College basketball success requires more than talent. Time and time again, schools that feature lineups loaded with freshman phenoms (Kentucky’s teams of recent vintage) or that assemble a great transfer portal class (Kansas in 2024-2025) more often than not still flop in March.
The missing ingredient for those squads: roster retention, chemistry and experience within a system. In what may come as a surprise to most, Illinois will be in better position in that regard than most heading into the 2025-26 season.
According to college basketball analytics expert Bart Torvik, whose ranking system is now used by the NCAA Tournament committee, the Illini are projected to return 45.0 percent of their player minutes from last season. That number is good for No. 11 among Power 5 programs and fifth among those that made the NCAA Tournament.
Power 5 college basketball teams with the most projected returning minutes, per Torvik:
Purdue 69.7%
Arkansas 59.3%
Marquette 53.8%
Stanford 53.8%
Notre Dame 53.5%
SMU 50.8%
BYU 49.9%
Ohio State 49.8%
Northwestern 49.7%
VT 46.5%
Illinois 45.0%
UCLA/ISU 43.0%
MSU 41.7% pic.twitter.com/2885Rrsxif— College Basketball Report (@CBKReport) May 5, 2025
Upheaval has been the theme of Illinois’ offseason, with three key contributors departing via transfer and two more poised to head off to the NBA. Yet coach Brad Underwood and his staff were also able to coax back starters Tomislav Ivisic, Kylan Boswell and Ben Humrichous, as well as sub Jake Davis, in what has been dubbed more than once on social media as “The Retention.”
Returning key minutes has been the difference-maker for many college hoops programs in recent years – including the Illini.
After a successful 2020 campaign that ended prematurely due to COVID, Illinois brought back stars Ayo Dosunmu and Kofi Cockburn, culminating in a Big Ten Tournament title and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
A few years later, after a 2023 season that ended in a first-round NCAA Tournament exit, Underwood returned starters Terrence Shannon Jr., Coleman Hawkins and Ty Rodgers. That experience paid off, leading to another Big Ten Tournament championship and an Elite Eight appearance.
After last year’s inconsistent campaign, the Illini are hoping to again make a push. With the addition of experienced newcomers such as Andrej Stojakovic, Zvonimir Ivisic and Mihailo Petrovic to the returning group, the pieces appear to be in place for Illinois to potentially make a Final Four run – which would be its first since 2005.
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