Illinois Basketball: 4 observations from the Illini loss to Marquette

4. Let’s not stress too much about this loss

Wow, was that a bad loss to Marquette on Monday night. I’ve mentioned this multiple times, but it was the worst game Illinois has played in the Brad Underwood era.

With that being said, let’s all calm down a little bit. It is the third game of the season. While the loss was ugly, it is extremely early in the year, and there are plenty of games left to cover up this loss.

Illinois didn’t exactly start the 2020-21 campaign well. The team was 5-3, which included a loss to a middle-of-the-road Missouri program. Shoot, we were 9-5 at one time too.

The year before, Illinois started 6-3 and one of the losses was to a Miami (FL) team that finished below .500 that season.

In each of those seasons, Illinois would finish the campaign ranked inside the top 25 and would have been in the NCAA tournament. Early losses happen to good teams. This is just an early loss that will help the program figure out their identity.

So, let’s not stress too much about losing to Marquette. It was a rough loss, but there are so many games to play and so much time to make up for the rough start. This team will be okay.