I agree that IL should have still won. They had Kofi and Ayo, which is about as great of a combo as you could ask for. Oddly enough, Underwood has never seen past the first weekend either. Crazy that those teams haven’t at least made a sweet 16 with the talent that has gone through there. Purdue gets a lot of heat for their recent upsets, but man, for Iowa and Illinois to have such a drought for even making a Sweet 16 is pretty inexcusable.
Yeah, there was a recent stat that Illinois has won the most games of any Big Ten program over the last 5 years (Purdue in a very close second), including a #1 seed, 1.5 Big Ten championships (2021 situation was a joke, lol) and 1 BTT championship ... and all we have to show for it is two Second Round losses and a First Round loss! Very frustrating. I can only speak for the Illini, but this has been what's held us back:
2020: It was bad luck for everyone that this Tournament got cancelled, but especially us. We were playing really well and probably projected as a #6 seed or so. Had a ton of momentum in our first year "back" as a good program, and it was cancelled in a day.
2021: Contrary to my previous point about winning the BTT not hurting a team ... I do think this team was TOTALLY gassed by the Loyola game. In just 15 days, we ended the season with these games:
W 74-69 at #23 Wisconsin
W 76-53 at #2 Michigan
W 73-68 at #7 Ohio State
W 90-68 vs. Rutgers (BTT in Indianapolis)
W 82-71 vs. #5 Iowa (BTT Semifinals in Indianapolis)
W 91-88 in OT vs. #9 Ohio State (BTT Championship in Indianapolis)
Then we quarantined for a week and played (as people mentioned) a very good and under-seeded Loyola team. That team also probably relied on Ayo a bit too much, and Loyola had a GREAT game plan to contain him.
2022: This team was also limping along by the NCAA Tournament, and half the lineup was injured by the time we played #5 seed Houston in the Second Round ... a team that spent much of the year in the top 12 or so (probably deserved a much higher seed) and eventually made the Elite Eight. Bad draw, and we were banged up. We were all pretty much just happy to hang a Big Ten championship banner, and no one thought we had much of a shot in March Madness.
2023: Just a frickin' mess. Instead of having a rebuilding year, we wanted a fourth straight year of being a Big Ten championship contender, so we patched together a lineup with transfers (we lost all five starters from the 2022 team). Team chemistry was awful, and this held us back ... as evidenced by this year's team being SO much better after losing objectively talented players like Meyer, Epps and Skyy Clark (the latter of whom left the team literally in January...). This team was as dysfunctional as it gets, and frankly Underwood deserves some credit for even MAKING the NCAA Tournament if all of the stories of locker room drama are true. It's such a breath of fresh air that this year's team has such great chemistry, whatever else their faults are!
Let's hope we both go on a little run this year! The conference needs it, and both of our programs could really use some recent NCAA Tournament success to match the regular season success. 🤝
