Illini Basketball 2025-2026

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#28      
NorthShoreIllini
Bigtex said:
what good came out of losing to Duke by 40? what good came out of losing to Tennessee at home? There are enough tough games in the B1G that prepare the team for March.
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Winning the next 4 games in convincing fashion after getting emabrassed by Duke are what came out of Duke. If you think losing to #1 Tennessee by 2 at home is a worse outcome than beating say SE Missouri St by 30 I'm not sure what to tell you. That just doesn't stand up when it comes to the tournament selection/seeding process or being an elite program. Play the best and try to beat the best, any time of year, in games that will garner national attention.

If you simply think winning against anyone is better than losing against anyone I would still strongly disagree with you but you're certianly entitled to that opinon.
 
#32      
IlliniFanTX
IlliniCub 16 said:
No good comes from those losses really, but not much bad comes from them either. The Duke loss was embarrassing but still probably didn't hurt as much as you'd think in the grand scheme.

But if you look at Tennessee, if we hang on to win that one, it would have been very beneficial. That's why you play them, to give you that big potential upside without much downside.
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I'd say we're possibly a seed line higher or even two if we win that Tennessee game. Y'all can miss me with this take that we should play more cupcakes and less games against the #1 team in the country at the time at home :ROFLMAO:

Yes, the Duke game sucked, but that's basketball. We catch them on a night where we can't miss and they're off and it could've been an entirely different story.

Our 8 seed in 2023 was simply because we beat UCLA and Texas in those non-conf games. If we play Chicago State and Little Sisters of the Poor instead, we are likely on the bubble and maybe even miss the tournament.
 
#33      
BWA
Bigtex said:
what good came out of losing to Duke by 40? what good came out of losing to Tennessee at home? There are enough tough games in the B1G that prepare the team for March.
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We shouldn’t have lost to Duke by 40. That was an embarrassment and likely wouldn’t Happen again. Duke was good but they weren’t 40 pts better than us good.
 
#34      
From the cheap seats
For me, it boils down to the upside of beating a highly ranked team is great and the downside of losing to a good team is small. There is zero upside to beating a cupcake other than to give your deeper bench guys playing time. The NCAA seedings the past few years show the number of wins doesn’t carry much weight. Quality wins do.
 
#35      
Bigtex
Getting more healthy after Duke had as much to do with winning those 4 games after the blowout loss.
Illinois has been playing Missouri for ever so that is a given regardless if one of both teams are good or bad.
Alabama was a good early test that showed Illinois could score and couldn't stop or slow down a talented team.
Probably more frustrated at how many games are lost at SFC than the specific loss to Tennessee. Waiting for SFC home record to be 16-1 vs 13-4
After losing to Tennessee at home - win all 10 conference home games and 5-5 on the road and you are competing for B1G championship
Playing elite teams needs to result in some wins. How many years of losing to Tennessee makes you a better program? 2? 3? 4?
Playing in the meat grinder of the B1G provides ample chances to build resume.
 
#36      
PleaseMakeABowlGame
BWA said:
We shouldn’t have lost to Duke by 40. That was an embarrassment and likely wouldn’t Happen again. Duke was good but they weren’t 40 pts better than us good.
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They weren't? That was probably one of the top ten most talented duke teams ever, and was not even close the best team last year imo (just had a very unfortunate fluke moment vs UH, and a really bad call). That was a very good team - 2024 UConn level.
 
#37      
the juiceman cometh
Bigtex said:
Getting more healthy after Duke had as much to do with winning those 4 games after the blowout loss.
Illinois has been playing Missouri for ever so that is a given regardless if one of both teams are good or bad.
Alabama was a good early test that showed Illinois could score and couldn't stop or slow down a talented team.
Probably more frustrated at how many games are lost at SFC than the specific loss to Tennessee. Waiting for SFC home record to be 16-1 vs 13-4
After losing to Tennessee at home - win all 10 conference home games and 5-5 on the road and you are competing for B1G championship
Playing elite teams needs to result in some wins. How many years of losing to Tennessee makes you a better program? 2? 3? 4?
Playing in the meat grinder of the B1G provides ample chances to build resume.
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But...we didn't do that. And even if we had played a cupcake at home instead of Tennessee, we still wouldn't have done that.

If we hadn't played any of our tough non-cons, we'd have given up one quarter of our Q1 wins. That's pretty significant.
 
#38      
Fly Illini Fly!
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
They weren't? That was probably one of the top ten most talented duke teams ever, and was not even close the best team last year imo (just had a very unfortunate fluke moment vs UH, and a really bad call). That was a very good team - 2024 UConn level.
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Sure, but the question is were they 43 points better. Did they even beat their 16 seed by 43 points?
 
#42      
BWA
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
They weren't? That was probably one of the top ten most talented duke teams ever, and was not even close the best team last year imo (just had a very unfortunate fluke moment vs UH, and a really bad call). That was a very good team - 2024 UConn level.
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Yup and they still had an average margin of about 20 pts, so the 40 pt blowout was still an anomaly.

Plus we didn’t know how good they would be when it was scheduled.

And isn’t the goal to be the Duke that other P5 teams fear In their schedule?
 
#46      
WhereDoWeStandWithStorr?
BWA said:
We shouldn’t have lost to Duke by 40. That was an embarrassment and likely wouldn’t Happen again. Duke was good but they weren’t 40 pts better than us good.
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We all know why it was 40. In the final minute AJ Reed missed four foul shots and their walk on makes a three. Thats a 7 point swing.
 
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#48      
pweo
RandyfromTuscola said:
I thought they were working on one more non-conference home game. That's a huge break from Dec 6th to the 22nd. I know there's always a week around final exams, but 2 weeks off is not ideal.
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Last year our 2 early conference games were 12/6 and 12/10
 
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