Despite losing two players to the NBA Draft, Illinois is expected to be better in 2025-2026.
Numerous publications have Illinois in the top 25. Last season, they started the year unranked.
Luckily for Illinois, they returned 42% of last season’s scoring with Kylan Boswell, Tomislav Ivisic and Ben Humrichous.
And head coach Brad Underwood reloaded with a ton of players from Eastern Europe. Zvonimir Ivisic, Mihailo Petrovic, David Mirkovic and Andrej Stojakovic.
Illinois will be much older, after relying on 18-year-olds Kasparas Jakucionis and Will Riley last season.
Bart Torvik Ranking: 8th
Similar to Ken Pom, “Bart Torvik” is an advanced metric rating. It computes simulations and analysis of offensive and defensive capabilities.
The Illini sit high thanks to the 7th best offense and 15th best defense, according to the pre-season projection.
Despite being 8th, Illinois isn’t the site’s highest ranked Big Ten team.
The list includes No. 2 Purdue, No. 4 Michigan and No. 6 UCLA.
ESPN Ranking: 17th
Fox Sports Ranking: 20th
CBS Sports: 23rd
In media outlets, they’re less high on Illinois, but this happens often.
The Elite 8 team started the year unranked.
Last season was unranked, but were a top-10 team according to advanced analytics for much of the season. And were considered a contender for the Final Four before a mid-season slide, started by injuries and illness.
Underwood does best when he retains production from the previous season and is old.
In 2020-2021 and 2021-2022, they won back to back Big Ten titles. They were led by 5th year players like Damonte Williams and Trent Frazier. And juniors Ayo Dosunmu and Kofi Cockburn.
The Elite 8 team was led by returners Terrence Shannon, Luke Goode, Coleman Hawkins, Ty Rodgers and Dain Dainja. Adding in 5th year Marcus Domask didn’t hurt either.
While the style of play may be different, the overall idea of 2025-2026 is the same.
They’re very old, and nearly half last year’s scoring is back from last year.
In theory, Illinois should have a good year.