Dare To Dream

1985, 2002, & 2005. That's it. That's the list. Those are the only Illini basketball seasons with similar expectations to 2027. We've been ranked in the top-5 of the preseason poll exactly three times ever. And now, with Andrej back, 2027 will make four.

Because we're going to be ranked in the top-5. Maybe as high as #2. Perhaps I should just start with a list of why:

• We just went to the Final Four.
• We return five of our top seven players from that Final Four.
• We will have four seniors (Andrej, Jake, Tomi, and Z).
• We have a returning sophomore who might have been Big Ten Freshman of the Year if it wasn't for Keaton Wagler winning the award.
• We added a player from Providence who would have been Big East Freshman of the Year if it wasn't for Nigel James at Marquette.
• We added a top-15 freshman guard.

That's a top-5 team. Probably a top-3 team. That's a team with Final Four expectations (not aspirations, expectations). As I said on the Light The I episode yesterday, losing in the Sweet Sixteen would be a fairly large disappointment (much like 2002). Elite Eight is the bar. Final Four is the expectation. National title is the aspiration.

This means, of course, that there's a 70% chance you're disappointed with the 2027 season. Maybe 80%. Going to back-to-back Final Fours is very, very difficult. Florida won a title in 2025, got a one-seed in 2026... and lost to 9-seed Iowa in the Round of 32. It happens to nearly everyone in a single-elimination tournament.

But let's get to that in a bit. I want to talk more about that list above. Mostly, I want to talk about Quentin Coleman.

He was named to the USA Basketball U18 squad yesterday. Which means we get to spend June streaming that tournament again (just like we did when Ayo made the team and when Ty Rodgers made the team). In terms of ranking, he's the #2 Illini high school recruit of the last 30 years. Yes, it's time to return to my RSCI list.

The RSCI has been finalized for the 2026 class (and updated once since it was finalized since 247 and Rivals then did one final rankings revision in mid-May). Here's where Coleman landed:

Yes, that's right. He's ONE OF THE SEVENTEEN best players in his class.

RSCI has existed since 1998 and is the only true record of rankings back to then. Rivals numbers can be trusted back to the mid-2000's, 247's rankings are only good starting around 2012 or so, but Jeff at RSCI has been compiling his list since 1998. There's no "let's try to re-create the rankings from the 2000's" here like there is with 247's rankings.

And I've kept a running Illini list since that time. With international recruiting and re-classifying being quite popular of late, I've had to supplement Jeff's rankings at times (for example, his final 2025 RSCI came out before Will Riley reclassified from 2026 to 2025 so once the services ranked him within the 2025 class I used Jeff's formula and then charted where his total points would have been in that class). So here's my current list of Illini recruits in the RSCI since 1998. The 13 highest-ranked recruits of the last 29 high school classes. We'll call this my Baker's Dozen:

13 Will Riley*
17 Quentin Coleman
19 Dee Brown
20 Brian Cook
21 Frank Williams
23 Andrej Stojakovic
24 Jereme Richmond
26 Morez Johnson
28 Richard McBride
29 Adam Miller
29 Meyers Leonard
31 Kylan Boswell*
32 Ayo Dosunmu

*reclassified after the RSCI was completed for that year so I had to calculate their ranking and then place them in their class based on their point total

I think this will perhaps make my point the best:

2002 RSCI: Dee Brown #19, Deron Williams #48
2026 RSCI: Quentin Coleman #17, Lucas Morillo #47

So now let me put it all together.

-> Keaton, Mirk, Kylan, Tomi, Andrej, Ben, Jake, and Z go to the Final Four.

-> Kylan and Ben graduate and Keaton goes off to the NBA but everyone else from the 8-man rotation returns.

-> We replace Keaton with the #17 player in the class, we replace Kylan with the #47 player in the class, and we replace Ben with a kid from Providence who just scored 16 points per game as a freshman.

Dare. To. Dream.

Look, like I said above, the likely scenario is disappointment. Florida fans, coming off a national title, in a season where they got a one-seed, were disappointed with their 2026 season. Our 2002 squad (coming off an Elite Eight with everyone back besides Sergio and Marcus) was ranked #3 in the preseason poll but after the Lucas Johnson ACL tear we just never seemed to get there. We got a 4-seed, made the Sweet Sixteen, and lost to 1-seed Kansas. When you're #3 preseason, a loss in the Sweet Sixteen is disappointing.

But that's the great thing about expectations like these. We're here. We're not going away. We lost a lot after the 1989 Final Four and we lost a lot after the 2005 Final Four. After the 2026 Final Four, we brought back more than we ever have. We have four seniors. We have a sophomore transfer superstar (something that wasn't possible in 1990 or 2006 unless he had been sitting out the season before) and a couple potential freshman stars. And I'm not even discussing the possibility that someone like Zavier Zens is a Mirk-like "where did THIS kid come from?" next season.

Dare to dream, people. It's all happening. I'm done saying "we're back" because it doesn't tell the story any more.

We're here.