After 21 years of waiting, Illinois (28-8) is finally back in the Final Four. The road to college basketball’s grandest stage was long and bruising, and now the Illini are here at last. Only problem: Waiting on the other side is the closest thing college basketball has to a supervillain – Dan Hurley and the UConn Huskies.

The UConn Huskies’ NCAA Tournament domination

UConn (33-5) isn’t just a great team having an exceptional season. It’s a program that has come to expect this kind of success. The Huskies have won two of the past three national championships, and Hurley has gone 17-1 in the NCAA Tournament since 2023. At this point, calling UConn a powerhouse almost feels like an undersell. This is a budding dynasty, and Hurley has proven he is as good as anybody in the sport when the calendar flips to March.

Illinois knows that better than most. In the 2024 Elite Eight, UConn rolled the Illini 77-52 and used a 30-0 run to turn a high-stakes game into a blowout. To be fair, the Huskies were steamrolling just about everybody during that stretch, so Illinois was hardly alone. Still, that kind of loss stays with you. It takes a irremovable place in the memory bank, and becomes part of what makes this rematch feel so important to the Illini.

UConn: A unique offense

A huge reason the Huskies are so difficult to beat is because they do not play like most modern offenses. So many teams today favor offenses that are built around ball screens, isolations, matchup-hunting and one guard dribbling for half a possession while everyone else stands around waiting to see what happens.

That is not UConn.

The Huskies play with constant motion. The ball moves. The players move. Cutters fly through the lane, shooters relocate and defenses are forced to process everything in an instant. There is a rhythm to it that can make even a good defense look disorganized. One missed switch or one late rotation, and suddenly the ball is at the rim or headed to an open shooter.

It’s not especially flashy. It’s just brutally efficient. UConn doesn’t always beat teams by overwhelming them with one star going nuclear. Sometimes it beats them by making them guard every inch of the floor until they finally crack.

The big test of the Big Dance

This is where the challenge gets even bigger. In the NCAA Tournament, nobody has weeks to build a perfect scouting plan. Turnarounds are short, practices are limited and opponents often have to learn on the fly. That makes UConn’s offense even more dangerous, because it isn’t something teams can fully replicate in a couple of walk-throughs.

And that’s not just a March thing.

In UConn’s three Final Four runs over the past four seasons – 2023, 2024 and now 2026 – the Huskies have lost a total of two non-conference regular-season games. One was a four-point road loss at Kansas in 2024. The other came this season in a four-point home loss to Arizona, in a game missed by injured star big man Tarris Reed Jr. That’s a pretty telling stat. Teams that catch UConn for the first time usually don’t walk away happy.

Illinois’ big advantage against UConn: familiarity

The good news for Illinois is that this will not be a blind date.

The Illini have already seen this offense up close. UConn beat Illinois 74-61 on Black Friday earlier this season and, of course, dismantled the Illini in that Elite Eight meeting two years ago. That hardly guarantees that Illinois will shut the Huskies down this time. But it does mean the Illini are not walking into this game blind to UConn’s timing, spacing and swirling movement.

Seeing UConn once gives Illinois a much better sense of what it takes to defend the Huskies. The Illini know how quickly UConn swings the ball, how hard it cuts, how disciplined it is off the ball and how fast one small mistake can turn into a layup or an open three. That experience should make this week’s preparation more valuable, because Illinois isn’t getting ready for some unfamiliar system. It’s preparing for something it has already seen up close.

Why exposure to UConn matters for Illinois

There is some evidence that opponents are better equipped the second or third time around against the Huskies’ machine.

UConn lost second meetings in Big East play this season to Creighton at home and Marquette on the road. Neither of those teams was especially dominant this year. The Huskies also lost to St. John’s once, beat the Red Storm the second time, then lost again the third time. In other words, most of UConn’s struggles came against teams that already knew what was coming.

That’s notable. UConn has lost only five games all season. Four of those losses came against conference opponents that were familiar with the Huskies. The only other one was the four-point Arizona loss without Reed.

The Illinois on SI bottom line

Illinois should be better prepared for UConn than most teams in March have been. The Illini have already seen the ball movement, the cutting and the overall rhythm of Hurley’s offense. They know this isn’t a team you can relax against for even a few possessions. They know what happens when UConn gets comfortable. Everyone in orange and blue remembers that well enough.

