| Illinois Fighting Illini In addition to the conference’s athletic prowess, it also has a well deserved reputation for high academic standards. In the 1985 book Public Ivies, nine of the Big 10’s 10 public institutions (Northwestern is the only private university in the conference) were deemed to “provide an Ivy League collegiate experience at a public school price.” The decision to favor the Big 10 brand over accuracy is understandable. Founded in 1896, the Big 10 is the oldest Division I college athletic conference in the United States. The conference as a whole provides nearly a hundred million dollars annually in direct financial aid to over eight thousand male and female student-athletes. For the fourth season in a row, 2007-08 saw five or more Big Ten teams earn twenty or more regular season wins in men’s basketball. Wisconsin set a school-record with 31 wins, the Michigan State Spartans recorded 27, the Purdue Boilermakers and the Indiana Hoosiers each won 25 contests, Ohio State won 24 and Minnesota notched 20 wins. Awesomeseating.com is your go-to broker for NCAA Basketball tickets. Whether you’re looking for cheap seats behind the backboards, a luxury sky-box or something closer to courtside, we’re your Awesome ticket broker for Illinois Fighting Illini tickets for the basketball regular season and Illinois Fighting Illini postseason tickets. Since 1963 home court for the Illinois Fighting Illini has been Assembly Hall in Champagne, Illinois. Capacity for basketball is 16,618. The season average home attendance ranges in the 16,400 range. Illinois Fighting Illini had a disappointing 2007-08 season, finishing ninth with a won-loss record of 16-19 overall, tied for second worst in the Big 10 with the Michigan Wolverines with a 5-13 record in conference contests. The team was not among the 64 teams invited to participate in the 2008 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. It was only the fifth time the team has missed March Madness since 1979. The Fighting Illini have been Big Ten regular season conference champs 17 times since 1915, including five of the past eleven seasons. In 2004-05 the Illini tied the NCAA record for most wins in a season with a record of 37–2. The team beat Arizona to go to the Final Four of the 2005 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, which they lost to the North Carolina Tar Heels. Bruce Weber has been head coach of the The Fighting Illini since the 2003 season. His overall record with the team as of the end of the 2007-08 season is 138-48, with a conference record of 53-29. The trend during Weber’s time in Champagne-Urbana is troubling. After making it to the Sweet Sixteen in his first year with the club and going all the way to the National Championship game in year two, the Weber-led Illini start 2008-09 needing to reverse a three-season long slide that has seen the team get eliminated in the second round in 2006, eliminated in the first round in 2007 and miss the NCAA 2008 Tournament entirely. |