Illinois Never Had The Profile Of A Champion

It was a tough ending for Illinois in the Final Four as they lost to a UCONN team that had control of the contest pretty much throughout. We already talked about how Illinois bucked some strong trends of even reaching the Final Four after losing their first conference tournament game as only 5 of the previous 100 team under such a scenario reached that stage. Even more pronounced is that NO team has ever won the NCAA Tournament in the modern age without winning at least one conference tournament game. Add in that Illinois only hit on 7 of 13 trends regarding what a national champions looks like and it was no shock here they are heading home. 

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