Part 6: The Postseason
The Illini earned the No. 6 seed in the Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament presented by TIAA, their highest seeding since 2013. For the first time ever, the tournament took place at Target Center in Minneapolis, with Illinois taking on 11th-seeded Rutgers in the second round of action.
Illinois dominated from start to finish, with Cook and Bryant combining for 45 points in the 81-55 win over the Scarlet Knights, the team’s third victory over Rutgers during the 2022-23 campaign. The 26-point margin of victory was the program’s largest in Big Ten Tournament history and largest in postseason play since 1981.
“I’m really proud of these guys and how we came out and really executed the game plan from the start. I thought that was key,” Green said after the game. “We talk right now in March, it's about execution. It's about effort. I thought we were elite in both of those.
“I’m really proud of the confidence that our entire team played with. So offensively, we got moving, but that starts with our defense and our rebounding, and then we got in a flow offensively.”
Moving onto the quarterfinals for the first time since the 2010-11 season, the Illini fell to the No. 3-seeded Maryland Terrapins, 73-58. Despite the defeat, Illinois broke its program record for 3-pointers made in a season, with Bryant hitting two triples in the third quarter to push the new all-time mark to 225.
“If you would have told me before the season that we’d break that, I’d say you're crazy,” Green said after the Maryland loss. “That was probably one of the biggest ones. We were No. 1 in the nation in 3-point percentage for a while.
“I credit our players for repping it and getting in the gym. We don't take a lot of threes. We're shooting a high percentage, but we're not jacking threes. We're just not a team that's going to shoot a ton of them. Some teams in our league are known for shooting a ton of them. That's why I also think our efficiency has been higher because we take good threes, rhythm threes, and threes out of our offense.”
The Illini were confident they would hear their name called on Selection Sunday, and their confidence was confirmed when Illinois earned a spot in the First Four of the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship.
Traveling to South Bend, Indiana, to take on Mississippi State in their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2003, the Illini fell to the Bulldogs, 70-56. Cook finished with a team-high 21 points, Bryant registered 17 points, and McKenzie recorded 10 points in her tournament debut.
Illinois ended the season with a 22-10 record, their most wins in a season since 1999-2000 and their third-most in program history, with the 15-win turnaround setting a new program record and becoming the third-biggest in Big Ten history.