Illinois Basketball: Illini have plenty of time and talent to climb in AP Top 25

Despite a rough week for the Illinois basketball program, we still remain decently strong in the latest AP Top 25 poll.

The Illini only played one game this past week. We matched up with an unranked Missouri Tigers program in the annual Braggin’ Rights game. After the Penn State loss a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking Illinois should probably win the final three non-conference games to stabilize the ship. That didn’t happen, though.

Illinois went into the Braggin’ Rights game and laid an egg against Missouri. This was one of the worst games I have seen the program play in the last 10 years. The 93-71 final score doesn’t tell the entire story. This was a much uglier game than a 22-point blowout.

With that bad loss to Missouri, Illinois was obviously going to drop out of the AP Top 25. We were ranked No. 16 in the nation, but we have now plummeted out of the rankings. But a silver lining is the fact that the Illini did receive the fourth-most votes to be ranked. We still had 65 votes, which is ahead of Missouri.

Illinois basketball still has plenty of time and talent to crawl back into the AP Top 25.

There are three things I know for sure are true. The first one is that Illinois has played some ugly basketball in the past few weeks. We aren’t a cohesive unit whatsoever, and it is killing us on the basketball court.

The other two things I know to be true are that Illinois has a ton of talent, and we have plenty of big games ahead to help us rise up in the AP Top 25.

While the Illini have played some bad games in recent weeks, we can’t do anything about those contests. Those are in the past, and it is better to start focusing on the future. Illinois has the talent on the court to be able to correct this bad streak.

I know this to be true because we have seen it happen on multiple occasions this season. Illinois was able to take down Texas and UCLA, which are currently ranked No. 6 and No. 11, respectively. If we can come together as a team, Illinois can make a run in the Big Ten and deep into the postseason. I firmly believe that.

Illinois also has some big games ahead that can help us move back into the AP Top 25. Let’s knock off Bethune-Cookman this week, and use that as a tune-up game for the Big Ten slate.

Northwestern is not an easy team this season. They only have two losses and took No. 20 Auburn to the brink of defeat. Following the game up in Evanston, Illinois then takes on No. 15 Wisconsin. This is the start of five games in a 13-day stretch which features Michigan State and No. 16 Indiana coming to Champaign.

I think the upcoming seven games are going to be the most important stretch for the Illinois basketball program this season. I think the goal should be to come out of this seven-game stretch at 6-1. This would get the team on the right path moving forward. It all starts this Thursday. Let’s hope the week off has helped this team gel.