NCAA Basketball: Best bets for 2021-22 regular-season power league titles

Big Ten: Illinois Fighting Illini +500

For the 4th-straight season, the Big Ten standings have been decided by one game or less. Head coach Juwan Howard was able to capture his first title leading his alma mater, with excellent returns at a price of +1100, but the Wolverines only managed it by a 0.5 game over Illinois. The Illini were small underdogs to pull off the title, but throughout the season Brad Underwood’s team proved time and again they were very dangerous and ready to claim the top prize.

While Covid pauses had a (potential) role in that outcome, the Illini enter this season in a very similar position as slight underdogs in the conference race. Despite losing leading scorer Ayo Dosunmu and veteran big man Giorgi Bezhanishvili to the NBA, as well as promising guard Adam Miller to LSU, Illinois has a plethora of talent to contend again. The return of Big Ten player of the year candidate Kofi Cockburn is a huge reason why there is tremendous optimism among the Illini faithful.

Cockburn took another big developmental step forward last season increasing his double-digit production closer to 20 per night than 10. A much more efficient player as well, the junior will look to maintain his dominance even among the conference’s stout frontcourt rivals. With him locked in his normal role anchoring the paint, Coach Underwood can look to utilize the combined skillsets of Florida transfer Omar Payne and sophomore Coleman Hawkins to situationally attack opponents.

The backcourt stable for Illinois also features a similar situation with the return of veteran sharpshooter Trent Fraizer and savvy sophomore Andre Curbelo. The duo was close to both eclipsing the 10-point per game mark in the 2020-21 campaign, but the absence of Dosunmu and Miller from the rotation will definitively drive both over that threshold. In fact, Curbelo’s excellent feel for the game and court vision will drastically help to navigate the team’s offseason losses.

Outside of their returning core of players, Coach Underwood added productive Utah transfer Alfonso Plummer to the mix this season. Plummer’s strong reliability on the perimeter gives Curbelo another target to kick the ball to for easy shooting looks. While The Curbelo-Frazier-Plummer backcourt is highly possible to start the year, Coach Underwood has a deep group of guards and wings behind the trio to contribute whenever called upon.

Having a full season on the table is big news for this Illinois team and the strong continuity from last year’s squad will help pave the way towards Big Ten competitiveness. There are also questions around other title contenders in the conference creating avenues for the Illini to finish where they left off to end 2021.