Occasionally, something that was truly great ends in a horribly awful manner. See The Sopranos or Seinfeld. The 2023-24 Illini basketball season was one for the ages. They ended the second weekend of March Madness drought, and then went one level past that. They claimed a trophy (Big Ten Tournament) and actually beat a higher seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Plus, Booty Ball was extremely fun to watch and easy to root for. However, last Saturday night was monstrously ugly. Yes, UConn is exceedingly dominant, and they’re playing at a level that is within their own exclusive stratosphere.
However, a 30-0 run is still a 30-0 run. And entering the Elite 8 game between Illinois and UConn, the last time a Division 1 basketball team at any level surrendered something like that was three years ago.
Kudos to Marcus Domask, as he was really the only one who came to play for Illinois.
But the beatdown at the hands of the Huskies was so bad…the following Illini basketball article from 2014 popped up again in our most viewed posts that night.
So we now re-up it, but with a few caveats.
This Illini basketball listicle only spans from the 2005 national title game to mid-Jan 2014. It does not include anything from the end of the John Groce era or the Brad Underwood era, at all.
And honestly, considering that both of them broke broke Bruce Weber’s school record for single season losses (19 in 2007-2008), they are basically getting a free pass here. Groce broke that record in 2015-2016 (in a season that included a win over Chicago St. so ugly that it actually deserves classification as an L) and Underwood then broke Groce’s record in 2017-2018 (the only Illini season to ever end in February).
Now on with the show. We’ll say that Saturday night is #10, for the time being.
8-9.) Thanksgiving weekend 2009 Bradley and Utah in Las Vegas Invitational
I grouped these two pathetic losses into one because essentially Utah “beat them twice.”
Exactly like how the 2010 Illinois football team got “beat by Michigan twice.” (losing to lowly Minnesota the next week). This killed their postseason resume.
7.) 12-18-10 UIC 57, ILL 54
When I saw the dreadful numbers that the UIC bigs were putting up, I thought “Mike Davis and Tisdale, possibly both, will have a huge game today!” Nope. Neither of them showed up on either end of the floor.
Thank goodness they stopped scheduling this series. Nothing good can ever come of it, and barely anyone ever showed up at the United Center to see it.
6.) 1-12-14, Northwestern 48, Illini basketball 43
Just read the final score. This was a really bad NU team too.
5.) 2008 Big Ten Tournament Final: Wisconsin Badgers 61, Illini 48
This game was somewhat predictable as the Illini made a nice heroic run through the extended weekend in Indy, and just ran out of gas versus a much better team. But again, it ended their postseason hopes, and therefore worthy of a top 5 slot.
4.) 2007 NCAA Tournament First Round Virginia Tech Hokies 54, Illini basketball 52
A 15 point lead in a game as low scoring as this is pretty much insurmountable; unless you have HORRIBLE foul shooting. And this Illini basketball team, which barely got in as a #12 seed and should have been yet another example of the 12 beating a 5 rule only shot 60% from the charity stripe for the season as a team.
They had Brian Randle and Shaun Pruitt going for them, and not much else. Both players were purely putrid at the charity stripe.
3.) 12-30-07 Tennessee State 60, Illini basketball 58
All I could say then is what I say now: WTH?
Same thing you could say about the home loss to Miami of Ohio that season.
2.) 2-18-09 Penn State 38, Illini basketball 33
Not only did they lose yet again to a program that has no business being on par with them (Wow! Was this a precursor of things to come in this series), they did so in a fashion that made both themselves and the league at large the laughing stock of the nation for a few days.
1.) 2005 National Title game North Carolina Tar Heels 75, Illini basketball 70
Obviously, there’s no shame in this. It’s only #1 because of the gravity of the situation. And the Illini could have benefited from some more fair and balanced officiating.
It also might have been nice if starting center James Augustine, the leading rebounder in school history could have contributed anything at all during the nine minutes that he played before fouling out.
Then Illinois wouldn’t have had to shoot 40 three-pointers.
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to Ravens Wire, part of the USA Today SMG’s NFL Wire Network and the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times. You can follow him on Twitter.