select Renew Season Tickets on your home page, and that will take you to the link to request UC tickets.
Illini Basketball 2026-2027
Bro, I mean I don’t like getting my hopes up because I value keeping your head down to the grind and the motto of “jobs not finished until you’re at the podium,” but I fail to see us being “clearly a step behind” them. Especially USC.
Just go ask Rutgers how they enjoyed having two lottery pick freshman on the same team. Where did they end up? Freshman can be a huge wild card on whether or not they’ll deliver even if they work with the right coaching staff. There are very few programs in the country that can take multiple highly sought after Freshman on the same team and convert them into a cohesive team title contending team; and USC has not proven itself to be one of them. They have a talented roster on paper in comparison to other incoming freshman classes, but also because they don’t have the upperclassmen depth of other schools.
There’s a reason your title contending teams are predominantly mid to upperclassmen with experience and chemistry. Plus a coaching staff narrowing in on the right formula of play schemes.
This is a obviously a re-hash of the discussion a couple weeks ago, but Torvik ranks USC #6 in "Talent", while we're #9. They drop a ton in the actual prediction because of program history and other factors.
On his FAQ page, he says his talent rating "is based on composite recruiting ranks weighted for minutes played", but it isn't clear if that's just freshman, freshman & transfers, or all players, and if it's the latter it isn't clear how it's calculated for returning players.