I believe it was 5 spots
Illinois #11 in 1/19 AP Poll
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Nebraska is also not the #2 team in the country. Crazy ballot by him. Like the anti-homer.
Good Morning, Illini Nation: How I voted this week
Two more wins and another slight bump for Illinoiswww.news-gazette.com
Ok I have to ask, what is the rationale for putting Vandy and Iowa State ahead of Illinois? We've lost two games in the past two months and the teams we lost to are #2 and #7, respectively.
Iowa State lost two in the last week to teams that were unranked (as of last week). Vandy also lost two in the past week, one of which was unranked. If we did either of those, we'd be unranked.
Is this for the sake of journalistic integrity to rank Illinois conservatively, or is this trolling?
Stuff like this is why ESPN should not longer be a relevant part of sports. How hard is it to program a system to accurately keep win/loss records? Unreal...15-3...
A lot of people waking up in an unrealistic mood today. We have 3 losses in the last 2 months and havent beaten one team currently in the polls. ISU and Vandy only lost twice. ISU throttled Purdue and Vandy beat Alabama, who we lost to. Seems about right. We'll have our chance Saturday to prove we belong in the top 10.Good Morning, Illini Nation: How I voted this week
Two more wins and another slight bump for Illinois
Ok I have to ask, what is the rationale for putting Vandy and Iowa State ahead of Illinois? We've lost two games in the past two months and the teams we lost to are #2 and #7, respectively.
Iowa State lost two in the last week to teams that were unranked (as of last week). Vandy also lost two in the past week, one of which was unranked. If we did either of those, we'd be unranked.
Is this for the sake of journalistic integrity to rank Illinois conservatively, or is this trolling?
They dropped us 5 spots. We were #13 and dropped to #18 the coming Monday.
The following week we mysteriously dropped from #18 to #20 for.... nothing.
We were #20 heading into the Mizzou game.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Ah, good catch - thanks! Since we had no game while we were #18, our season's Wikipedia page skips right from #13 to #20.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
UConn is clearly good, and we can't really talk too much smack after they semi-easily beat us, but ... I feel like they are on their Gonzaga tour right now, lol. As long as they find a way to continue to beat some really bad in-conference teams and pad the record, they did enough in November and December to just keep climbing the rankings!
We beat Maryland, and then Purdue on Saturday & we probably take a massive massive jump to the top 5.
huh? They're 18-1 with the one loss to the #1 team. If you are saying compared to NET or Kenpom, sure I guess. But historically if you win 18 games and lose 1 game to the undefeated #1 team, you have a strong case to be #2...
Michigan State right in front of us hasn't beaten one team currently in the polls.
Oh, and by the way, that's factually incorrect: we did beat Texas Tech who's #12.
Why should the AP Poll not take into account our win vs Texas Tech? Are the AP Poll voters only supposed to retroactively grade teams back to where @bavanga3 says the cutoff (2 months) should be? How is Illinois 7th in NET which is unbiased?
Tennessee is also close, as is Iowa (who we beat on the road, or in a road environment).
@bavanga3 , Sure, Iowa State throttled Purdue but to @Fighter of the Nightman 's point, it seems to be their only quality win besides Iowa, who we beat by more on the road. I'm not saying Iowa State isn't good but I just don't fully understand the rationale by ranking them ahead of us at this point.
It's also lunacy that all of these voters continue to put UNC in. UNC is not a good team and has lost 3 of their last 4, with all losses being fully unranked teams (only team even receiving 3 votes is SMU).
I know I shouldn't care about the AP poll but I just truly don't understand the logic behind some of the voting. Sometimes there's recency bias, sometimes there's not, it reminds me of my wife picking a fantasy team based on how fun the player seems and how pretty their jersey is.
Because he said within the last 2 months. He chose the time frame, not me.
They do because North Carolina is still ranked, which is hysterical.
I'm actually fine with it. We have a very bad record when being ranked in the top 10 over the last few years.
Your post contradicts itself. We didnt beat Tech within the last 2 months, but if you wanna base it off the whole season, Michigan State beat Arkansas and UNC. Currently ranked.
