One for the History Books

Under Bruce Weber, the Illini have suffered some huge embarrassments, like losing at home to Tennessee State during the 2007-08 season, or the back-to-back losses against Utah and Bradley last season that ultimately cost the team an NCAA tournament bid. And with yesterday's abomination against UIC, it looks like Weber has now established the "loss to a crappy mid-major team" as an annual tradition (similar to Ron Zook's "pi$$ing away a home game against a vastly inferior opponent" annual tradition).

So how bad was the UIC loss? Let's look at it with Ken Pomeroy's rankings. Coming into the UIC game, the Illini were ranked #12 in Pomeroy's system, while the Flames were ranked #224, for a ranking differential of 212 places (the system gave the Flames a 2% chance of beating the Illini). As for some other bad Illini losses in the Weber era, I don't have a way to check the comparative rankings coming into the games, but I can compare the season-ending rankings of the Illini and their various mid-major conquerors:

The 2009-10 Utah Utes finished #114 in Pomeroy's system, while Bradley finished #125; the Illini finished #53 last year. Not too bad in terms of ranking differential (as long as you don't dwell on that "missing the NCAA tournament" thing).

The 2007-08 Tennessee State Tigers finished the year ranked #227 in Pomeroy's system; that season's Illini team finished #40, for a differential of 187.

It's hard to believe that the Illini could "top" the embarrassment of the Tennessee State loss, but in terms of Pomeroy ranking differential, the UIC loss was actually worse (which makes sense considering that the 07-08 Illini team finished with a losing record and near the bottom of the Big 10, while this year's Illini entered the UIC game as a top-fifteen team with designs on competing for the Big 10 title). It will be interesting to see how far the Illini drop in Pomeroy's system as a result of losing to a team outside the top 200. And while this one probably won't cost the team an NCAA tournament bid (like last year's twin losses in Vegas did), it will certainly knock them down a line or two when it comes to their seeding, which will make it that much more difficult for them to get to the second weekend of the tournament.

Bruce Weber's Fighting Illini - continuing to make the unthinkable thinkable.