Did he make it for his visit?

Clean injury report for Illinois vs. the Hawkeyes.

Morez Johnson has a brace on his left arm.

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If USC come back to win this game, Illinois gets the 6-seed.

Illinois is a 6 or 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament right now, IMO.


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Illinois had a handful of visitors on Wednesday for the first day of spring practice.

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They also offered 4-star 2027 TE Austin Coles and he's expected in Champaign for a spring practice soon.

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Just for fun while we're waiting for the BTT to start...

If you needed to build a single roster purely from the last six seasons of Illinois basketball, who would you pick? Assume you are getting their best single season at Illinois (and if they improved substantially in-season then you are getting the final product).

Mine:

PG: KJ, Trent
SG: Ayo, Plummer
SF: TSJ, Riley
PF: Hawkins, Morez
C: Kofi, Ivisic

Domask, Grandison, and Da'Monte are my three reserves on the bench.

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One of the best pass blocking guards in the league. Played some snaps at LT because the Chiefs needed him to, but he can be a plus starter for the Bears through Caleb’s rookie deal. I expect them to extend him with a 3 or 4 year deal.

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It's been a roller coaster of a season with several phases.

Games 1-6: Young team with lots of talent but not sure if we can beat anyone good.
Games 7-18: Alternate "good" and "bad" games where the good might be a 20-point win on the road at an NCAA team and the bad might be a 10-point home loss that's barely Quad 2.
Games 19-28: This team can't field a healthy roster or make a 3-point shot. Every so often flash a decent win but possibly endure a massive beatdown. Lucky to hold on to an NCAA bid.
Games 29-31+: Hey maybe we're good again!

That last phase has seen a resurgence of "Illinois can be a dark horse Final Four team!"

The big problem (IMO) is that we're looking at a brick wall of some of the strongest 1 and 2 seeds that the sport has seen. The top 8 (Duke, Auburn, Houston, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Texas Tech, Michigan State -- sorry St. John's you aren't it) are all +27.52 or greater in KenPom NetRtg. For context, in 2020 when the season ended there was only one team with a NetRtg that high. All four 1 seeds have higher NetRtg values than the average NCAA champion. We have the exact same NetRtg as we did last year (+24.53) after an Elite Eight, except this year we're #18 in KenPom and last year we were #10. So the NCAA Tournament is not wide open. It's a juggernaut at the top.

We're unlikely to get a top-4 seed this year, so we'll likely have to upset a team to get to the Sweet 16. That's my target this postseason. It will feel like a step back after last year but if we can get to the second weekend and overperform our seed in back-to-back seasons that would be a big step forward for the program as a whole. Then we can bring back our foundation and try to build a true juggernaut next year.

Here's a link to the Illini spring roster: https://fightingillini.com/sports/football/roster

Notable:

* DB Terrance Brooks and OL Magnus Moeller are no longer on the team
* Redshirt freshman Eddie Tuerk moved from DL to OL
* Murphy Clement listed as a DB. He was a RB at West Virginia.
* Demetrius John moved from OLB to DL
* Freshman Jershaun Newton will start out at QB

I read that Coach said that Morez could possibly return for the Big Ten Tournament. Is that remotely possible? Did we ever learn the extent of his injury? Did he need any pins? Was it a break or a fracture? Seems like what I have heard is sketchy. Asking for a friend.

Lucas Byrd just pinned National #1 to become Big Ten Champ at # 133! Awesome display!