Illini Women's Basketball 2024-2025
- Status
Illinois is a fringe NCAA TOURNAMENT TEAM!! Cook and McKenzie have to be consistently better against really good teams like Kentucky and Ohio St. I don't see enough improvement from this team from last year to this year.
When you do break the press you need to drive to the rim. How many times did we just pull the ball back out which let OSU set their defense. Jasmine did attack and Gretchen would have if she had been available. On the plus side, we outrebounded them.
I wouldn’t consider it too disappointing. #12 team on their home court with 3 would be rotation players out. We were a 12 pt underdog.
She is getting major minutes because we are limited on healthy and effective size.
Great to see Berry Wallace back in the rotation. Hopefully we can get more ladies back because I am worried if Shoup-Hill is playing 30+ minutes all season long.
For some of us that watched from start to finish would call it disappointing.
It’s fine to take hope and whatifs from the game but this is a senior laden team that committed way too many casual mistakes.
Dan
Admin
Illinois drops out of AP Poll
apnews.com
AP Top 25 Women's College Basketball Poll
The official page for the AP Top 25 women's college basketball poll. Keep up to date and view the latest NCAA women's basketball ranking updates each week for the 2025-26 season.
apnews.com
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
deja vu, i just saw this in the men's threadIllinois drops out of AP Poll
AP Top 25 Women's College Basketball Poll
The official page for the AP Top 25 women's college basketball poll. Keep up to date and view the latest NCAA women's basketball ranking updates each week for the 2025-26 season.
Maybe if Berry Wallace, Gretchen Dolan, and Shay Bollin were healthy enough to give our seniors a breather they wouldn’t play so poorly. Especially against OSU and their press. Hopefully Berry Wallace is good enough to get 30 mins a game regardless of how the seniors are playing.
She is deserving of the minutes she is getting. She is excellent on the board and on defense. We are vertically challenged as a team and that puts lot of pressure on our two tall ladies.
She is deserving because we are limited on bodies to play at the 4-5 right now. The plan got changed with injuries, it happens.
Excellent, no. She is moving better than last season and can board.
100% agree
We need to be patient with this team. We aren't ready to go head-to-head with top 25 teams on a regular basis. Remember how bad this program was. Fahey's record vs. conference programs was 7-77. Read that again, 7-77. The staff before Fahey wasn't very competitive either (5-29 in last two years plus a player mutiny). Green won 11 conference games in her first year - more than Fahey won over 5 years. Vast improvement, yes. Ready for top 25 teams - not yet. Give her time. Her likely starting center was lost before the season started. Her experienced, though flawed, four-man has yet to play. Her freshman five-star forward has been injured most of the year and several other players have missed games as well.
uofi7477
- Silver & Gold Vandals
I predicted we would remain in Top 25. Nope, we just missed at #27.Illinois drops out of AP Poll
AP Top 25 Women's College Basketball Poll
The official page for the AP Top 25 women's college basketball poll. Keep up to date and view the latest NCAA women's basketball ranking updates each week for the 2025-26 season.
I doubt if Smith is going to see much action this year and Bollin who knows. But if we can at least get Wallace, Dolan, and Brown-Hagger healthy at the same time they should at least be able to provide some much needed production. Along with some rest for the seniors.
This is probably one of the most civil boards on this forum
Majority of us realize where this program has been and where it's heading under the leadership of Green. I'm critical in certain areas but also realize making the tournament this year is the first goal for this squad, winning a game in the tournament is the next. Stay hungry from last season!
I will be the first to say I'm critical of Shoup-Hill on this forum. I was concerned when she started last season over Camille Hobby and called it out. I think she is a good rotation player off the bench. I also realize she knows the system, does everything that is asked of her and defensively(not offensively) is playing a bigger role than what was expected of her entering this season. Losing Lety to injury was huge and it just snowballed since that point with the bigs. Most are respectful even if differing views...definitely more foot traffic in here each season with Green & Co on board.
ptgrd23
- orange county CA
Shauna does not make excuses for her team and posters don't need to do it either.
Brad does not blame Groce. Bret does not blame Lovie. Shauna has never used Fahey as an excuse for her teams performance.
While I am happy we are no longer the worst team in B10 I have higher expectations and so does Shauna. Her recruiting has really improved so I am excited about the future but I think we have enough talent on this roster to be a top 1/3 of B10 team and make the NCAA. Having seniors play hero ball and make silly turnovers is not part of that equation.
Brad does not blame Groce. Bret does not blame Lovie. Shauna has never used Fahey as an excuse for her teams performance.
While I am happy we are no longer the worst team in B10 I have higher expectations and so does Shauna. Her recruiting has really improved so I am excited about the future but I think we have enough talent on this roster to be a top 1/3 of B10 team and make the NCAA. Having seniors play hero ball and make silly turnovers is not part of that equation.
Fan Since '70
- OBS, Florida
I believe this year's team is essentially the same team Illinois had the past three seasons with Cook, Bryant, McKenzie, Bostic and Shoup-Hill at it's core. Those 5 ladies and the usual starters, are at a certain skill and talent level. While many have performed relatively well and received accolades, they have never been a serious Big Ten championship contender (even despite the upsets) and it is totally unrealistic to expect an even much higher performance from them this season despite 2 years of experience playing together. They represent Green's first recruits and returnees and although they have really overachieved IMO, this is their last year together. Starting next season a higher level of talent will be playing for Illinois representing Green's 2nd and 3rd year recruits and transfers. Dolan, Wallace, Brown-Haggar, Vasconcelos, Smith, Catoira, Allen, Destiny Jackson, Cearah Parchment, Manuella Alves, Erica Finney and Naomi Benson represent a higher talent level than Green's first class and should be a more competitive bunch more capable of being genuine contenders. They will be a fairly young squad but some will be ready to play right away or fairly quickly. I have enjoyed watching the present core group of players, but did not have high expectations of them. Even with the youth, I believe next season's team can be better.
Last edited:
Top 1/3 you say? Your expectations are higher than mine are, but I hope you are right. There are currently 8 B10 teams in the top 25 including #1, 5, 7, 11, 17, 20. We'd have to beat out at least one of those teams in order to be in the top 1/3. IF we can get healthy I can see us in the top half this year. We need bigger and better post players to climb the B10 ranks.
- Status