs of the 21st century but it is what it is. As far as sleeping giant, maybe, maybe not. Chicago kids are always kind of an ebb and flow for how they view Illinois, and outside of a small blip in time you certainly can't rely on like Central Illinois to be a consistent producer of elite high major talent.

I'd say 2020-2025 is a fairly decent indicator of where Illinois "should" be in the college basketball pecking order, which is not bad by any means. Basically, 7 seed (season cancelled before postseason, but that's about where they would have ended up based on projections), 1 seed, 4 seed, 9 seed, 3 seed, 6 seed. Perennial tournament team (average seed 5). 1 Big Ten regular season championship (that could have been two but for COVID shenanigans) and 2 BTT championships, in the deepest era for the Big Ten historically. Record of 6-5 in the Tournament with one underachievement and four about as expected, and then if they had but one over-achievement it would even that out. Using that as a standard, this season is pretty average within it (4th best out of the six and very close to the mean overall).

I wish people would quit comparing to late Weber and Groce. They didn't cheat to get players like the blue-bloods and others were. They couldn't grab a pg from the portal. Imagine how much better Groce would have been with a top mid-major junior or senior pg.

It's a new game. Underwood has the cash to bring in what he needs. We have to grade on how he is doing in the new era.

Grandpa said:

I wish people would quit comparing to late Weber and Groce. They didn't cheat to get players like the blue-bloods and others were. They couldn't grab a pg from the portal. Imagine how much better Groce would have been with a top mid-major junior or senior pg.

It's a new game. Underwood has the cash to bring in what he needs. We have to grade on how he is doing in the new era.

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Yeah, we ran such a clean program and others didn't. Sure.



But I do agree that we should stop comparing to the prior to coaches.