Preseason Rankings
Illinois
Big Ten
2025-26
Overall
Predictive Rating+17.4#15
Expected Predictive Rating+0.0#1
Pace76.6#17
Improvement--

Offense
Total Offense+10.8#10
First Shot--
After Offensive Rebound--
Layup/Dunks--
2 Pt Jumpshots--
3 Pt Jumpshots--
Freethrows--
Improvement--

Defense
Total Defense+6.6#28
First Shot--
After Offensive Rebounds--
Layups/Dunks--
2 Pt Jumpshots--
3 Pt Jumpshots--
Freethrows--
Improvement--
NowWin NextLose Next
#1 Overall Seed 2.1% 2.1% 0.4%
#1 Seed 9.1% 9.2% 1.8%
Top 2 Seed 20.7% 20.8% 5.4%
Top 4 Seed 43.9% 44.1% 17.0%
Top 6 Seed 62.7% 63.0% 27.4%
NCAA Tourney Bid 85.0% 85.3% 52.5%
At-Large Bid if not Auto Qualifier 83.5% 83.9% 51.7%
Average Seed 4.8 4.8 6.3
.500 or above 92.6% 92.9% 65.0%
.500 or above in Conference 85.1% 85.3% 59.7%
Conference Champion 11.9% 12.0% 4.5%
Last Place in Conference 0.3% 0.3% 1.8%
First Four3.7% 3.7% 7.7%
First Round83.3% 83.6% 49.4%
Second Round67.9% 68.2% 34.5%
Sweet Sixteen39.1% 39.3% 16.2%
Elite Eight19.7% 19.8% 7.2%
Final Four9.6% 9.7% 2.7%
Championship Game4.6% 4.6% 1.3%
National Champion2.1% 2.1% 0.9%

Next Game: Jackson St. (Home) - 99.1% chance of victory

Projected Seeding 4 seed  

Projected Record by Quad
QuadProjectedProjected Cumulative
Quad 1a4 - 74 - 7
Quad 1b4 - 28 - 9
Quad 26 - 114 - 10
Quad 34 - 017 - 10
Quad 45 - 022 - 10


Date Opponent Result/Prediction Record Conf Rating Offense Defense
  Nov 03, 2025 238   Jackson St. W 91-66 99%    
  Nov 07, 2025 181   Florida Gulf Coast W 85-63 98%    
  Nov 11, 2025 12   Texas Tech W 78-75 59%    
  Nov 14, 2025 216   Colgate W 89-65 98%    
  Nov 19, 2025 18   Alabama W 90-89 53%    
  Nov 22, 2025 300   LIU Brooklyn W 86-58 99%    
  Nov 24, 2025 270   UT Rio Grande Valley W 94-68 99%    
  Nov 28, 2025 4   Connecticut L 72-76 35%    
  Dec 06, 2025 16   Tennessee W 72-71 50%    
  Dec 09, 2025 27   @ Ohio St. L 79-80 48%    
  Dec 13, 2025 60   Nebraska W 84-73 83%    
  Dec 22, 2025 37   Missouri W 83-79 64%    
  Dec 29, 2025 186   Southern W 87-65 97%    
  Jan 03, 2026 90   Penn St. W 86-74 84%    
  Jan 08, 2026 81   Rutgers W 85-72 88%    
  Jan 11, 2026 32   @ Iowa W 83-82 52%    
  Jan 14, 2026 71   @ Northwestern W 77-71 70%    
  Jan 17, 2026 87   Minnesota W 79-65 89%    
  Jan 21, 2026 40   Maryland W 83-75 74%    
  Jan 24, 2026 2   @ Purdue L 73-82 23%    
  Jan 29, 2026 48   Washington W 84-75 78%    
  Feb 01, 2026 60   @ Nebraska W 81-76 66%    
  Feb 04, 2026 71   Northwestern W 80-68 84%    
  Feb 07, 2026 21   @ Michigan St. L 75-77 45%    
  Feb 10, 2026 26   Wisconsin W 81-76 67%    
  Feb 15, 2026 34   Indiana W 82-75 71%    
  Feb 18, 2026 29   @ USC W 80-79 51%    
  Feb 21, 2026 14   @ UCLA L 72-75 39%    
  Feb 27, 2026 6   Michigan W 81-80 53%    
  Mar 03, 2026 28   Oregon W 81-75 69%    
  Mar 08, 2026 40   @ Maryland W 80-78 55%    
Projected Record 21 - 10 13 - 7




Numbers in tables represent percent chance of outcome occurring.



