Illinois Year in Review | Top male athletes

Early picks in both the NFL and NBA drafts.

A national champion. All-Americans. Big Ten honors.

The list goes on, but our Scott Richey spotlights Illinois’ Top 10 male athletes from the 2023-24 school year:

1. Terrence Shannon Jr.

Men’s basketball

Shannon proved he was one of the top players in the country during the regular season and earned All-Big Ten First Team and Third Team All-American honors. Then he was even better in the postseason with as dominant a run through the Big Ten tournament as any player in conference history and, save for the Elite Eight loss to Connecticut, the same type of production in the NCAA tournament. His final season at Illinois averaging 23 points, four rebounds and 2.3 assists goes down as one of the best in program history.

2. Tate Costa

Men’s gymnastics

The list of NCAA champions in the high bar from Illinois is an impressive one that includes the likes of C.J. Maestas (2015), Jordan Valdez (2014), Paul Ruggeri (2008, 2009) and Justin Spring (2004, 2005) in the last two decades. Costa joined that group in April with a score of 13.900 to claim his first national title. The Narragansett, R.I., native also finished seventh in the all-around to snag a second All-American honor, making him the first Illini since Bobby Baker in 2018 to earn multiple All-Americans honors in a single season.

3. Johnny Newton

Football

Newton arrived in Champaign ahead of the 2020 season as a consensus three-star recruit without all that much fanfare. He left with multiple postseason honors on his résumé. The 6-foot-2, 295-pound defensive tackle was Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, a consensus All-American and a finalist for the Nagurski Trophy. All because he was a menace in opposing backfields with 52 tackles, 81/2 tackles for loss, 71/2 sacks, nine quarterback hurries and four blocked kicks.

4. Aiden Ouimet

Men’s track and field

Last season was the beginning of Ouimet’s breakout for Illinois, as he started to piece together the necessary results to turn into a legitimate contender in the heptathlon and decathlon. This season was simply the continuation. Ouimet won the heptathlon at the Big Ten indoor championship (a program first) and set a program record in the process. First Team All-American honors followed after his fourth-place finish at the NCAA indoor championship. Outdoors, the Chicago native broke the school record for the decathlon with 7,794 points.

5. Jackson Buchanan

Men’s golf

Illinois’ streak of Big Ten Golfer of the Year winners continued with Buchanan, who picked up the mantle this spring from three-time winner Adrien Dumont de Chassart and became the program’s 13th winner of the coveted individual honor during the Mike Small era. The junior out of Dacula, Ga., won a pair of individual tournament titles at the Purdue Fall Invitational last October and the Duck Invitational in March before finishing as the runner-up at the Big Ten championship. He closed out his season as a GCAA Third Team All-American.

6. Karlis Ozolins

Men’s tennis

Ozolins followed up his solid sophomore year with even more success as a junior. The 6-4 Latvian was able to repeat as an All-Big Ten First Team selection this spring, but he tacked on more honors at the national level after finishing the season ranked No. 25 in singles and No. 9 in doubles with Hunter Heck. Ozolins was 19-11 in singles play and 28-8 in doubles in his third year with the Illini and was both a singles All-American and doubles All-American after reaching the round of 16 at the NCAA doubles tournament with Heck.

7. Edmond Ruth

Wrestling

Ruth certainly kept up his family tradition of wrestling success in the 2023-24 season. The younger brother of three-time national champion Ed Ruth at Penn State, Edmond Ruth posted a 26-4 record this season and dropped just a single dual match during Big Ten action. His success in the conference continued at the Big Ten championship where he won his first title at 174 pounds. Qualifying for the NCAA championship for a second straight season, Ruth earned his first All-American honor with a seventh-place finish this past March in Kansas City, Mo.

8. Tyler Sudduth

Men’s track and field

Three years of development helped turn Sudduth into a Big Ten champion, an All-American and a program record holder in his senior season. The Richton Park native set the Illinois record in the weight throw at 75 feet, 11 inches in January in Iowa City, Iowa, and won his first conference title one month later in the same event at the Big Ten indoor championship. Sudduth did shot put outdoors and earned First Team All-American honors after placing seventh at the NCAA championship.

9. Camden Janik

Baseball

Dan Hartleb couldn’t keep Janik out of the lineup this spring, with the Illini’s starting catcher getting days “off” at designated hitter each weekend series. Janik started 55 of a possible 56 games and led Illinois with a .356 average and 15 doubles to go with seven home runs, 49 RBI and near flawless defense behind the plate with just a single error all season. That type of two-way performance helped the Wauconda graduate earn both All-Big Ten First Team status and ABCA/Rawlings Third Team All-American recognition.

10. Isaiah Williams

Football

No other Big Ten wide receiver saw the volume of touches that Williams did during his fifth season at Illinois, with his 82 catches 15 more than any other player in the conference. Those 82 receptions also got him to 214 for his career, which ranks Williams only behind College Football Hall of Famer David Williams (no relation) in program history. The St. Louis native finished 2023 with 1,055 receiving yards (second in the conference) and five touchdowns (including game-winners against Minnesota and Indiana) to earn All-Big Ten First Team recognition.