College basketball fans’ favorite day has come and is nearly gone. The Selection Sunday show has released seeds for the 2025 NCAA tournament, and after four months of basketball, Illinois (21-12, 12-8) will be a No. 6 seed in the big dance.
How Illinois got here
The season really started a year ago. An Elite Eight berth was momentous for the program but came off the backs of many veteran players. Some lost eligibility, some left for the NBA and others transferred out of the program.
Only two players returned last summer, but that number grew even smaller on opening night. Redshirt sophomore guard Ty Rodgers announced his intentions to redshirt, sparking a year of chaos.
Despite having a young, inexperienced roster, head coach Brad Underwood scheduled a loaded basketball slate to prepare his roster. The early gauntlet included then-ranked No. 1 Tennessee (27-7), No. 5 Alabama (25-8), No. 19 Arkansas (20-13) and a solid Missouri (22-11) team that climbed as high as No. 14 this season.
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It wasn’t just the big names, though. The Illini also faced a duo of experienced midmajors in Oakland (16-18) and SIUE (22-11). The former lost to the eventual champions in overtime of the conference semifinals this week, while the latter is heading to the NCAA tournament as well.
After starting to gel, the new team took the beginning of Big Ten play in stride. Illinois got out to a 12-3 start, with a 4-1 record in conference play highlighted by a home victory over then-ranked No. 20 Wisconsin (26-9) and a road demolition over No. 9 Oregon (24-9).
However, practically everything went south at the beginning of January, and it started when freshman guard Kasparas Jakučionis got injured. A period of injuries and illnesses swept through the locker room like wildfire, and the next two months of basketball were nothing short of erratic.
An increasingly healthy roster, paired with a wake-up call in New York after an embarrassing defeat to the Atlantic Coast Conference champion, then-ranked No. 3 Duke (31-3), got Illinois back on the right track heading into March.
A four-game win streak over ranked opponents and the Big Ten champion, then-ranked No. 15 Michigan (25-9), reinstilled some confidence in Illinois before a less than enthusiastic exit from the Big Ten tournament. The Illini can no longer afford to lose, or the season ends, and its region is exciting.
**This is a developing story.**
@benfader7
