DICKnaggie
- Champaign
Lots of speculation that this is in advance of Duke and UNC being offered a spot in the Big Ten, which would be great from a basketball perspective, but not sure how football fits there...
Illini Basketball 2026-2027
- Status
They'll be playing at IL early in the season against a team replacing 4 starters and likely 6 of the top 8 guys.
Brad has shown he will reload, but smart move IMO.
Do we play UNC football team on the hoops court?
Next one to be announced.
Can we make them wear cleats?
Could be entertaining!
So a neutral-site game in Sacramento?
NCAA recently ruled you can do an international trip yearly
hooraybeer
- Peoria, IL
never. probably won’t make it to public sale after season tickets etc
Last time we played @Cameron we beat Duke so bad that we forced them to cancel the rest of their non-conference slate. That was fun.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Love that! The idea that we must choose between marquee matchups on college campuses and marquee matchups at cool neutral sites in markets that matter to us (Chicago and St. Louis) is very, very outdated thinking, IMO. Stack the schedule!
With this year's team, I like our chances playing at Duke.
madillini4
Ozamataz Buckshank
- Millywaukee
Texas tech should be an easy dub. They lost everyone from last year and didn’t do a great job replacing them. UNC should be an easy dub. Not sure if wins against tech and UNC will end up being as valuable as we would like them to be by years end, but they could prove me wrong. Really need to beat UConn this year. that’s the marquee non conference win this team has to get.Sick! So, the non-con for 26-27 so far is:
@Texas Tech
@Duke
UConn (Chicago)
Missouri (STL)
UNC?
They could get back Christian Anderson... and already have DGL and Cruz Davis.
Duke played at the Breslin Center this year. They played at Arizona the year before.
It's essentially their new normal to play 1 true non-conference road game.
madillini4
Ozamataz Buckshank
- Millywaukee
Anderson is definitely gone lol. Toppin won’t be back, they lost 6 players to the portal, including their 3 biggest bench pieces and #2 big behind toppin. Even if dgl and Cruz exceed expectations, they lack interior players and depth. We’re going to be ranked in the top 10 entering the season, and they will be unranked. Am I drinking the kool-aid? Yes. But that’s the standard we should have going forward against inferior opponents. Duke fans expect to win, Houston fans expect to win, UConn fans expect to win. We are Illinois basketball, and we should expect to win games on the road against clearly inferior opponents.
chrisRunner7
- San Diego
But who's going to guard Blackwell?!
Yeah not looking forward to blackwell with a Duke home whistleBut who's going to guard Blackwell?!
iLL 89ers
- Dallas,TX.......Born and raised in Alton,Illinois
Love the Duke game being scheduled. UConn, Duke, Michigan, that right there is very likely three games vs. pre-season top five ranked opponents. Add in Sparty (probably for sure top ten pre-season), what a great time to be a fan....just think if Brad pulled off a game vs the Gators. Too true it would be?
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
United Supermarkets Arena.
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
Of course. I probably shouldn’t joke about United Supermarket Arena. Our arena in Des Moines is now the Casey’s Center-named after a convenience store.
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