This year’s Illinois team might be young, but don’t count them out on making a late push this season.
The Illini have battled injuries for what seems to be two straight seasons and have had a variety of different lineups on the floor. With Gretchen Dolan out for the last month due to injury, key players have had to step up.
The orange and blue, who are currently riding a three-game win streak, have arguably their two biggest games of the year coming up this week. First, a trip to Iowa City to battle
the No. 9 Iowa Hawkeyes, and then finishing out the regular season at home against No. 22 Minnesota.
Even though the Illini are slated to make the NCAA Tournament — and have been for most of the year — it’s still no guarantee, and they’ve played like that in their last three games.
Following a rough stretch to start the calendar year, Illinois finally got to play some bottom-of-the-Big Ten teams — Wisconsin, Rutgers and Northwestern — back-to-back-to-back. If you went in with a bad mindset to any of the games and lost just one of three, the Illini could be sitting outside the bubble. Instead, the orange and blue have a golden opportunity this next week and into the Big Ten tournament to show why this program deserves to be considered with the top team in the Big Ten, and a big reason for that is young players stepping up.
Destiny Jackson
The freshman from Chicago was the No. 1 recruit in the state in the 2025 class. She attended CPS powerhouse Whitney Young and, like Ayo Dosunmu, who went to fellow CPS powerhouse Morgan Park, decided to stay home and possibly start an in-state pipeline to Champaign.
The point guard made history on Sunday in Evanston, becoming the program leader in assists in a freshman year. Jackson has truly done it all this year, being the primary ball handler for a young team. Turnovers are always a problem, it seems, with younger and more inexperienced players. With Jackson, however, it hasn’t been a problem. She’s averaging almost two and a half more assists to turnovers this season, and has made major strides since the start of the season.
With 142 assists on the season, that puts her ninth all-time in Illinois single-season assists. She needs 32 more assists to top Michele Vossen (1983-84) for the single-season program record.
To say the Illini are going to need Jackson in the last two regular-season games and the postseason would be an understatement. In the Illini’s three-game win streak, she has recorded just three turnovers, a vital reason the team has outscored its opponents by 79 points.
Cearah Parchment
Similar to Jackson, Parchment is somehow only a freshman; however, she definitely doesn’t play like it.
The 6-foot-3 forward is currently leading the Big Ten in double-doubles with 11. At the start of the season, I questioned the Illini front-court about how they’d handle not having a ton of height. Parchment, though, has answered all questions in that regard.
In the last three games, Parchment has been on a tear, recording a double-double in all three. With 20 points against Rutgers and 15 rebounds against Wisconsin, the freshman is peaking at just the right time.
It’s not just the stat line I want to talk about, either. Parchment is just a force anytime she’s on the floor. It seems like everygame she’s on the floor diving for loose balls, and forcing an unusual amount of steals for someone of her stature. Her chemistry with Jackson and Berry Wallace only seems to be growing, too, if this main core stays, next year is going to be really dangerous for the Big Ten.
I don’t want to look too far into the future, especially with how important these next two weeks are for the Illini. But Parchment is going to have a lot of big-time programs looking to poach her in the transfer portal this offseason.
Berry Wallace
It almost seems not right to call Wallace ‘young’ at this point, but she’s still only a sophomore.
After a major minutes departure from last year’s team, the only real minutes the Illini returned were Dolan and Wallace. For most avid watchers of the Illini program, it was no surprise this year that Wallace has been the vocal leader for the team. The sophomore is currently leading the team in points per game with 18.8, on elite shooting splits.
Wallace is also having to carry an insane workload. She’s leading the team in minutes, and only seeing the bench just over five minutes per game.
She’s a perfect example of what you should do in the current landscape of college basketball: be developed early on, and take the reins later on. Obviously, that process was expedited with the majority of the minutes graduating from last year’s team, but Wallace easily could have gotten scared from that and hit the portal.
For the Illini’s sake, thank god she didn’t, because without her, freshman stars like Jackson and Parchment might not have been able to shine as well as they have.
It’s crunch time
The Illini are currently slated as an eight seed in ESPN’s latest bracketology. However, if they go into Iowa City and beat the Hawkeyes and beat the Gophers at home, things could change very quickly. Especially if they have a strong showing at the Big Ten Tournament, the Illini could move up to the five, six or seven line.
If the orange and blue want to move up a couple of spots in seeding, though, it’s going to depend on those three players I listed. Sure, Maddie Webber and Jasmine Brown-Hagger are going to need to provide good minutes. But Jackson will have to command the offense, Parchment will have to continue grabbing boards, and Wallace will need to continue leading the Illini.
March is normally when we see experience shine, but the Illini don’t have much of it. However, I don’t think it will be much of a problem.
The last two games of the regular season are going to show us a lot about this team, but with the Illini riding a three-game win streak, the opportunity is now to impress the selection committee. All eyes are going to be on the Illini on Thursday, when they head into a loud environment to take on the Hawkeyes.
