Illinois Fighting Illini

The Fighting Illini won 20 of 25 games as favorites in 2025-26 and still lost money backing them there: the five defeats included prices of -600 and -500. Wisconsin delivered two of them.

Short prices, big misses

Illinois was favored 25 times, won 20 and covered 15. One unit on each of the 22 priced favorite moneylines still lost 1.71 units. The three shortest-priced losses: 90-92 at home to Wisconsin at -600, 80-83 at home to Nebraska at -500, and 88-91 to Wisconsin again in the Big Ten quarterfinal at -375. The other two were 94-95 at UCLA at -290 and 86-90 to Alabama at -140. Nebraska was repaid on 1 February, 78-69 on its own floor with Illinois getting 1.5.

The underdog side paid instead. Getting points they went 3-3 straight up and 3-3 against the spread, and in five priced underdog games the Illini made 2.29 units, with an 88-82 win at Purdue at +220 and 75-62 over Tennessee at +114. Away from home the 10 priced road moneylines made 3.11 units; the 13 at home lost 1.89.

Twelve in a row

From 22 December to 4 February Illinois won 12 straight, a run that opened 91-48 over Missouri and closed 84-44 over Northwestern. January alone was 8-0 and 3.51 units. February was 4-4 and gave back 2.59.

Against the spread

Over the season: 18 covers in 31 lined games, 58.1%; 10 of 16 at home and 6 of 10 on the road. The offense scored 84.38 a game, a figure only 20 Division I teams beat, and 18 of 32 games still went under.

After the Big Ten

In the NCAA tournament Illinois beat Penn 105-70, VCU 76-55, Houston 65-55 and Iowa 71-59, then lost the Final Four 62-71 to UConn, the same team that had beaten them 74-61 in November.

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