Will Leitch –

Our Illini are about to make their fifth consecutive tournament (and it of course should be their sixth). There was a six-year stretch before that in which we did not make the tournament at all. Underwood is still a smart, ambitious coach, Josh Whitman is still as hard-charging as ever and with a fanbase like this, in the age of NIL, this is not a franchise/organization that is likely to go wanting. Things are, still, good. I will appreciate the slightly disappointing times, remembering, as I do, the truly wretched ones.

This is the right way to look at this Illinois Basketball season. Plus, they could still get hot in March. I’m not expecting it, but stranger things have happened.