Illinois has not won a conference game in FB or BB since March 1, 2017. 345 days when they play at Wisconsin Friday.

Anyone recall longer FB+BB conference winless streaks at the P5 level?

(01-17-2018 08:07 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  Illinois has not won a conference game in FB or BB since March 1, 2017. 345 days when they play at Wisconsin Friday.

Anyone recall longer FB+BB conference winless streaks at the P5 level?

Pretty sure Northwestern of the 70's-90's were just as bad or worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northweste...f_futility

That's not good, but the statistic makes it sound worse than it is. There's a stretch of more than six months in there, from about the first week in March to about the last Saturday in September, in which they played no conference games in football or men's basketball.

If the question is, has any FBS school ever had a winless conference season in football and also in men's basketball in the same school year, the answer is no for the obvious candidate, Northwestern -- they have multiple conference 0-fers in both sports, but not in the same school year. Kansas State might seem like a candidate based on their pre-Snyder football ineptitude, but they are historically better in men's hoops and didn't have any basketball conference 0-fers in the seasons I looked at.

BC went winless in conference games in FB and BB in the 2015-2016 season. The only other team to do that in recent history was TCU (as part of the SWC) in 1976-77.

The sad thing is that not too long ago, Illinois had decent to pretty good football & basketball programs.

They should serve as a warning that hiring the wrong coaches can ruin your program(s).

"Thank God for Kansas!"

--Fighting Illini FB

All joking aside, there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest.

When you have zero competition in your state (no, NIU isn't competition) you don't have much reason to care

(01-17-2018 11:57 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  BC went winless in conference games in FB and BB in the 2015-2016 season. The only other team to do that in recent history was TCU (as part of the SWC) in 1976-77.

Illinois is now 0-8 in Big Ten men's hoops after going 0-9 in football this season, so they are 10 games away from joining that club. They probably won't, though, because they still have two games left against Rutgers (2-6) and a home game against Penn State (3-5).

I wish there was an incentive-based program for power schools that seem to squander their birthright into the power ranks. Being a power school seems to not be treated as the privilege it is by many schools.

(01-23-2018 02:18 PM)BePcr07 Wrote:  I wish there was an incentive-based program for power schools that seem to squander their birthright into the power ranks. Being a power school seems to not be treated as the privilege it is by many schools.

There is an incentive program, and there are consequences: Coaches and ADs that rarely win in the sports that matter to fans lose their jobs and probably never get to be head coaches or ADs at P5 schools ever again. Assistant coaches are also tainted if they're with a program that loses the vast majority of its conference games. They're all trying to win, even the ones that struggle like Illinois is doing this year.

And, a lot of these programs bounce back. The thread above mentions that Boston College was winless in ACC football in 2015, but a few years before that they were in the ACC title game. Illinois has been good in hoops in the recent past even though their current state is bad. They've played in the NCAA tournament 10 times since 2000.

The streak is over. The ILL men's basketball team beat Indiania 73-71. After stating the conference basketball season 0-8, ILL is now 1-8.