The Illini welcome No. 1 in Tennessee to a sold-out State Farm Center

The Fighting Illini will follow Tuesday’s home win over #20 Wisconsin with a non-conference matchup against no. 1-ranked Tennessee on Saturday at the sold-out State Farm Center (4:30 p.m. CT / FOX).

Saturday’s matchup with the top-ranked Volunteers has been designated Illinois’ annual Stripe State Farm Center game, presented by InvescoQQQ. More information can be found on page 4.

Illinois is No. 12 in the NCAA NET rankings through games played Dec. 11. The Illini rank first in the Big Ten.

The Illini are looking for the program’s fourth-ever win over a No. 1. All three previous wins over top-ranked opponents have come at State Farm Center.

Illinois’ last win over a No. 1-ranked opponent took place on February 7, 2013 in Champaign, da Tyler Griffey’s layup at the buzzer lifted the Illini to a 74-72 victory over Indiana.

Saturday is the third time head coach Brad Underwood will lead the Illini toward a no. 1-ranked team. Last season, the Illini fell to No. 1 Purdue in conference play and closed the season in the Elite Eight with a loss to eventual national champion UConn. The Illini defeated last year’s preseason No. 1, Kansas, in a charity exhibition.

Illinois has won six straight home games to open the season. The Illini have won their last 10 home games against non-conference opponents and are 1-0 this season at State Farm Center vs. ranked opponents after Tuesday’s 86-80 win over #20 Wisconsin.

Tennessee makes a return trip to Champaign after the Illini traveled to Knoxville last season. The no. The 17th-ranked Volunteers defeated the 20th-ranked Illini, 86-79, in front of a capacity crowd of 21,678 at UT’s Food City Center.

Saturday’s contest is the first of back-to-back nonconference matchups against SEC foes. Next, the Illini will face Missouri on Dec. 22 in St. Louis for the annual Braggin’ Rights game (12 p.m. CT / ESPN).

The Illini are 1-1 this season vs. SEC foes, falling to then-No. 8 Alabama (100-87) in Birmingham on Nov. 20 before earning a 90-77 win over then-No. 19 Arkansas on Thanksgiving Day in Kansas City.

Illinois is the winningest team in the Big Ten since 2019-20, with a 70-32 (.686) mark in league play. And when you include the conference tournament, the Illini have a league-best 76 wins during that span. The Illini won the 2024 Big Ten Tournament championship as the #2 seed, captured the 2022 regular season championship and led the conference in wins while adding a B1G tournament crown in 2021.

Head coach Brad Underwood has also led Illinois to the Big Ten’s best road record since the start of the 2019-20 season. During that span, the Illini are 29-22 (.569) in conference road games and have finished .500 or better in four of the last five seasons.

Illinois’ win over No. 20 Wisconsin on Tuesday marked the 150th win for Brad UnderwoodIllini tenure. In his eighth season in Champaign, Underwood is now tied for fifth on the all-time Illinois coaches list and is just one win away from a tie for fourth.

Brad Underwood has led the Fighting Illini program to AP Top-25 rankings for six consecutive seasons. Illini receiving votes in the latest AP and coaches polls released Monday.

The Illini are ninth in the nation in scoring margin at +21.8 points per possession. match. Illinois’ 13-point win vs. #19 Arkansas was the biggest of an unranked Illinois team over a top-25 foe under head coach Brad Underwood. Prior to the game with the Razorbacks, the Illini were coming off the team’s two largest margins of victory of the season – against UMES (+47, 87-40) and against Little Rock (+58, 92-34).

After the Elite Eight appearance in 2024 and the Big Ten Tournament Championship, Illinois has a dramatically different roster this season. The program returns just one rotation player – last year’s ninth-leading scorer Drag Gibbs-Lawhorn – and returns just 2.9% of his minutes, 2.2% of his points and 2.0% of his rebounds overall.

Newcomers to the Illini roster have accounted for 92.7% of the team’s scoring thus far (719 of 776 total points), with UI freshmen accounting for 39.7% of those points (308).

Illinois’ top three scorers and rebounders are all in their first year of collegiate basketball. First year student G Kasparas Jakucionis ranks first in scoring (15.4 ppg) and third in rebounding (6.4 rpg). Sophomore C Tomislav Ivisic nearly averaged a double-double at 15.3 points and 9.4 rebounds per game. Freshman F Will Riley is the Illini’s no. 3 scores with 13.9 points per match. And Freshman F Morez Johnson Jr. second on the team with 6.4 rebounds per match.

Kasparas Jakucionis has scored 20+ points in four consecutive games, the first Illini freshman to do so in program history. During that span, he is averaging 22.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game. game while knocking down 15 3-pointers at a 55.6% clip.

Jakucionis is the fifth freshman in the Brad Underwood Era to record at least four total 20-point games in his rookie season, coming with Ayo Dosunmu (7 in 2018-19), Trent Frazier (5 in 2017-18), Giorgi Bezhanishvili (5 in 2018-19), and Kofi Cockburn (5 in 2019-20).

Illinois leads the Big Ten and ranks among the NCAA leaders in: 3-point attempts per. game (4th in NCAA, 33.8), 3-pointers per game (8th, 11.3), total rebounds per game (1st, 46.6), defensive rebounds per game (1st; 33.0), rebound margin (4th, +13.1), offensive rebounds per game (44th, 13.6), 3-point percentage defense (8th; .265), field goal percentage defense (11th; .374) and blocks per match (31st, 5.0). The Illini are also ninth in the NCAA and third in the B1G in scoring margin (+21.8), while sitting 16th in the NCAA and second in the Big Ten in scoring average (86.2 ppg).

KenPom.com ranks the Illini 15th in adjusted efficiency rating (+21.87). Illinois is one of 13 programs nationally ranked in the top 30 in both defensive efficiency (17th, 94.7) and offensive efficiency (28th, 116.5).

According to KenPom, the Illini rank eighth nationally and second among Power Conference programs with a 3-point attempt rate (3-point attempts/total field goal attempts) of 52.1%. The Illini boast the best overall offensive efficiency rating (116.5) among the top 25 programs in 3-point attempt percentage.

The Illini’s scoring average of 86.2 ppg is the team’s highest since the 1988-89 Flyin’ Illini averaged 86.4 ppg.

Illinois’ scoring margin of +21.8 points per game is on pace for the program record. The 1942-43 Illini outscored opponents by 20.6 points per game. match. The team’s top mark since 1960 is +15.9 set in 2004-05.

Illinois leads the nation in rebounds with 46.6 boards per game. game, on pace for the program’s best average in 50 seasons since posting 47.0 rebounds per contest in 1974-75. The Orange and Blue have outscored their opponents in all nine games this season.