IU basketball returns from a lengthy break on Sunday afternoon against Illinois at the State Farm Center. The Hoosiers will take on the Fighting Illini at 1 p.m. ET on CBS.
The Hoosiers are 17-8 overall and 8-6 in the Big Ten and Illinois is 20-5 overall and 11-3 in league play.
With six regular-season games remaining, we’re in the home stretch of the 2025-26 IU basketball regular season.
After losing four straight games from Jan. 10 through Jan. 20, the Hoosiers rebounded with five wins in six games to climb onto the right side of the NCAA tournament bubble.
Indiana’s next two games are both on the road before it returns home to finish with three of its final four contests in Bloomington.
Up first is a meeting with Illinois, which has dropped its last two games and was thin on depth in its most recent loss to Wisconsin in Champaign. The Fighting Illini are No. 6 in KenPom as of Friday morning.
MEET THE FIGHTING ILLINI
Brad Underwood has a Final Four caliber roster this winter in Champaign and the Fighting Illini were in a solid position for the Big Ten regular season title before an overtime loss at Michigan State last Saturday and an overtime home loss to Wisconsin on Tuesday.
Now two games behind Michigan in the league standings, Illinois can’t afford any slip-ups and will need help to draw even with the Wolverines in the race for the league title. Illinois hosts Michigan on Friday, February 27 and has an otherwise favorable schedule the rest of the regular season.
Boasting the nation’s top offense, Illinois is the nation’s tallest team and one of the best perimeter shooting groups in the country.
Illinois has been without guard Kylan Boswell (broken right hand) since the Maryland game on January 21 and was without wing Andrej Stojakovic (ankle) in the Wisconsin loss earlier this week. With those two players out, Illinois played six players against the Badgers and a sparingly used freshman, Brandon Lee, logged one minute.
Boswell is said to be nearing a return and the Fighting Illini are also hopeful Stojakovic will be able to play sooner rather than later. Boswell, a 6-foot-2 senior, averages 14.3 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.4 assists in 31.8 minutes per game and Stojakovic, a 6-foot-7 transfer from Cal, averages 13.7 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 27.7 minutes per game. Both are excellent at the rim, with Boswell shooting 60.4 percent on 2s and Stojakovic 58.1 percent on 2s.
The headliner on the Illinois roster is freshman guard Keaton Wagler, a three-star recruit who is in the mix for the Big Ten player of the year award and All-American honors. The No. 261 prospect in the 247Sports Composite rankings for the 2025 class, the Shawnee, Kansas, native averages 18.5 points, 4.9 rebounds and 4.3 assists in 33 minutes per game. The 6-foot-6 Wagler is a likely lottery pick in June’s NBA draft and has limitless range. He’s shooting 43.7 percent on 3-pointers and has attempted a team-high 180 free throws, where he’s shooting 80 percent.
Once Boswell and Stojakovic are fully healthy to pair with Wagler, Illinois is a legit threat to cut down the nets in Indianapolis in April.
Junior Jake Davis and senior Ben Humrichous are 3-point specialists who can make opponents pay if left. The 6-foot-6 Davis is shooting 39.8 percent on 3s and the 6-foot-9 Humrichous is shooting 35.2 percent from distance. Both players have made 37 3-pointers.
Freshman David Mirkovic, a 6-foot-9 forward from Niksic, Montenegro, is an excellent rebounder and 3-point shooter. In 28.8 minutes per game, Mirkovic averages 12.6 points, a team-leading eight rebounds and 2.5 assists. He’s shooting 38.4 percent on 3s and has connected on 38 triples.
Up front, the Ivisic brothers provide size and floor spacing. Tomislav, who is 7-foot-1, averages 10.4 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.6 steals in 25.4 minutes per game, while Zvonimir, a 7-foot-2 center who previously played at Kentucky and Arkansas, averages 7.2 points, 5.4 rebounds and a team-leading 2.3 blocked shots in 17.8 minutes per game.
TEMPO-FREE PREVIEW
(All stats for conference games only and updated through Thursday.)
Illinois is the toughest cover in the Big Ten and is scoring a league-best 1.244 points per trip in conference games. The Illinois are shooting the highest volume of 3-pointers in the league and are connecting at a 36.7 percent clip.
In Big Ten games, 54.8 percent of the Fighting Illini’s field goal attempts are 3-pointers and they’re scoring 44 percent of their points in Big Ten play off of 3s, the second highest in the conference.
Illinois is the Big Ten’s third-best offensive rebounding team and is second-best on the defensive glass. The Fighting Illini don’t try to turn you over and also have the lowest opponent free-throw rate in the conference. To have a chance to stay in the game, Indiana is going to need a 3-point shooting performance like that of Wisconsin, which made 16-of-36 in the State Farm Center.
WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO
Indiana enters Sunday’s contest as a double-digit underdog in KenPom and Bart Torvik. Pomeroy’s ratings favor Illinois by 11 with a 16 percent chance of an IU win and Torvik’s ratings favor Illinois by 10 with a 17 percent chance of a Hoosier victory.
The Hoosiers face an uphill battle in their next two games against Illinois and Purdue on the road before a more favorable slate to close out the regular season. Indiana has four more Quad 1 opportunities and the analytics say Sunday’s contest is the most difficult game remaining on the schedule.
Indiana has had a chance to rest this week after its West Coast road trip and two games in three days and will need to play its best 40 minutes of basketball this season to pull off an upset in Champaign.
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