{"id":563704,"date":"2026-01-27T08:42:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T08:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/563704\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T08:42:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T08:42:30","slug":"illinois-basketball-in-a-rare-position-in-latest-ncaa-tournament-bracket-prediction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/563704\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois basketball in a rare position in latest NCAA tournament bracket prediction"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is so hard to tell how the Illinois basketball season will finish, but boy howdy, the 2025-26 campaign has been fun.<\/p>\n

The Illini <\/a>are currently without our starting guard, Kylan Boswell. Despite that fact, we have rattled off nine straight, which includes wins over then-No. 19 Iowa, and a road win over a top 10 team at the time in Purdue.<\/p>\n

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That latest victory over the Boilermakers had Illinois cracking the top 10<\/a> in the AP Top 25. But when push comes to shove, it is the NET Rankings<\/a> that really matter. The Illini are now the No. 6 team in the country after the huge win.<\/p>\n

With Illinois being one of the top programs in the country, of course, Joe Lunardi of ESPN has to update his NCAA tournament bracket prediction. Just a few weeks ago, he had Illinois as a No. 4 seed. As each week passes, that number continues to improve.<\/p>\n

In the latest update of Lunardi’s bracket prediction he published on Monday, he has Illinois still rising. The Illini are now projected to be a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n

The top four seeds in the East Region include No. 1 Duke, No. 2 Illinois, No. 3 Texas Tech, and No. 4 Kansas.<\/p>\n

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If Illinois were to finish as a No. 2 seed or higher, it would be some rarified air within the program. It isn’t every season the Illini head into March as a top two seed.<\/p>\n

The last time Illinois was a two seed or better was back in 2021. In the 121-year history<\/a> of the Illinois basketball program, only five times have the Illini been a No. 2 seed or better in the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n

It is kind of impressive how tough Illinois basketball has had it this season<\/p>\n

Illinois, on the No. 2 seed line, is pretty wild, especially considering Boswell is out for about a month. But when you step back and look at all of the top teams, it is pretty impressive the gauntlet the Illini will end up going through this season.<\/p>\n

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So far, the Illini have already played projected seeds of No. 1 UConn, No. 2 Nebraska, No. 3 Texas Tech, and No. 3 Purdue. We still have games against No. 2 Nebraska, No. 2 Michigan State, and No. 1 Michigan in the final 11 games of the season, too.<\/p>\n

Out of the projected top 16 teams laid out among the top four seeds in each region of the NCAA tournament, Illinois will have played seven games against a total of six out of those 16 teams. It is going to be hard to find another team that can say the same. I think we call this battle-tested.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on www.writingillini.com as Illinois basketball in a rare position in latest NCAA tournament bracket prediction<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is so hard to tell how the Illinois basketball season will finish, but boy howdy, the 2025-26…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,2050,217,7367,3734,12465,2469,8785,1995,231,772,1400,1544,3422,12513,922],"class_list":{"0":"post-563704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brad-underwood","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-illinois-fighting-illini","12":"tag-iowa","13":"tag-joe-lunardi","14":"tag-kansas","15":"tag-kylan-boswell","16":"tag-michigan-state","17":"tag-ncaa","18":"tag-ncaa-basketball","19":"tag-ncaa-tournament","20":"tag-ncaab","21":"tag-nebraska","22":"tag-purdue-boilermakers","23":"tag-uconn"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115966177874456069","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563704","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=563704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}