Who Illinois Basketball would rather face in Round one of the NCAA Tournament

Illinois basketball earned a sixth seed in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. After an up-and-down season, the Illini found a way to gain four straight key victories to keep them at a favorable seed. They will play their first game on Friday vs the winner of the game vs Xavier Musketeers and the Texas Longhorns. Despite being teams that were the Last Four In, both Xavier and Texas present rather unique challenges and weak points that Illinois basketball can take advantage of. Whoever wins between Xavier and Texas, it helps that they will have a game under their belt in the March Madness environment. Xavier has some older, veterans, however, they play a rather slow brand of basketball. They lost pretty badly to Michigan at the beginning of the year.

Texas was a controversial addition to the Field of 68. However, they have a lottery pick on their team in guard Tre Johnson and some very talented veteran players. I think that I would rather want to play the Xavier Musketeers.

Xavier (21-11) (13-7)

Xavier is currently 43rd in Kenpom and 37th in Bart Torvik. Though those are solid numbers for a NCAA Tournament team, Xavier is 1-9 in quadrant one games. Their sole win was a two-point win at Marquette. Otherwise, they went 8-2 in quadrant two games with two losses to Georgetown and TCU. Their two best players, however, are going to be a handful. Ryan Conwell is arguably the best pure shooter in college basketball and just put up 38 points on 7 three-pointers vs Marquette in the Big East Quarterfinals. Their second-best player is forward, Zach Freemantle. Freemantle puts up 17 points a game, however, may have a tough time against Tomislav Ivisic and Morez Johnson Jr.

Texas (19-15) (6-12)

Texas does not have an impressive overall record. However, they are battle-tested compared to Xavier. The Longhorns are 7-10 in quadrant-one games. For comparison, Illinois basketball is 8-10 in quadrant-one games. Texas has a first-round lottery pick in guard Tre Johnson who averages 19.8 points per game. They also have some athletic forwards, a bane of the Illini, in Arthur Kaluma and Kadin Shedrick. Their record is not the best and their coaching staff is certainly suspect. However, Xavier has a far lower ceiling in this NCAA tournament than Texas does.

The NCAA tournament is all about matchups. The Illini should be favored in either matchup, however, I would personally rather play the Xavier Musketeers.

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