Where Do We Stand? February 5th
Oh, we stand.
The last three seasons, when writing the Where Do We Stand articles and compiling the I-N-I, we've, uh, never been this high. We're 5th in the I-N-I this week and that's the highest we've ever been. And this is on the heels of being 25th in the final football I-N-I, also the highest we've ever been (I didn't compile an IlliniBoard NERDstat Index during the 2022 season - I started in 2023 - so 2025 is our best finish). The two takeaways from this paragraph:
- Believe it or not, the 2026 basketball team NERDstats much better than the 2024 team.
- Believe it or not, the 2025 football team NERDstatted much better than the 2024 team.
NERDstats as a verb. A first.
We have a lot to talk about here, so let's get right to the I-N-I:
The IlliniBoard NERDstat Index
As always, these are the forward-looking numbers. The "should" numbers. They look at your statistics and tell you what kind of season you should be having, not the kind of season you are having. UConn is 22-1 (.956 winning percentage) on the season, but when using the NERDstats, their winning percentage should be .874 this season. They're a 22-1 basketball team that really should be 20-3. Conversely, Florida is 16-6 (.727) but they really should be 18-4 (.812). If you're wondering why 16-6 Florida is ahead of 22-1 UConn on KenPom right now, well, there you go.
That's not technically why Florida is ahead of UConn on KenPom, of course. Florida is ahead of UConn because their adjusted efficiency margin is +31.26 while UConn's is +30.62. I'm simply explaining the "should" side of predictive metrics. Wins and losses are irrelevant. They're looking at what kind of basketball you play. You shouldn't ever seed a bracket based on "should" (because that would be saying that hypothetical victories matter more than actual victories) but "should" gives us a really good idea of who is playing great basketball and who isn't.
News flash: Illinois is playing great basketball.
Here's the current I-N-I as of this Thursday evening:
