Illinois Basketball Needs More Quality Wins

Not all that long ago, Illinois Basketball’s victory over FAU on a neutral court seemed like a huge win.

At the time, FAU was highly touted and the game itself was a great one to watch. Unfortunately, for them and Illinois, FAU has lost some games to bad basketball teams. Since losing to Illinois, FAU has beaten Arizona, a great win no doubt. However, they have also lost to Florida Gulf Coast and Charlotte. Those two teams are both in Quad 4 territory, making them horrible losses for FAU.

With the B1G not proving to be a juggernaut, many have been worried about opportunities for Illinois to bolster its resumé. While, yes it is true, there are not many chances left for signature wins, Illinois can still do a lot during this Big Ten season to prove itself as a good team worthy of a solid seed in the tournament.

The most important thing for Illinois Basketball will be not taking any bad losses during this Big Ten season.

Yes, CBB is crazy, but Illinois has beaten their Quad 2-4 opponents this season by 24.4 points per game. They have taken care of business this year against teams that are worse than them.

Illinois has 10 more opportunities to beat up on Quad 2-4 squads. vs. Maryland, at Michigan, vs. Rutgers, vs. Indiana, vs. Nebraska, vs. Michigan, at Maryland, at Penn State, vs. Iowa, and vs. Minnesota. A couple of opportunities for traps await, no doubt. They do have an away game against Maryland, where Brad Underwood has never won. But if the current trend holds, Illinois should do just fine. Winning these games doesn’t do much for you, but losing them could be detrimental. Notably, Illinois doesn’t have any Quad 4 games remaining. Even if you removed those games from Illinois’ resume, though, they are still beating Quad 2-3 teams by an average of 20.

Admittedly, the opportunities for elite Quad 1 wins are slim, but Illinois still has 8 more opportunities for Quad 1 wins (as of the time of this writing). vs. Michigan State, at Northwestern, at Ohio State, at Michigan State, at Wisconsin, vs. Purdue, at Iowa.

Most of those don’t seem daunting for Illinois, and I feel great about their chances in the majority of them.

The path to a high seed for Illinois Basketball? Take care of business.

Don’t lose to anyone you shouldn’t, and snag a bunch of those Quad 1 opportunities. Of course, quad numbers change, but Illinois still has the chance to build a pretty solid resumé come NCAA Tournament time.