Illinois Basketball: 4 observations from the Illini loss to Maryland

4. Bye-bye AP Top 25

Illinois was highly touted to start the season. We came into the year as the No. 11 team in the country. That was a great honor considering we had lost our best player in Ayo Dosunmu.

A couple of losses early knocked the Illini down, though. We would drop out of the rankings by November 29. A couple of months passed without reentering the rankings as well. Illinois would always receive votes, but we couldn’t get back into the top 25.

After back-to-back double-digit wins over Minnesota and Maryland, Illinois finally jumped back into the top 25. We reentered as the No. 25 team in the country.

That same week, Illinois would knock off Nebraska and then take down Michigan. We had won six games in a row, and this caught the eye of the AP Top 25 once again. On January 17, Illinois would make another jump in the rankings up to No. 17.

Just as the ranking came out, Illinois was starting their game with No. 4 Purdue. This was a hard-fought double-overtime loss for the Illini against a top-five team. If we were going to drop in the rankings, it would have been just a spot or two.

But then the Maryland game happened on Friday night. Illinois fell to a .500 team in the Terrapins. Maryland was one of the worst teams in the Big Ten. While we didn’t have Kofi Cockburn on the court, we still should have won this game.

Illinois would have still been ranked after dropping the Purdue game, but we couldn’t afford to lose to Maryland. With the loss on Friday night, there is no doubt in my mind that Illinois drops outside the top 25. We are back to square one of just getting votes to be a top 25 program.