Illinois Basketball: Illini to host multi-team invite in Champaign

The Illinois basketball program will plan to host a multi-team invitational November 25-27 at the State Farm Center in Champaign.

Illinois received some good news Monday afternoon, as it was reported by long-time college basketball insider Jon Rothstein that the Illini would host a multi-team invitational to kick-off the 2020-2021 season at the State Farm Center. The invite will be contested as a round-robin format consisting of four schools, though no names have been announced.

The news comes shortly after the announcement that the Emerald Coast Classic, which the Illini were set to participate in, was canceled due to COVID-19. The team was scheduled to face Florida, and then either Oregon or Iowa State in its second game of the invite in mid-November.

It is unclear if fans will be allowed to attend the invitational, as Illini Nation hasn’t seen their team in-person since a thrilling victory against Iowa in the last game of the regular season, which clinched a share of the Big Ten regular-season title.

Little did the fans know that COVID-19 would halt everything, including collegiate athletics. The anticipation has been brewing for quite some time, and The Orange Krush joined in on the news with a hype video, encouraging students to become “Krush Captains.”

Illinois looks to capitalize on high preseason expectations.

The Orange and Blue are in a unique position, as they are essentially bringing back last year’s Cinderella team.

With Ayo Dosunmu and Kofi Cockburn at the forefront, expect the tandem to keep the college basketball world on its toes. Both men decided to opt-out of the NBA Draft when sports was in its beginning stages of returning, making the season, now over a month away, highly-anticipated.

Illinois basketball will give fans and alumni something to cheer about for the first time in nearly 15 years when the team takes the court next month.