IlliniwekKDR
- Colorado Springs, CO
That's usually a recipe for someone who wins the whole thing
I think the voters are doing UNC a disservice. As long as they continue to have a number next to their name, it makes it harder to move on from Hu Davis. Great guy, but not a fan of him as a coach at a blue blood who should be able to poach almost anyone. Maybe the NIL era has brought that program back down to the pack.
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Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Exactly. Consider last year when we shot up to #13 after throttling #9 Oregon on the road. Right around that same time, Wisconsin was ranked #24. So, at that snapshot in time, Illinois was very easy to rank that far ahead of Wisconsin given what both teams had done so far.
However, starting with the USC loss (when we were #13), we would go 3-5 in our next 8 games, losing to FOUR unranked teams, including two at home ... and we literally remained ranked the entire time until after the very last loss, lol. The pollsters were slowly deciding whether or not the incredibly impressive Oregon win was somewhat of a fluke or if it was the "real Illinois," and we were just in a mini slump.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin would win 8 of its next 10 games, including a double-digit victory at #7 Purdue and capping this streak off with a demolishing of our Illini in Madison. And it took the Badgers several games to pass us in the rankings, pretty much because they didn't have a weeks-old version of an Oregon win.
As you said, Iowa State is still a very good team, and the comparison to the 2025 Illini is only partial. However, I think they're getting a BIT too much longevity out of the Purdue win. Was it their version of our Oregon win, where everything clicked? Could the #2 ranking have been a bit too high, and they're settling into the #10-15 ranking that is more true to the team's prospects? My (our) point is that at a CERTAIN point, Iowa State's results since the Purdue game have to be an equal part of the picture as their win at Purdue ... just as our squad's continued up-and-down nature last year eventually overrode the Oregon win in the perceptions of the voters. I would argue Iowa State is at least somewhere on that trajectory right now, and putting an Illini team on a 6-game winning streak over them in this week's poll would have been totally reasonable.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Also, RE: the conversation about teams ranked and results ... I don't have time to do the whole list. However, here are #11 Illinois' results vs. the currently ranked teams and those receiving votes.
L 61-74 vs. #2 UConn (New York, NY)
L 80-83 vs. #7 Nebraska
W 81-77 vs. #12 Texas Tech
L 86-90 in OT vs. #17 Alabama (Chicago, IL)
W 75-69 at RV #28 Iowa
W 75-62 vs. RV #30 Tennessee (Nashville, TN)
And we have the following opportunities left:
vs. #3 Michigan
at #4 Purdue
at #7 Nebraska
at #10 Michigan State
vs. RV #27 Wisconsin
L 61-74 vs. #2 UConn (New York, NY)
L 80-83 vs. #7 Nebraska
W 81-77 vs. #12 Texas Tech
L 86-90 in OT vs. #17 Alabama (Chicago, IL)
W 75-69 at RV #28 Iowa
W 75-62 vs. RV #30 Tennessee (Nashville, TN)
And we have the following opportunities left:
vs. #3 Michigan
at #4 Purdue
at #7 Nebraska
at #10 Michigan State
vs. RV #27 Wisconsin
Very generally speaking, offensive efficiency is number of points scored per 100 possessions, which will rise as a team takes a higher percentage of three point shots (and makes them at a decent rate). Last time I checked, the Illini were taking close to 48% of their shots from behind the arc, so ….
Sure, the point is that teams this year are doing it at a historically good rate, such that 3 of the top 4 efficiencies in history are happening right now.
The biggest effects are taking only high percentage or high-value shots, which if you look at the shot distribution for Illinois they are exceedingly good at this season. Almost every shot is either in the paint or behind the 3 pt line. The other thing Illinois does well offensively is rebound misses, which is also boosted by their 3 point volume.
That isn’t a Top 10 resume, IMO. Yet.
I think you're both looking at it wrong then... just seemed like an arbitrary cutoff to purposely leave out one of our best wins
The main thing I guess is voters can do whatever they want and is why I prefer to lean on more unbiased measurements like NET and other statistical-based sources
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