As No. 12 seed Illinois nears the long-awaited start to the NCAA tournament, they’ll be looking to make a deeper run than last year. 

The Illini bowed out early from the 2013 tournament, easily beaten by Vanderbilt in the round of 32.

This year, the Illini will be in an entirely different situation to begin the tournament and will look to use that to their advantage. 

The first thing working in the Illini’s favor this year is the fact that they are hosting their regional. Last year’s tournament put Illinois on the road to start, with Vanderbilt being the regional host. 

Playing at home is always a nice advantage, but it should mean more to Illinois than most teams. The Illini ran the table at home this season, finishing with a perfect 11-0 record and were never short on fan support. 

“The whole team is really excited for having these upcoming matches this weekend. We’re looking to get a big crowd out with lots of great support behind us and hopefully that’ll be enough to get us through these first two rounds and into Georgia,” Farris Gosea said. 

Not only should playing the first two rounds at home give Illinois an advantage, but the Illini lineup has gotten more national recognition than it has in years. Juniors Ross Guignon and Tim Kopinski were selected as an All-American doubles pairing, and sophomore Jared Hiltzik was named All-American as a singles player. Guignon, Kopinski and Hiltzik became the well-decorated program’s 25th, 26th and 27th All-Americans.

“It’s pretty amazing, I’m going to be up on those banners with some of those guys up there, with Kevin (Anderson), Rajeev (Ram), (Amer) Delic, all those guys. It’s pretty special, so I’m just kind of hoping to continue that success into the tournament,” Hiltzik said. 

Although the singles lineup has been solid for Illinois all year, doubles is expected to be an area of worry for Brad Dancer’s team. The Illini went 15-12 in doubles over the regular season, and were very inconsistent. 

“Doubles has been dicey; there’s no question about it, and we need to improve our doubles dramatically. I think we’re still not entirely convinced on what’s going to work best for us,” Dancer said. 

The Illini dropped the doubles point against Ohio State in the Big Ten Tournament championship match, which has weighed on the Illini’s minds the last two weeks.

The Illini have come to expect an appearance in the conference tournament championship match under Dancer, but this year the second place finish wasn’t enough. Illinois has also come to expect an appearance in the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16, as Dancer has advanced from the regional matches in six out of his eight tournament appearances. But again, that wouldn’t be enough for this year’s Illini. 

This year’s Illinois team has already garnered more individual accolades than it had expected coming into the season, but the team has its sights set on a deep run in the tournament. As expected, the team’s leader, Dancer, is urging his players to simply worry about one thing at a time.

“Focus. I think that’s what it ultimately comes down to, is the ability to play one point at a time and stay locked in, dialed in, really on the task at hand,” Dancer said. “So much of the time you get overwhelmed with score, you get overwhelmed with all these outside factors and really it’s just focusing in on what’s my plan on this point.” 

Brett can be reached at [email protected] and @Blerner10.