Illini Pulse: How many basketball wins?

Admittedly, we did not time this tweet well. The Twitter-verse found out that Hardy Nickerson’s resignation about six minutes before we asked our weekly Illini Pulse question:

We did not get an overwhelming number of responses, but I would still call it a good sample size. There was a wide range of speculation as to how the team might fare in Brad Underwood’s second season.

This guy definitely knows what he is talking about:

Just kidding. He’s not that crazy.

Okay, that’s still pretty steep. But 19-20 wins sounds a lot more likely than 32. Anyone else?

A few are in that 19-20 range of wins. Let’s go down from there. Some people think that the team is likely to have a few less wins.

To me, this seems a lot more likely. Has anyone actually looked at the Illini schedule? It. Is. Brutal. The Maui Tournament (featuring Duke, San Diego St., Arizona, Auburn, Gonzaga, and Iowa State), Georgetown in the Gavitt Games, and Notre Dame to finish off the non-conference. Then it’s B1G season, and Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue and Michigan all look to be legit again this year.

If the Illini win nine conference games, I think a postseason is actually quite likely. The trouble will be getting there.

Or, at least there will be a shot at the Tournament.

But who really cares about wins? There is only one game that some people care about:

But, as an Illini fan, I think there is one thing that is certain for this basketball season, in one form or another:

For vintage inspired, high quality, and well-designed University of Illinois apparel, check out Fourth and Kirby, and look for the TCR Collection while you’re at it!