Illinois Basketball: Illini are on historic pace for the 2022-23 season

The women’s Illinois basketball team continued their great run of play on Sunday with a big win over Missouri.

This was another benchmark victory for the Illini, as the Braggin’ Rights returned to Champaign. It wasn’t an easy win by any means, but it was another point in the season where you can tell this program is turning a corner.

Missouri was 11-1 coming into the contest. This wasn’t just a pushover program. They had two votes to be in the AP Top 25 this past week as well. Beating the Tigers 76-66 is an accomplishment. It is a stepping stone to a higher goal of making the NCAA tournament.

The incredible work head coach Shauna Green has done has not gone unnoticed. She has been able to gel together the newcomers and mainstays into a unit that is playing some great basketball. Illinois is now 10-2 on the season and 1-1 in Big Ten play, and the winning shouldn’t be stopping any time soon.

Numbers show this start by the Illinois basketball team is no fluke.

A 10-2 beginning to the 2022-23 campaign is impressive. In fact, it has been a long time since the Illini have been able to get off to this good of a start. You have to go back to the 2006-07 season to find the last time Illinois started a season 10-2. Shoot, we have more wins right now than Illinois has had in seven out of the past 12 seasons.

This success isn’t a fluke by any means either. I would understand if there are some skeptics out there, but Illinois is playing solid competition and either beating that competition or keeping the games close when we do fall to better programs.

On top of visually seeing that this team is better than in years past, the numbers also bear out that this Illinois basketball program is likely here to stay.

The Illini are currently averaging 80.5 points per game this season. If we can finish at this number, that would be the most points an Illinois team has averaged since the 1996-97 campaign. The same could be said for Illinois’ ability to rebound. We are currently on pace for 1,301 rebounds this season, which would be the most since the 2009-10 season.

Illinois is also hitting shots at a high clip. We are currently shooting 48% from the field, which would be the best shooting percentage for the program since the 1986-87 season. The following year, three-point shooting started to be calculated in the women’s game. This season, the Illini are shooting an incredible 41.3% from three-point range. The best three-point shooting percentage by Illinois in the history of the program is 36.4% back in 1993-94.

I have been amazed by the progression of this Illinois basketball program. We already had some good pieces on the team in Jada Peebles and Kendall Bostic, among others, but then you add in a few key transfers and the puzzle is starting to get completed.

When you have shooting from deep as Illinois does, and then a dominating force like Bostic down low, that is hard to beat. This team is poised to do something special things this season. The future is so bright for this program.