UCLA is just weeks away from starting its second season in the Big Ten. After capturing seven Big Ten championships during their first year in the conference, the Bruins will look to build upon their inaugural year. Prior to the start of UCLA’s second Big Ten campaign, Daily Bruin Sports will preview football, basketball and other top programs from each school.

Football
2024 record: 10-3, 6-3 Big Ten
Coach: Bret Bielema
Player to watch: Luke Altmyer

There’s a buzz around Illinois football entering the 2025 season.

And it’s coming from fans and opponents alike.

For the first time in over 20 years, Memorial Stadium sold out its season tickets, a development likely fueled by the Fighting Illini’s preseason ranking of No. 12 on the coaches poll – their highest since 1990.

Illinois is searching for its first-ever College Football Playoff appearance. Led by Bret Bielema, who has four years of experience at the helm and an additional 17 years of Big Ten resume, the Fighting Illini have multiple veterans who could help the squad claim a slice of the postseason pie.

Calling the shots on the field is Big Ten preseason honoree Luke Altmyer. His speciality? Winning games when the pressure is on. Last season, he was the only quarterback in the nation with three game-winning touchdown passes in the final two minutes or overtime, a stat he leads the nation in across his career.

After starting all 13 games last season, there is little doubt that Altmyer knows how to keep his cool, an asset that will likely prove valuable in his final year under the bright lights of Memorial Stadium.

Illinois’ three losses in 2024 came at the hands of Big Ten opponents. And with No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Penn State, No. 7 Oregon and No. 14 Michigan all joining Illinois in the better part of the rankings, it will have to battle to hold its place. Arguably Illinois’ biggest game of the season is Oct. 11, where it will face Ohio State for the first time since 2017.

And while Illinois will have to topple the conference’s top dogs to fight for a College Football Playoff spot, the Big Ten squads occupying the lower rungs of the division standings can’t be discounted.

Illinois’ 25-17 loss to Minnesota last season – just the latter’s third ranked win in three years – stood in the way of a program record number of single season wins. If the Fighting Illini repeat an upset like that one, it won’t just be the big guns of Ohio State or Penn State that keep Bielema’s squad from carrying the preseason noise into a postseason run.

Men’s basketball
2024-2025 record: 22-13, 12-8 Big Ten
Coach: Brad Underwood
Player to watch: Mihailo Petrovic

Then-freshmen guard Kasparas Jakučionis and forward Will Riley made program history at the 2025 NBA Draft when they became Illinois’ first one-and-done players – an achievement the school probably would have been happier without.

The loss of its freshman phenoms – who were drafted back-to-back in the first round – could further the Fighting Illini’s downward trajectory in the Big Ten standings.

Illinois stood atop the conference in 2024, boasting a Big Ten tournament trophy and a No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament. However, the team finished at a middling seventh in the conference and exited March Madness in the second round only a year later.

For coach Brad Underwood, restoring the Fighting Illini to their recent championship contention comes with the task of replacing the talent that continues to slip out of the team’s grip.

Illinois recently added Serbian guard Mihailo Petrovic after picking up high-demand transfer guard Andrej Stojaković, whose 17.9 points per game led California in scoring last season.

The late-July addition could be a wildcard for the Fighting Illini. While it is unclear how Petrovic will adjust to American collegiate basketball, the 14.2 points, 7.3 assists and 2.8 rebounds he averaged at KK Mega Basket – the same Belgrade, Serbia-based club three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokić played for – suggest he could help fill the hole left behind by Jakučionis.

Regardless of roster turnover, Underwood has proven his consistency.

The Fighting Illini are the only team with a winning Big Ten record in all of the last six seasons and one of only four schools in the nation with six consecutive 20-win regular seasons.

How Illinois’ status as a conference stalwart will persist another season could ultimately come down to the performance of its newly acquired assets.

Women’s basketball
2024-2025 record: 22-10, 11-7 Big Ten
Coach: Shauna Green
Player to watch: Destiny Jackson

Double-doubles. Total rebounds. Rebounds per game. Defensive rebounds. Minutes played per game.

These are all the categories that recent graduate forward Kendall Bostic led the Big Ten in last season. And that doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of her achievements, which include being Illinois’ all-time double-doubles and rebounds leader and recording the third-highest career field goal shooting percentage in program history.

How the Fighting Illini will redistribute the offensive weight without Bostic is a puzzle that awaits coach Shauna Green in her fourth year leading the team. A new batch of talent will certainly factor into the solution, though.

Five-star recruit guard Destiny Jackson leads Green’s freshman recruiting class, which is ranked No. 7 nationally by ESPN. Jackson averaged 21.1 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists in her senior year of high school in Chicago, where she was the state’s top recruit and ranked 25th nationally.

Among those joining Jackson are forwards Manuella Alves and Cearah Parchment – both of whom were also top 100-ranked 2025 recruits, at No. 61 and No. 40, respectively.

The pair will bring international experience after competing at the 2025 FIBA U19 Women’s Basketball World Cup – where Alves posted 14.8 points, 7.7 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game for Brazil, and Parchment averaged 8.1 points, six rebounds and 2.6 assists on Canada’s way to fourth place.

Illinois’ ability to land one of the nation’s top recruiting classes, despite ending the year unranked, is likely thanks to the energy Green has generated around the Fighting Illini in her short tenure.

Since being hired in 2022, Green has recorded double-digit home victories three seasons in a row, won a Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament championship and attracted top-five season attendances at the State Farm Center three times over – all of which are program firsts.

And with the talent of the incoming class, Green is well-poised to tackle the tall task of molding an offense in the post-Bostic era.

Men’s golf
2025 record: 18th at NCAA championship (+23, 887)
Coach: Mike Small
Player to watch: Max Herendeen

After failing to advance from the third round of last spring’s NCAA championship, Illinois men’s golf is likely returning to the 2025-2026 season even hungrier.

The Fighting Illini, who entered the 2025 championship ranked No. 12, fell short of making it into the top 15 teams, even after a season that included three first-place tournament finishes.

A third-round score of 16-over 304 moved the Fighting Illini from ninth to 18th. It was just the second time in the last 10 years that a squad under coach Mike Small that qualified for the NCAA championship did not finish in the top 15.

In his 25 years leading the Fighting Illini, Small has built one of the nation’s best programs. He has earned seven NCAA regional championships – tied for second-most by any coach in the country – won 13 of the last 16 Big Ten championships and coached eight players to individual top-five finishes since 2010 – the most of any school in the country.

Unanimous First Team All-Big Ten selection Max Herendeen, who held the 10th-best stroke average in program history as a sophomore with a team-high 70.84, could likely add to that last count.

Herendeen was Illinois’ highest placing individual in the NCAA tournament, tying for 22nd with a 54-hole total of one-over 217. The rising junior was ranked first among all underclassmen in the nation last season.

The 2025 All-America Honorable Mention will return to Champaign, Illinois after making his PGA Tour debut this summer at the 3M Open. With a new arena of experience, Herendeen could be a national championship contender.