I've had a night to sleep on it, and I'll start with two positives:
1. I do think Maryland is a lot better than many think. I'm sure many here will be surprised to know that this was actually a Quad 1 loss, as they are #20 in the NET Rankings. If you crank your neck to REALLY try to only look on the bright side, it's not a bad loss ON PAPER with our team sick and starting center out, lol.
2. Indy spoke to a lack of "togetherness" compared to last year's team - something we all would obviously find really disheartening. However, there is something that makes me feel even a tiny bit optimistic about this. I'll admit this is more of a "gut feeling" conjecture and I'll obviously defer to the insiders or whatever, but I don't get a "dysfunctional" vibe from this team at all. Not trying to trash talk ANY former Illini, but there were multiple personalities on the 2023 team that just seemed rather indifferent to building a culture and were mostly in it for themselves. When I watch airhead mistakes from KJ, I don't get the vibe whatsoever that he isn't SUPER frustrated afterwards ... and I think he'd love nothing more than setting up a teammate with a sick assist. I genuinely think Bozwell WANTS to win a National Championship for the Illini and gets incredibly frustrated when a bunny at the rim misses. I have literally zero doubt that Tomislav wants his teammates to succeed and hates being out. I think this problem appears much more fixable than 2023, and I am hopeful that it is. Because if these guys can play together and stay mentally locked in, they have already shown that the sky is the limit.
With that said ... last night killed me as a fan. Since our 2019-20 renaissance, I would consider the following to be the most gut-punch losses I have personally endured as a fan (keep in mind, maybe I couldn't tune in to another loss you felt was worse or something) ... and I'll explain why each one was not as demoralizing for me as last night. Again, we might have had more frustrating losses in isolation, but these were the results that truly just brought me down as a fan as it related to our prospects for the season.
2019-20
#9 Maryland 75, #20 Illinois 66 in Champaign, IL: Frankly, it was mostly just a gut punch because we had been playing so well, were finally ranked in the top 20 again and I WANTED to believe we were back ... I also drove down and attended this one, bringing Mrs. Fighter to her first-ever basketball game in Champaign! However, the fact is I simply wasn't accustomed to us being good again, and it served as more of a "reality check" that we wouldn't be winning the Big Ten than anything else. All things considered, pretty easy to move on from.
2020-21
Maryland 66, #12 Illinois 63 in Champaign, IL: There wasn't quite a "Maryland narrative" yet, and I honestly took this loss as I did the USC one from last weekend ... a fluke that, while incredibly disappointing, could be overcome with big wins down the road (as it obviously was). However, at the time it seemed like confirmation that we certainly weren't top 10 material.
#17 Loyola 71, # 2 Illinois 58 in the Second Round: I don't need to get into this one, but I truly felt we were going to win it all. Even though this one caused some SERIOUS depression, I was overall happy with how high the program had risen in such a quick period of time, and I was excited for the next season even if we lost Ayo. I also could live with the "upsets happen" narrative, knowing we'd be back in the NCAAT in future years with high seeds and chances for a run.
2021-22
Maryland 81, #17 Illinois 65 in College Park, MD: Notice a pattern yet?! This one really shook me after we had just taken #4 Purdue to 2OT four days earlier. Even without Kofi, we simply should not have been dominated like that. With that said, Kofi was SUCH a huge part of that team and it was on the road ... it was possible to rationalize past this one.
2022-23
Northwestern 73, Illinois 60 in Evanston, IL: I'm sure many would put the blowout loss at home to PSU earlier in December, but I honestly saw that as a random fluke ala the Maryland 2021 loss described above and the USC loss this year. Even the absolute blowout loss vs. Mizzou in St. Louis (which I also attended...) could be chalked up to the rivalry and them wanting revenge for the embarrassing loss the year before. But this LIFELESS performance at Northwestern after the rumors of locker room trouble and Skyy Clark dipping on the team just two days later ... man, this was just the signal that we were never going to have the consistency to do anything big that year, at least to me. However, I don't think I quite had that high of expectations for this squad after the PSU and Mizzou losses ... I had come to terms with the fact that we were one of those high ceiling/low floor #7-10 seed squads, and I could live with that knowing that we might really have a chance to be good in 2023-24.
Penn State 79, Illinois 76 in the BTT at the United Center: This is when whatever hope I had left for this team vanished. To lose a third straight game to PSU in front of what was a home crowd just showed kind of what we were made of mentally. I attended this one, and it made me sick. But again ... by this point, I had no delusions that we were some Final Four threat.
2023-24
Maryland 76, #10 Illinois 67 in Champaign, IL: Frickin' Maryland. By this point, I had just accepted that we would almost always lose to Maryland, and we were without TSJ. IIRC, this was right around the time that insiders were both giving us hope that he MIGHT be able to return and providing anecdotal support for his innocence ... so it wasn't too hard to craft a narrative in my head of optimism.
Penn State 90, #12 Illinois 89 in State College, PA: I can honestly say I thought we pissed our chance at a top 3 seed away right on this day. We dropped to 19-7 after this loss, and I felt another Second Round loss as a #4/5 seed coming ... my hopes were reduced to hoping Purdue could stub its toe enough that we could claim back-to-back Big Ten Championships. Luckily, this squad was mentally tough and had great chemistry, so we found a way to close out a special season strong.
2024-25
USC 82, #13 Illinois 72 in Champaign, IL: I can honestly say no loss this season, no matter how frustrating, WORRIED me until the USC one. However, I only got to watch the first half on a plane (on our way to Belize, and the game stopped working when we left US air space), and I was trying to focus on vacation. With how much fun we were having, before I knew it we were kicking Indiana's !!! in Bloomington, and I thought all was well. "Young teams mess up!"
Maryland 90, #17 Illinois in Champaign, IL: I have never had my expectations for one Illini team fall so much from one loss, if I am being honest. In the past, my expectations either weren't that high to begin with or the loss could be rationalized in a away that allowed me to move forward with optimism. While I still like this group and will tune in every game, last night I came to believe that we are not tough, we are not disciplined, we are not in sync and we currently lack the consistency to do jack shlt in March.
I really, REALLY hope I am wrong, and my two points for optimism hold true.
