Illinois women’s basketball will return to State Farm Center in Champaign on Sunday, January 18, to host Northwestern in a Big Ten matchup. The game is scheduled for 2 p.m. CT and will be streamed on Big Ten Plus and broadcast on the Busey Bank Illini Sports Network.
Illinois enters the contest ranked No. 25 nationally with a 14-4 overall record and a 4-3 mark in conference play. Northwestern stands at 8-10 overall and 2-5 in the Big Ten.
Head coach Shauna Green leads Illinois into its 52nd season of women’s basketball. Green holds a career record of 233-114 over twelve seasons, including a 77-39 record at Illinois during her four-year tenure. She has guided the Illini to six consecutive wins over Northwestern since taking over as head coach, after the program had previously lost fourteen straight to the Wildcats.
A win against Northwestern would move Illinois to an even all-time home record against their in-state rival and give Green her seventh straight victory over the Wildcats. It would also mark Illinois’ first 5-3 start in Big Ten play since the 2022-23 season.
Illinois has shown improvement under Green, achieving notable program milestones such as tying its best non-conference win total (10), going undefeated in December (6-0), and posting its best start through fourteen games (13-1). The team also recently completed an eleven-game winning streak that matched a program record spanning two seasons.
The Illini have been efficient with ball control since Green’s arrival, ranking second in the Big Ten for fewest turnovers per game for three consecutive seasons. The current season average is just under thirteen turnovers per game, maintaining their place among Division I leaders.
At the free throw line, Illinois leads both the conference and Division I this season with an accuracy rate of 83.3%. This continues a trend from previous years where they finished atop or near the top of league rankings for free throw percentage.
Junior guard Maddie Webber has provided scoring off the bench this year before making her first start at Michigan due to injury within the starting lineup. Webber averages 11.7 points per game while shooting nearly fifty percent from the field and forty-six percent from three-point range.
Sophomore forward Berry Wallace has increased her scoring output significantly compared to last season, now averaging more than nineteen points per game along with nearly seven rebounds per contest. Wallace began this campaign with four consecutive twenty-point performances—an achievement unmatched by any player from Power Five or Big East conferences so far this year.
Freshman Destiny Jackson is one of only thirteen players across Division I averaging at least eight points, four rebounds, five assists, and more than one steal per game; she records fewer turnovers than most peers meeting those benchmarks.
Northwestern comes into Sunday’s matchup having won just once on the road this season. Head coach Joe McKeown announced he will retire following next year’s campaign after nineteen seasons leading the Wildcats.
Illinois trails Northwestern in their all-time series but has narrowed that gap under Coach Green’s leadership by winning every meeting since she took charge of the program.
The Illini are currently ranked No. 25 in the Associated Press Top-25 Poll—the fourth consecutive season they have appeared in national rankings during Green’s tenure as head coach.
