Illinois cruised to a 91-48 victory over Missouri on Monday night to close out a challenging slate of high-major non-conference matchups. The Illini faced five high-major opponents during non-conference play and finished an impressive 3\u20132.<\/p>\n
According to ESPN\u2019s BPI, Illinois owns the No. 24-ranked non-conference strength of schedule and the No. 14 overall strength of schedule. The Illini consistently challenged themselves throughout November and December, which should pay dividends as the season progresses.<\/p>\n
Wins over Texas Tech, Tennessee, and Missouri before New Year\u2019s could help Illinois secure a protected seed in the NCAA Tournament. A protected seed is defined as a top-16 overall seed or a top-four seed in a region. Earning a top-16 overall seed would put the Illini in a strong position to reach the second weekend of the tournament.<\/p>\n
Illinois will play its final non-conference game on Dec. 29 and should be expected to restart Big Ten play next month with a 10-3 overall record.<\/p>\n
Southern enters Monday\u2019s matchup at 4-8 on the season and is coming off a 44-point blowout loss to Baylor. Illinois should have no issues closing out 2025 with a win and finishing non-league play on a high note.<\/p>\n
Within that projected 10-3 record, the Illini would own three Quad 1 wins and maintain strong predictive metrics across KenPom, Bart Torvik, and BPI. Those are numbers that support a high seed in March.<\/p>\n
According to Bracket Matrix and my own Bracketology, Illinois is currently projected as a No. 4 seed on Selection Sunday. Eleven weeks away!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illinois cruised to a 91-48 victory over Missouri on Monday night to close out a challenging slate of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,38467,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-493190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-illinois-fighting-illini-basketball","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115774327589568380","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}