Green 'scaled back' nonconference schedule in year three with Illini

CHAMPAIGN — The Illinois women’s basketball team’s nonconference schedule has yet to be finalized. Or at least be officially announced. But it’s clear Shauna Green took into consideration how tough the third-year Illini coach expects the Big Ten to be next winter — especially with the additions of Southern California and UCLA — as she formulated a plan for the ideal nonconference schedule.

Without a doubt, Illinois was hurt — at least seeding-wise — by a weak non-Big Ten schedule in Green’s first year when the Illini made a return trip to the NCAA tournament but had to play in one of the First Four games as a No. 11 seed.

This past season, Illinois struggled early against a more challenging nonconference schedule. Makira Cook’s concussion, which forced the Illini point guard to miss three games in November, contributed to that slow start. Still, Illinois failed to take advantage of key nonconference opportunities against the likes of Marquette, Notre Dame, Missouri and Arkansas. Losing all four saw the Illini enter the Christmas holiday with a 6-5 record.

And Illinois really hovered at or just below .the 500 mark the rest of the regular season.

With that in mind, Green admitted earlier this month she’s been forced to rethink how she puts together a nonconference schedule after her first two seasons with the Illini.

“Last year, I think we scheduled right,” Green said. “I think we had some, maybe bad luck, with some injuries, at certain times. I also think it was a little too hard for that year. I think we have dialed it back a little bit. Our conference we’re going to have all the opportunity that we need for NET games and top-25 games, especially with the new four (teams) coming in. So I really looked at that and maybe scaled back a little bit with not playing as many high-level Power Five (opponents). But still we want to play good competition. We don’t want to go and blow everybody out. That’s not going to make us better, either. We’re trying to find that fine line in between.”

Illinois does know the 18 games it will play during conference play this upcoming season. That was announced back in early May with the Illini playing home games against Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska, Penn State, Purdue, Washington and Oregon while facing Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio State, Rutgers, Wisconsin, UCLA and USC for road matchups. The only Big Ten team Illinois will play twice is Northwestern with one game at State Farm Center and the other one in Evanston. That means the four new Big Ten members have been evenly split home vs. away with the Huskies and Ducks joining the Bruins and Trojans as Big Ten newcomers.

UCLA reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament last March with the Bruins losing 78-69 to LSU in a regional semifinal in Albany, N.Y., and finishing with a 27-7 record. Crosstown rival USC made it one step further, thanks to freshman sensation JuJu Watkins, who finished second behind Iowa star Caitlin Clark in scoring with Watkins averaging the second-most points nationally at 27.1 points per game. The Trojans, who will have Watkins back after posting a 29-6 record in 2023-24, watched their season end with an 80-73 defeat to Connecticut in a regional final in Portland, Ore.

Nothing really is known about what the Illini’s nonconference schedule might look like. And Green offered few hints. The only real consistent matchup has been the Braggin’ Rights showdown with Missouri. If that continues, the matchup would be in line to happen at Mizzou Arena in Columbia, Mo., after the Tigers held on for a 69-66 win against the Illini last December in Champaign.

Still, the way Green has scheduled has been an adjustment after coaching at Dayton for the previous six seasons before taking the Illinois job in March 2022. With the Flyers, Green had to load up the schedule with high-major nonconference games to help pad Dayton’s NCAA tournament resume.

“It’s been completely opposite (at Illinois), and again, I really took into play the new league,” Green said. “I mean USC and UCLA are going to be top-five teams. That’s two more, Washington and Oregon, obviously, they are reloaded and they are going to be really good. Our league is so good. Maybe one or two really good games in the nonconference and I also thought last year compared to the first year when we didn’t play as many good teams I thought we were able to develop confidence. I thought last year our confidence really went up and down because we could never really get into a rhythm, whatever that may be, so I kind of took the last two years and really looked at it, and that’s how we really went about our schedule this year.”