Illinois men’s basketball head coach Brad Underwood went big-game hunting when scheduling his team’s non-conference schedule for the 2026-27 season.
This is something that’s been a theme for Underwood and the Illini in recent years, as it gives the team early opportunities to see what things might look like in highly contested games come March.
However, in the upcoming season, there will be a handful of truly premier matchups against some of the blue-blood programs in college basketball.
Let’s take
an early look at the Illini’s four biggest non-conference games in 2026-27.
@ Texas Tech, Nov. 10
For the second installment of a home-and-home series against the Texas Tech Red Raiders, the Illini will be traveling to Lubbock in early November for their first true test of the season.
Last year, the two teams faced off at the State Farm Center in Champaign, where Illinois won by a score of 81-77. The star of the game for the Red Raiders was forward JT Toppin, who dominated down low and put up an impressive stat line of 35 points and 11 rebounds.
Toppin was an All-American in 2026, and while it looked like he’d be out of eligibility, signs point to him donning the red and black once more thanks to the NCAA’s new 5-for-5 rule. However, he tore his ACL in February, so his status may be up in the air in November.
Illinois fans will recognize a familiar face in this game as Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn, who played in Champaign for two seasons and was a member of the Illini’s Elite Eight team in 2024, now plays for Texas Tech.
@ Duke, Nov. 17
The Blue Devils are coming off an impressive season in which they went 35-3 and won both the ACC regular-season and tournament championships before losing to the UConn Huskies in the Elite Eight. Now, they sit as the No. 2 team in the country in ESPN’s latest preseason top-25 with a relatively revamped roster.
Their biggest addition of the offseason should add some fuel to the fire in this one, as they locked down former Wisconsin guard John Blackwell, whom the Illini were reportedly in heavy pursuit of. In his two games against Illinois last year, Blackwell averaged 27.5 points and led the Badgers to two victories.
Last time Illinois and Duke went head-to-head, things did not go well for the guys in orange and blue. Under the bright lights at Madison Square Garden, Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel led the Blue Devils to a dominant 110-67 victory over Kasparas Jackucionis and Will Riley’s Illini in 2025.
Things will certainly have a different feel this season, as the game is taking place at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, North Carolina, one of the most raucous environments in the sport.
v.s. UConn, Dec. 4 — United Center, Chicago
The Illini will get another chance to take down their boogeyman in recent years, the UConn Huskies. It all started in the Elite Eight in 2024 when the Huskies went on a painfully impressive 30-0 run to start the second half and lock up the win, and since then they’ve had Illinois’s number.
Last season, UConn beat the Illini two different times, once in a regular-season non-conference game at Madison Square Garden and again in the Final Four, where they put an end to the deepest Illinois postseason run since 2005.
Getting another chance to go up against one of the best (and most animated) head coaches in college basketball in Dan Hurley is always a good thing for the Illini and Underwood, albeit the newfound rivalry has been pretty one-sided so far.
UConn lost two core pieces over the offseason to the NBA in Alex Karaban and Tarris Reed Jr., but has retooled and will return Silas Demary Jr. and Braylon Mullins, two 10+ points per game scorers last year, on top of that. According to ESPN’s most recent preseason top-25 list, UConn is the No. 5 team in the country.
v.s. North Carolina, Jan. 30 — Bridgestone Arena, Nashville
For the first time since 2010, Illinois will have a showdown against one of the most iconic programs in all of college basketball, the North Carolina Tarheels.
It will be the first year of a new era for UNC, as they made a splash during the offseason by hiring Michael Malone to be their new head coach. Despite not having much of a background coaching at the collegiate level, Malone has 23 years of coaching in the NBA and won a title in 2023 as head coach of the Denver Nuggets.
The Tarheels are one of the winningest programs in the sport, as they boast a record 21 Final Four appearances and over 2,400 wins. The team will be full of new faces, as some top recruits and transfer portal acquisitions will be donning the Carolina Blue.
Illinois played in a non-conference game in Bridgestone Arena last season, when they defeated the Tennessee Volunteers, 75-62, and this iconic clip of Illini center Tomislav Ivisic was born.
