Illinois Basketball: 5 observations from the Illini win over Michigan State

5. Resume builder

I am going to be honest here, the last two games got me kind of worried about what the future might hold for the Illini. We can’t seem to get the entire team on the court at one time, so if that continues, what will the season look like?

Illinois dropped back-to-back games in the Big Ten, which is always terrifying. That Maryland loss by 16 points is never a good look no matter who is on the court. We then were heading into a game against the No. 10 team in the country without two of our best players.

A loss to Michigan State on Tuesday would have been completely understandable. We would have dropped out of the AP Top 25, though. A loss would have knocked our quad one record down to 1-4, which is one of the worst out of the quad one teams.

But do you know what didn’t happen on Tuesday night? Illinois didn’t fall to the Spartans. The Illini actually came out victorious. This was a shocker, but more importantly, this was a massive resume builder.

The NET Rankings haven’t been updated since January 24, but Illinois was No. 14 in the NET Rankings with a quad 1 record of 1-3. Out of the top 15 teams, this was the second worse record next to Houston, which is 0-2 versus quad one teams.

Now the Illini sit with a 2-3 record against quad one teams. This victory will help build Illinois’ resume to the point we should stay strong in the top 20. If we can keep in the top 20 in the NET Rankings, then we should have a top-five seed in the NCAA tournament.

A victory on Tuesday night proved that this Illinois team has grit and fight. It proved that our NET Ranking is for real. That win was a resume builder for the postseason. It was the biggest win of the season.