Big Ten Breakdown: Illinois Women’s Basketball on the Rise
Images by University of Illinois Athletics
Champaign, Illinoi (PSF) - This past year, the University of Illinois Women’s Basketball program had one of the best seasons in a very long time. Last season, they finished sixth overall in the Big Ten conference with an 11-7 record. This was astounding compared to their former season, 2021-2022, when their conference record was 1-13. In a matter of one season, Illinois completely changed their program, so how did they do it?
Last year, their program welcomed a new head coach, Shauna Green. Coach Green came from the University of Dayton and accepted a head coaching position at the University of Illinois. Along with herself, Coach Green brought two players from Dayton as transfers to Illinois and meld together her old program with the new one, Brynn Shoup-Hill and Makira Cook. For a coach to have players transfer schools in order to stick with her speaks volumes to the program she can create. In a matter of one season, she changed the program at the University of Illinois. Illinois beat ranked Iowa during the season and had many close games, only losing by a bucket or two, against multiple other ranked opponents last season. Eventually, they were ranked in the top 25 in the country, maintaining that status on and off throughout the season, and they even went to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2003.
This upcoming season, they are looking to push even further than last season. They have 10 girls from their team last year returning to play and are bringing in two amazing freshmen in Cori Allen and Gretchen Dolan along with a few great transfer pickups in a sophomore from Duke University in Shay Bollin and a fifth-year senior from NC State University in Camille Hobby. This is an amazing, well-rounded group of young women to go into the season with, they have a lot of all around talent. Illinois Women’s Basketball is the best they have been in years and hopefully can prove that with integrity in this upcoming season.
