Illinois brings Final Four home court advantage to Indianapolis

Illinois brings Final Four home court advantage to Indianapolis originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

The Illinois Fighting Illini men’s basketball team comes into the Final Four as the clear underdog. As a No. 3 seed, they’re the highest remaining in the field, but don’t count them out just yet.

Brad Underwood’s team enters the matchup with No. 2 UConn with a bit of a home court advantage on its side. The Illini fans showed up in droves during Friday’s open practice in Indianapolis. With the main Champaign campus a little over 100 miles away, there’s no reason for fans not to show up to support their team.

Yet again, this might be the only advantage Illinois has over their opponents.

This is the first Final Four appearance for the Illini over the past two decades. However, they lost to North Carolina in the National Championship Game right before in 2005. To say this is a first in the modern era is an understatement. Illinois was 16-6 in Big Ten play and 0-5 overall in games decided by 3 points or fewer.

This will be the second meeting between Illinois and UConn this season.

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The teams met on Nov. 28 with the Huskies walking away with a 74-61 win. Solo Ball led UConn with 15 points, and Kylan Boswell led Illinois with 25 points.

Illinois faces UConn in Indianapolis on Saturday (6:09 p.m. ET, TBS).

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/illinois-brings-final-four-home-163105619.html

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Publish date : 2026-04-03 16:31:00

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