Projected Big Ten Finish

0-20 1-19 2-18 3-17 4-16 5-15 6-14 7-13 8-12 9-11 10-10 11-9 12-8 13-7 14-6 15-5 16-4 17-3 18-2 19-1 20-0 Total
1st 0.1 0.7 2.3 3.4 3.2 1.6 0.4 11.9 1st
2nd 0.1 1.3 3.8 4.3 2.7 0.7 0.1 13.0 2nd
3rd 0.0 0.1 1.3 4.2 4.6 2.2 0.3 0.0 12.7 3rd
4th 0.0 0.8 3.8 4.4 1.7 0.2 0.0 11.0 4th
5th 0.0 0.4 2.8 4.4 1.8 0.2 0.0 9.6 5th
6th 0.1 1.7 4.2 2.1 0.3 0.0 8.4 6th
7th 0.0 0.8 3.3 2.5 0.4 0.0 6.9 7th
8th 0.3 2.1 2.7 0.8 0.0 6.0 8th
9th 0.1 1.0 2.5 1.1 0.1 4.8 9th
10th 0.0 0.5 1.9 1.5 0.2 0.0 4.0 10th
11th 0.1 1.1 1.6 0.5 0.0 3.3 11th
12th 0.1 0.5 1.5 0.6 0.0 2.7 12th
13th 0.0 0.2 0.9 0.7 0.1 1.9 13th
14th 0.0 0.1 0.6 0.7 0.2 0.0 1.5 14th
15th 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.2 0.0 1.0 15th
16th 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.2 0.0 0.8 16th
17th 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.4 17th
18th 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.0 0.2 18th
Total 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.4 0.8 1.5 2.3 4.0 5.6 7.6 9.5 11.2 12.1 12.1 11.1 9.0 6.5 3.9 1.7 0.4 Total



Big Ten Regular Season Championship

Record Champion Total Outright 2-Way 3-Way 4-Way 5-Way 6-Way 7-Way 8-Way
20-0 100.0% 0.4    0.4
19-1 96.1% 1.6    1.5 0.2
18-2 81.9% 3.2    2.3 0.9 0.0
17-3 53.1% 3.4    1.7 1.4 0.3 0.0 0.0
16-4 25.7% 2.3    0.6 1.0 0.5 0.1 0.0 0.0
15-5 6.7% 0.7    0.1 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0
14-6 1.0% 0.1    0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
13-7 0.0%
12-8 0.0%
11-9 0.0%
10-10 0.0%
Total 11.9% 11.9 6.6 3.8 1.1 0.3 0.1 0.0 0.0



NCAA Tournament Selection

Conf RecordRecord ChanceTourney
Bid		AutoAt-LargeAvg
Seed		 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 No Bid At-Large if not Auto
20-0 0.4% 100.0% 51.5% 48.5% 1.2 0.4 0.1 0.0 100.0%
19-1 1.7% 100.0% 35.9% 64.1% 1.3 1.2 0.4 0.0 0.0 100.0%
18-2 3.9% 100.0% 28.5% 71.5% 1.5 2.2 1.5 0.2 0.0 100.0%
17-3 6.5% 100.0% 23.3% 76.7% 1.9 2.5 2.5 1.1 0.2 0.1 100.0%
16-4 9.0% 100.0% 18.3% 81.7% 2.4 1.8 3.2 2.6 1.1 0.2 0.1 100.0%
15-5 11.1% 100.0% 13.0% 86.9% 3.3 0.7 2.5 3.5 2.5 1.3 0.5 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 100.0%
14-6 12.1% 99.8% 8.4% 91.4% 4.2 0.2 1.0 2.8 3.3 2.5 1.4 0.6 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.0 99.8%
13-7 12.1% 99.4% 4.7% 94.7% 5.2 0.0 0.3 1.3 2.6 3.0 2.4 1.3 0.7 0.3 0.1 0.0 0.1 99.4%
12-8 11.2% 97.4% 3.0% 94.5% 6.4 0.0 0.1 0.4 1.1 2.0 2.3 2.2 1.4 0.8 0.4 0.1 0.3 97.3%
11-9 9.5% 90.2% 1.2% 89.0% 7.5 0.1 0.3 0.9 1.4 1.6 1.7 1.4 0.9 0.4 0.9 90.0%
10-10 7.6% 71.7% 1.1% 70.6% 8.5 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.5 0.8 1.0 1.0 1.2 0.7 0.0 2.1 71.4%
9-11 5.6% 45.3% 0.4% 44.8% 9.5 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.7 0.7 0.0 3.0 45.0%
8-12 4.0% 17.7% 0.1% 17.6% 10.2 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.3 0.3 0.0 3.3 17.6%
7-13 2.3% 5.1% 0.3% 4.8% 10.9 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.0 0.0 2.2 4.8%
6-14 1.5% 0.5% 0.5% 11.5 0.0 0.0 1.5 0.5%
5-15 0.8% 0.8
4-16 0.4% 0.4
3-17 0.1% 0.1
2-18 0.0% 0.0
1-19 0.0% 0.0
0-20 0.0% 0.0
Total 100% 85.0% 8.7% 76.3% 4.8 9.1 11.6 12.0 11.2 10.3 8.6 6.9 5.3 4.1 3.6 2.3 0.1 0.0 15.0 83.5%


Optimistic / Pessimistic Scenarios

ChanceTourney
Bid		Avg
Seed		 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Win Out 0.1% 100.0% 1.1 94.4 5.6
Win Out, Lose in Conf. Tourney Championship 0.0% 100.0% 1.0 100.0
Win Out, Lose in Conf. Tourney Semi-Final 0.0% 100.0% 1.2 83.5 16.5