The NCAA tournament isn’t that far away, and the Illinois basketball team is still trying to navigate some choppy waters.
After starting the 2024-25 campaign red hot, the Illini have cooled down greatly. A 12-3 record overall has now turned into a 17-8 record, which means we are 5-5 in the last 10 contests.
But that .500 record in the last 10 games doesn’t tell the whole story. Illinois has won the last two games and three out of the past four contests. At the beginning of this tough stretch, the Illini started to get injured and ill, and this affected the performance on the court.
With most of those issues behind us, Illinois is starting to get into a flow again. UCLA was down by 16 points with under five minutes to go in the game on Tuesday. That game should have been a double-digit win, but we let our foot off the gas. That would have been back-to-back double-digit victories.
On Tuesday morning, before the Illinois win over UCLA, Joe Lunardi of ESPN released an updated bracketology prediction. He included 10 Big Ten teams in the mix, which isn’t the highest conference total. The SEC is projected to have 13 teams in the Big Dance.
Lunardi has Illinois a little lower than I thought he would. He has them as the No. 6 seed in the Midwest Region. We would start off in Milwaukee against a tough No. 11 seed, Vanderbilt. This would be a brutal first-round draw.
If Illinois advanced out of the first round, No. 3 Iowa State would likely await. We all know what happened the last time Illinois and Iowa State faced off in the NCAA tournament. A 72-69 victory for the Illini to advance to the Elite 8.
Illinois basketball still has big games to help standing in the NCAA tournament
One of the reasons why I am surprised Illinois is projected as a No. 6 seed is the fact we are the No. 13 team in the latest NET Rankings. That would land us around a No. 4 seed, which I think is about right as of now.
Illinois has an impressive resume for the NCAA tournament too. As it sits right now, the Illini have seven Quad 1 wins, which is the fifth most out of any team in college basketball. There will be more opportunities to secure some Quad 1 wins in the near future too.
The final six games of the season are brutal for the Illini. Five out of the six games are against Quad 1 teams. These games include home against No. 11 Michigan State and No. 7 Purdue. Illinois then goes on the road against No. 16 Wisconsin and No. 20 Michigan. We also head to Madison Square Garden to take on No. 3 Duke.
Illinois’ only game in the final six that isn’t a Quad 1 contest is the home contest against Iowa. This is a Quad 2 game for the Orange and Blue.
So, while Lunardi only has Illinois as the No. 6 seed, depending on how the next couple of weeks go, we could shoot up the projected seeding. I mean, if we win five out of the final six games, look for Illinois to secure a top-three seed in the NCAA tournament.