The Fighting Illini follow up Tuesday’s home win over #20 Wisconsin with a non-conference matchup against #1-ranked Tennessee on Saturday at a sold-out State Farm Center (4:30 p.m. CT/FOX).

Saturday’s matchup with the top-ranked Volunteers was named Illinois’ annual Stripe State Farm Center game and presented by InvescoQQQ. Further information can be found on page 4.

Illinois sits at No. 12 in the NCAA NET rankings after games played Dec. 11. The Illini are in first place in the Big Ten.

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

Illinois’ last win over a No. 1 ranked opponent came on February 7, 2013 in Champaign Tyler Griffey’s Layups at the buzzer gave the Illini a 74-72 victory over Indiana.

On Saturday he will be head coach for the third time Brad Underwood will lead the Illini against a No. 1 ranked team. Last season, the Illini fell to No. 1 Purdue in conference play and ended the season in the Elite Eight with a loss to eventual national champion UConn. The Illini defeated preseason No. 1 Kansas in a charity exhibition game last year.

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

Tennessee returns to Champaign after the Illini traveled to Knoxville last season. The No. 17 Volunteers defeated the 20th-ranked Illini 86-79 before a sellout crowd of 21,678 at UT’s Food City Center.

Saturday’s contest is the first of two consecutive matchups against non-conference SEC opponents. The Illini next face Missouri in the annual Braggin’ Rights game on Dec. 22 in St. Louis (12 p.m. CT/ESPN).

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

Illinois is the Big Ten’s winningest team since 2019-20, posting a 70-32 (.686) record in league play. And if 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 a No. 2 seed, won the 2022 regular season championship and led the conference in wins while claiming 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. Over that span, the Illini are 29-22 (.569) in conference away games and have finished .500 or better in four of the last five seasons.

Illinois’ victory over No. 20 Wisconsin on Tuesday was its 150th victory Brad Underwoodis Illini’s tenure. In his eighth season in Champaign, Underwood now sits fifth on Illinois’ all-time coaching wins list and is one win away from a tie for fourth place.

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

The Illini rank ninth nationally with a scoring margin of +21.8 points per game. Illinois’ 13-point win over #19 Arkansas was the most by an unranked Illinois team against a top-25 opponent under a head coach Brad Underwood. Before facing the Razorbacks, the Illini had the team’s two largest victory margins of the season – against UMES (+47, 87-40) and against Little Rock (+58, 92-34).

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

Freshmen on the Illini roster have accounted for 92.7% of the team’s points so 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 college basketball. Freshman G Kasparas Jakucionis ranks first in scoring (15.4 ppg) and third in rebounding (6.4 rpg). Second semester C Tomislav Ivisic He almost achieved a double-double with 15.3 points and 9.4 rebounds per game. Freshman F Will Riley is the Illini’s third-best scorer with 13.9 points per game. And freshman F Morez Johnson Jr. ranks second on the team with 6.4 rebounds per game.

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

Jakucionis is the fifth newcomer to the Brad Underwood Era has at least four games with a total of 20 points in his rookie season 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 is among the NCAA leaders in: 3-point attempts per game (4th in NCAA, 33.8), 3-point shots 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 defense percentage (8th; 0.265), field goal defense percentage (11th; 0.374) and blocks per game (31st, 5.0). The Illini also rank ninth in the NCAA and third in the B1G in scoring margin (+21.8), while ranking 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 nationwide that rank 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 percentage (3-point attempts/total field goal attempts) of 52.1%. The Illini have 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.

With a margin of +21.8 points per game, Illinois is on pace to set a program record. The 1942-43 Illini outscored their opponents by 20.6 points per game. The team’s best mark since 1960 is +15.9 from the 2004/2005 season.

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