Green Street The secret's out
- Story byThe News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.
- Green Street The secret's out
Oct. 28—The Illinois women's basketball team might have missed out on playing a Top 25 opponent during the nonconference portion of its 2026-27 season.
That mystery team was, of course, supposed to be No. 7 Louisville. But a scheduling conflict led to the Illini not playing the Cardinals this upcoming season.
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Still, coach did schedule a "secret" scrimmage against Kentucky, as the the 23rd-ranked Illini hosted the 14th-ranked Wildcats this past Saturday at State Farm Center in Champaign.
It's the second straight year the two teams have played a closed-door scrimmage against one another.
Wildcats coach disclosed that his team played Illinois, although he did not reveal what the result was.
"It's a perfect scenario for us," the third-year Kentucky coach said during his team's on-campus media day on Tuesday. "We went and played Illinois who's going to be a very, very good basketball team. And it was kind of like role reversal. Last year, when they came to us, they were a little bit younger and we were more experienced, older. This year we were the less experienced team. They brought back 98 percent of their scoring from last year, and it was the best scenario that we could have asked for.
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"You can go somewhere and beat someone by 100. You know feel good about yourself, but did you learn anything? And what I've, you know, garnered over my years (in coaching) is that these exhibitions, these scrimmages, you want to learn about your team, and we learned a lot. We played very well during stretches. We had some some scenarios that we need to clean up and it gave us that. We got to gauge ourselves against another Top 25 team, and that's what we really (liked) — and on the road without a scout. It was really good for us. We had some really good performances from some kids. I saw my freshmen for the first time with the lights on what they were capable of doing. So, we were very pleased when we walked out of it, but we also know we have got a lot of work to do."
It's clear why Brooks and Green would view a scrimmage as valuable. In many ways, the Wildcats have taken the steps Green hopes her Illini team can navigate this upcoming season. Kentucky, after all, made it to the Sweet 16 last season while finishing with a 25-11 record, as the Wildcats were one of the few road teams to reach the NCAA tournament's second weekend as Brooks and Co. won 74-73 at West Virginia in the second round before a 76-54 loss in a regional semifinal to Texas.
It's also a Kentucky roster with plenty of experience led by veteran center . But the Wildcats also went in the transfer portal and landed (Alabama), (Florida) and (Connecticut) while also adding highly-touted Slovenian guard in the offseason.
On the flip side, Illinois is a team with nequally high aspirations heading into the 2026-27 season with the top nine players in terms of minutes played returning from a 22-win NCAA tournament team with the Illini trying to break through after back-to-back second-round exits.
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That Illinois will play just one exhibition game — on Friday night against Division II Illinois-Springfield — made playing Kentucky a no-brainer.
It's a subject associate head coach was asked about on Monday evening during her WDWS radio appearance during 'The News-Gazette Sports Page' at the Esquire Lounge in downtown Champaign.
"Well, we did have one (a "secret" scrimmage)," McEntire said. "I know everybody's been wanting to know (how it went and who we played). This time of year it's just awesome to get to play against somebody else, right. For us, we always love as coaches to be able to play against a high-level opponent and have film. It's so great. Film never lies — both good and bad. And so, it's been so great to have some film, be able to break that down. For me personally, I don't think anything really surprised me.
"Our team is a very competitive team, and we have been doing that on a daily basis and so I just loved how aggressive they were at doing what our identity is, which is defend, rebound and run. And we hit that paint a number of times, went to the free-throw (line) a number of times, and so, we're starting to form an identity with this team, and we did some of the things that we really hoping we would do. I don't know if I'm surprised (by what we saw in the scrimmage), but we walked away going, 'OK, I feel like we're on the right path, but we do need to get better, we have to clean stuff up and we have not arrived by no means.'"