But recognition is only step one. The next step is surviving it.

Illinois has spent 21 years waiting for another Final Four opportunity. Now it gets a rematch with the program that once slammed the door on its championship hopes. UConn will still be a brutal challenge, but the Illini aren’t walking into this one blind. They have seen the movement, felt the pressure and know the standard they have to meet – and that’s a much better place to start than the alternative.

While almost all sports betting is now legal and easy in Illinois, wagering on home-state Illini basketball to win the NCAA Final Four is illegal. And that is no doubt surprising and frustrating a lot of Illinois basketball fans as they go to their favorite online betting site, only to find that they can’t bet on their own team here.

U of I may be a winner on the court this season, but they are losing on the wagering front in Illinois.

On the popular gambling site Draft Kings, there is a harsh reality for Illini fans: the school doesn’t exist as a betting option in the Final Four. U of I’s Saturday game against Connecticut is missing and off limits under an Illinois law that prohibits gambling on all in-state NCAA universities.

Right now, there are only three choices to bet on for the National Championship, and Illinois is M-I-A.

When sports betting was made legal in 2020, the Illinois General Assembly in Springfield passed a specific cut-out for in-state teams: all NCAA schools – any game, championship or not – is banned for you to bet on. And in the last six years, sports betting here has generated more than $59 million, and is increasing each year.

“We have definitely seen an increase in people coming in to treatment,” said Anita Pindiur, executive director of the Illinois Council on Problem Gambling. “We have seen about a 30 to 35% increase in young adult males, 18 to 35,” Pindiur said.

For U of I this is a total ban that even includes the trendy “prop” bets, where you concoct your own proposition wager on anything. For instance, betting that the long-banned Chief Illiniwek will make a return at the Final Four. Prop bets involving anything Illini are no-go.

But apparently, those customary friendly bets between state governors are exempt from the Illinois ban. Gov. JB Pritzker – who said he was recently lucky to win 1.4 million dollars in a Vegas blackjack game – on Monday said he has some kind of interstate sports bet brewing with Connecticut’s Democratic Gov. Ned LaMont.

“I already got a call from the governor of Connecticut, because we’re playing against the University of Connecticut on Saturday. And he wants to make a bet…a public…so you’ll be hearing about that,” Gov. Pritzker said.

Gov. Lamont’s spokesman told NBC Chicago the wager details are now being finalized, and Pritzker’s office told us there would be an announcement with details on Tuesday.

Illinois is now the nation’s second-biggest legal sports betting market and is not alone with this regulation. Several other states have similar local school laws. 

We asked U of I officials about the ban on local college bets here. A university spokesperson told us: they aren’t involved in any efforts to change the law or those restrictions. There is one legal workaround: drive to Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin or Michigan and go to a casino sportsbook there to place a bet on the Illini.  

For anyone who needs help due to gambling abuse, the Illinois Council on Problem Gambling hotline is 1-800-GAMBLER and it is staffed 24/7 with experts who speak numerous languages. There are also problem gambling resources available at the Illinois helpline: Areyoureallywinning.com

Order The News-Gazette’s commemorative front pages here

CHAMPAIGN — The Final Four is set.

Illinois will face Connecticut the first national semifinal game with a 5:09 p.m. Saturday tip at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis after the Huskies upset Duke in the Elite Eight on Sunday in Washington, D.C. Arizona and Michigan will be the nightcap in Indianapolis in the opposite side of the bracket.

The Illini are listed as a slight favorite.

The Illini (28-8) clinched their spot in the national semifinals with a 71-59 victory against Iowa on Saturday night in Houston, securing the first Final Four appearance for the program in 21 years.

UConn (33-5) trailed by as many as 19 points in the first half and faced a 15-point deficit at halftime before flipping the switch on Duke in the second half. Braylon Mullins’ logo three-pointer with 0.4 seconds remaining in the game sent the Huskies back to the Final Four for the third time in four years with a wild, come-from-behind 73-72 victory.

Illinois and UConn met on Black Friday in New York, a 74-61 victory for the Huskies. That marked the Illini’s fourth straight loss in the series to UConn, which included an Elite Eight loss in 2024 when the Huskies won their second straight NCAA championship. 

UConn holds a 4-1 advantage in the series history. Illinois’ only win was a 49-23 victory on Dec. 21, 1938, at Huff Gym.