I saved day four to go with today’s number, three, for a very non-historical reason. This year’s current pre-season rankings by some of the advanced analytic sites. These guys are some of the best in the business are are sky-high on the Illini this year.
KenPom has Illinois No. 4 in its preseason ratings. EvanMiya has the Illini No. 3. That gives us a pretty good reason to put both numbers together this morning. Today is a double feature, and we have three days until Illinois takes the floor at Cincinnati.
Preseason rankings are a fun way to spend October. Give an Illinois fan two computers that like his basketball team and see how quickly he finds the refresh button. We’ll get our first look against somebody else on Saturday. Until then, there’s plenty to enjoy about seeing Illinois that high.
So let’s give four and three some company. We’ve got No. 4 and No. 3 winning on the road, a couple of shooting nights, and enough overtime to test the patience of anyone waiting for the television.
Luther Head wore four and Brandon Paul wore three
Luther gives us the number on the jersey and the number of threes.
On January 15, 2005, Head scored 26 points in Illinois’ 78–66 win at Northwestern. He made four threes, scored seventeen of his points after halftime, and helped the Illini reach 18–0. The best start in school history now belonged to that team, moving it past the Flyin’ Illini.
Evanston had been trouble the year before. Illinois had led by nine at halftime and lost by ten. This time, Deron Williams picked up his fourth foul with 11:39 left, giving everybody another reason to be a little uncomfortable.
Luther took care of that. His final three pushed the lead to eighteen, and he celebrated with a chest bump with Dee Brown. The No. 1 team in the country was going home with another win. No. 4 had done a helluva lot to make it happen.
No. 3 took his turn on a much longer road trip.
On December 8, 2012, Brandon Paul scored 35 as No. 13 Illinois beat No. 10 Gonzaga 85–74 in Spokane. Both teams were unbeaten, and John Groce’s first Illinois team came out of there 10–0.
Gonzaga scored the first eight points and led by eleven before Illinois pulled even at halftime. Paul kept supplying answers. When the Bulldogs got within 75–71 late, he scored through a Kelly Olynyk foul and made the free throw. Seven-point lead, 2:29 left.
He finished 10-for-16 from the field, 5-for-9 from three, and 10-for-11 at the line. There were three steals and two blocks, too. If you’re going to stay up for a game in Spokane, that’s a pretty good way to spend the evening.
Four threes and one last three
Kylan Boswell gives us another No. 4 who brought four threes along for the ride.
On March 13, 2025, Boswell scored a then-career-high 24 points in Illinois’ 106–94 Big Ten Tournament win over Iowa. He went 10-for-14 from the field, made four of seven threes, and finished with seven assists against one turnover.
Illinois led by only two early in the second half. Boswell’s back-to-back threes later pushed the lead into double digits for the first time. Tre White scored 22, Will Riley had 21, and Tomislav Ivisic added nineteen with ten rebounds.
Payton Sandfort made eight threes for Iowa, and the Hawkeyes still lost by twelve. Sometimes the best response to an opponent who won’t stop scoring is to hang 106 on him. Illinois had never scored that many in a conference tournament game.
Jalen Coleman-Lands needed considerably fewer points to provide a memorable finish.
On November 23, 2015, Illinois beat Chicago State 82–79 in Springfield on his three from the corner. The freshman wore No. 5, but he made four threes that night. The last one supplies our three and saves everybody a lot of grief.
Illinois had trailed by fourteen. Malcolm Hill helped rescue it late, stealing the ball and finding Khalid Lewis for the tying jumper. After a Chicago State shot-clock violation, the Illini had 4.6 seconds.
Hill pushed the ball, drew two defenders, and found Coleman-Lands in the corner. The shot left his hand with one-tenth of a second remaining and went through after the horn.
Four threes, twelve points, one very relieved Illinois bench. That last three is the one we’re still talking about.
Four overtimes and then three
Of course, sometimes the numbers tell you how long it took to get everybody home.
On January 28, 1984, Illinois beat Michigan 75–66 at Assembly Hall in four overtimes. They were tied at 46 after regulation, 57 after the first overtime, 62 after the second, and 64 after the third. Illinois finally won the fourth extra period 11–2.
Bruce Douglas played all sixty minutes. Efrem Winters and Quinn Richardson each played fifty-five. Doug Altenberger played fifty-four and George Montgomery fifty-one. Lou Henson got a whole lot of basketball out of those five guys.
Winters led the Illini with 23 points. Douglas had ten points, four assists, and three steals, while apparently deciding the bench could get along without him.
Five days later, Illinois needed two overtimes to win at Iowa. Douglas played all fifty minutes of that one, too. One hundred ten minutes in two games, both wins. Take a bow, Bruce.
The 2015–16 Illini needed three overtimes to win 110–101 at Rutgers on February 3. Malcolm Hill finished with 32 points, fourteen rebounds, and five assists in forty-nine minutes.
They really could have saved him some work. Illinois led 86–79 with twenty-nine seconds left in the first overtime. Rutgers still tied it, with Corey Sanders missing a three, getting his own rebound, and making another one at the buzzer.
After another tied overtime, Illinois finally opened the third with nine straight points. Hill made all ten of his free throws in that period, and the Illini went 12-for-12 as a team. Coleman-Lands added 26 points and six threes for the game.
After blowing a seven-point lead in twenty-nine seconds, twelve straight free throws sounds pretty freaking good.
That takes care of four and three. The computers have supplied their numbers, and the old box scores have supplied plenty of reasons to smile.
Illinois opens its exhibition schedule at Cincinnati on Saturday, October 17, at 4 p.m. Central.
Three days. Let’s go, Illini!!
What did I miss?