A lot of fans are down on the Illinois basketball team right now and rightfully so. This program has disappointed this season.
With four games remaining they still have an outside, and I mean far outside, shot at making the NCAA Tournament and shocking the world. This would be like Rocky v. Apollo Creed in the first Rocky film if it would actually happen.
In a short timed Twitter poll the Writing Illini put out last night, a small sample of Illini fans gave their responses to the question of how many more games will the team win this regular season.
How many more games will the #Illini win this REGULAR season?
— Writing Illini (@WritingIlliniFS) February 20, 2017
The response came back that 30-percent of fans think that Illinois will only win two of their next four games this season. Winning one of their final four was next at 27-percent followed by three of their next four at 25-percent and only 18-percent think they will win out.
This poll tells me that fans still have expectations that are realistic. Why should fans think that Illinois will win out when they haven’t won back-to-back Big Ten regular season games since March 4, 2015?
Illinois hasn’t proved that they can win on a consistent basis this year and fans realize that fact. But they do have momentum slightly on their side.
The Illini have won two out of their last three games and those two victories have been road contests. If they could have just beaten Penn State this final stretch might have looked a lot different. But they didn’t win that game and now they need to win out.
But, since Illinois has won two on the road, that does give me a sense of hope that this team could win the next four. If they can win their homes games and then knock off Nebraska and Rutgers on the road there could be a legit shot for this team to make the postseason.
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I have had expectations before and this isn’t a case where I have them now. I don’t think they will accomplish this goal because they haven’t proved they could in a very long time. We will all find out tonight as the four-game season starts with Northwestern at home.