Illinois Basketball: A slight drop for the Illini in the latest AP Top 25

Despite a rough loss to Rutgers this past week, the Illinois basketball team didn’t fall too far in the newest rankings.

The Illini were dismantled by the Scarlet Knights on Wednesday of last week. This loss was shocking and a bit eye-opening as the Orange and Blue didn’t look competitive for most of the game.

Practice was clearly intense after that defeat, as the Illini came back out on Saturday and took it to Michigan State in East Lansing. Illinois would win that road tilt against the then-No. 19 ranked Spartans.

This victory over a ranked team helped offset the loss to Rutgers. Illinois entered Monday as the No. 12 team in the country and only dropped three spots to No. 15 in the latest AP Top 25 poll. If it wasn’t for the win over Michigan State, I would guess the Illini would be ranked somewhere between 22-25.

Illinois basketball has a chance to finish the 2021-22 campaign strong.

There was a three-game stretch that consisted of Purdue, Northwestern, and Rutgers where I thought Illinois looked like one of the bottom teams in the Big Ten. I was sounding the panic alarm because the way we were playing worried me.

Now that Illinois took down Michigan State, I feel a little more comfortable. We played hard and looked like we were emotionally invested in the game. That was a stark contrast from the previous week or so.

With the Big Ten regular season still up for grabs, Illinois has a chance to finish the year strong. We only have one road game and that is against Michigan. They seem to be going through some issues right now, and they might not have their head coach for that game.

The three home games we have the rest of the way out are against No. 22 Ohio State, Penn State, and No. 25 Iowa. These are all winnable games.

If we can win all four of those games and have Purdue lose to either Michigan State, Wisconsin, or Indiana, then Illinois would walk away with the regular season conference title. That would be great to see, and there is a very real chance it could happen.