I have heard some people comparing the Illinois basketball team this season to Illini teams in the past.
The main comparison has been to the 1998-1999 Illinois basketball team. That team went 11-17 in the regular season and had a 3-13 Big Ten record. 11-17 translates into a 39-percent winning rate. If the current Illinois team wants to hit that same percentage, they would have to finish the last 10 games at 6-4. This would give the current Illinois team an 8-12 conference record, which is a 40-percent winning rate compared to the 18-percent winning rate of the 1998-1999 team in conference play.
Record-wise, the two Illinois teams are fairly similar. Roster construct is a little different. The 1998-1999 team was led by Cory Bradford in scoring. He was a freshman that season and was dropping 15.4 points per game. The seconding leading scorer was transfer, Cleotis Brown. Sergio McClain was the third-leading scorer, and he was a sophomore on the team.
The current Illinois team has sophomore Trent Frazier leading the way with 14.8 PPG. Following Frazier, Illinois has two true freshmen who are second and third in scoring. Ayo Dosunmu is averaging 13.8 PPG and Giorgi Bezhanishvili is averaging 11.1 PPG. So, when you look at the two teams, the current Illini squad has less experience leading the way. This should give you hope for the future.
When you look at team stats, there are some things that are similar and some things that are completely different. The two teams had different mentalities. The 1998-1999 team was more about defense and the current team is more about offense.
The current Illinois squad is averaging 73.8 PPG, which ranks No. 134 in the nation. The team in 1998-1999 averaged 61.5 PPG, which ranked No. 288 in the nation. These two teams were far apart in the scoring department, but the difference is even worse when it comes to defense. The current team is giving up 75.4 PPG, which ranks No. 252 in the nation. The 1998-1999 team only gave up 62.8 PPG, which ranked No. 29 in the nation.
There are some similar stats, though. Both teams struggled at rebounding the ball. The current squad is pulling down 33 rebounds per game, and the 1998-1999 team pulled down 32.9 RPG. The current Illinois team can score inside more and that makes their shooting percentage higher. The current Illini team is shooting 42.9-percent from the field while the 1998-1999 team shot 39.4-percent from the field. Both of their three-point shooting is similar, though. The current team is shooting 34.2-percent from deep and the 1998-1999 team shot 34.6-percent from three-point range.
So, if you are sitting back and looking at the 1998-1999 team for hope, you will be able to find a few similarities. Yes, that team started to gel toward the end of the season because their main players hadn’t played together. Both teams also struggled in rebounding as well. I will also throw in the fact both teams added or will add talented players the following season as well.
As far as similarities go, that is about it for the two teams. They, really, weren’t that similar to each other. The team in 1998-1999 was rough and physical. They played hardnose defense and won that way. This Illinois team is all about outscoring their opponent and the defense lacks greatly. Hopefully, there is one more similarity and that is the success the following season for each program.
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