Illinois Basketball: Predicting starting lineup/depth chart for 2021-22 season

The offseason was a circus for the Illinois Basketball program. Despite losing all three assistant coaches, Ayo Dosunmu, Adam Miller, Giorgi Bezhanishvili, and briefly seeing Kofi Cockburn test the transfer portal, the program might have somehow had a net positive offseason. Chester Frazier, Tim Anderson, and Geoff Alexander stepped into the vacant assistant coaching positions and have been hitting the recruiting trails hard.

Illinois is also bringing in three highly touted freshmen and two transfers to fill the void left by departing players. Most importantly, stars like Cockburn, Andre Curbelo, and Trent Frazier are returning with chips on their shoulders following last season’s early exit at the hands of Loyola-Chicago.

Versatility will be the name of the game this season for the Illini. Coach Underwood has a deep squad with a lot of players who will be expecting heavy minutes. The guys who can play multiple positions will have a major advantage in getting minutes over those who are one-trick ponies.

With so many moving pieces, expect Underwood to play around with all sorts of combinations and guys at different spots before Big Ten play. The real depth chart will be a complex, moving puzzle with players at multiple positions.

Some players may be the backup to the small forward and power forward spots. Others may be the starting shooting guard and backup point guard. It all depends. In three months, we will get to see how all the pieces look together on the court, but until then, all we can do is speculate.

Here is what I expect Illinois’s depth chart to look like come opening day…