Your 2021-22 Illini basketball team are the Big Ten champions, sharing the conference crown with Wisconsin. Having beaten the Badgers head-to-head, Illinois heads to Indianapolis as the top overall seed in the Big Ten Tournament. This will be the fourth time Illini basketball team have played in the #B1GTourney as the top seed, and first since 2005.
To know where you’re going, you must first look back on where you’ve been. The Illini are 6-2 all-time in the BTT as the #1 seed, 31-20 in the event overall and 14-10 in games played in Indy. They’ll get the winner of #8 Michigan-#9 Indiana in the quarterfinals on Friday.
Illini Basketball at the B1G Tourney Historical Highlights
Illinois have won this tourney, which commenced in 1998, three times: ’03, ’05 and last year. Two of those titles, ’21 and ’03, were achieved by beating Ohio State in the final game. The Illini have been to the championship game four more times: ’99 ’08, ’04 and ’00, but lost all of those contests.
The 1999 (dead last in the league, #11 seed, but upset a few ranked teams to reach the title game) and 2008 (pretty much the same things as ’99, but as the penultimate side, seeded 10th) stand out as among the most memorable BTT appearances. Both achieved against all odds but came up just short of a banner and an automatic bid to the NCAAs.
Cory Bradford is the Illini basketball Mr. Big Ten Tournament, as he’s the program’s leading scorer in the event. He’s also #1 in minutes played, FGs, FGAs, 3pt FGs, 3pt FGAs. Until the dark times of the John Groce era, when a man in way over his head wrecked the program, Illinois had been the all-time winningest team in the BTT.
Until Bruce Weber’s final game in the 2012 first round, Illini basketball had reached/automatically qualified for every quarterfinal round of the B1G tournament (14). That’s amazing consistency. Overall, Illinois has reached/automatically qualified for the quarterfinal round 19 times in the 24-year history of the B1G tournament. For our entire B1G Tourney bracket prediction go here.
Matchup Possibilities
At first glance, you might want Michigan on Friday, as Juwan Howard has never beaten Brad Underwood. However, Illinois is 2-4 all-time against the Wolverines in this event, faring better against everybody else except Michigan State (0-3 all-time).
You might recall the Wolverines blowing the doors off the Illini in the 2015 John Groce Invitational (what we call the #8 vs #9 Thurs morning game), at a time when Illinois had everything left to still play for. Then, going on about 3 hours sleep and forced to play in the warmup pajamas, following a harrowing scare with the team plane,
UM walloped Illini basketball again, in the same game, by almost the exact same score in 2017.
Compared to John Groce, maybe Bruce Weber wasn’t so bad after all. It would likely be better if they get Indiana in their first game, as Illini basketball is 6-2 all-time against the Hoosiers in this format.
Metrics, Rankings, Numbers and What Not
Illini basketball enters this game with a Net of #14 and a KenPom of #17 Their best wins on the season include Iowa (KenPom #14) 2x, Wisconsin (#30), Michigan State (#43) 2x, Indiana #44 and Notre Dame #47. They’re currently ranked #16 in the AP poll.
In bracket projections, we usually see Illini basketball as a #3 seed in the Midwest, which is hosted in Chicago! Huzzah! That would mean they go through Milwaukee for the first weekend! Again hoorah!
But it won’t be easy, as this program hasn’t reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament since 2005. It’s nice that they won a league title here, but they are still totally cursed in the second round of March Madness.
“When we wake up tomorrow, we should kind of erase this,” Illini basketball star guard Trent Frazier said after the Big Ten title clinching win.
“It’s a new season. We’ve got to prep for Friday, and that’s got to be our mindset.”
So there you have it- the past, present and future of Illini basketball at the #B1GTourney.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Bank (TheSportsBank.Net) and author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” as well as “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune, and co-hosts the After Extra Time podcast. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.