Illinois got down as many as 15 points in the first half and a chaotic rally to tie it with 61 seconds left resulted in a loss in the 2025-26 regular season finale to No. 22 Minnesota.

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Staff Writer

March 1, 2026

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

CHAMPAIGN — Same song, different verse for the Illinois women’s basketball team.

Another furious second-half comeback will go down as a home loss for Shauna Green’s squad as the Illini dropped its regular season finale to No. 22 Minnesota 78-73.

After the program’s sixth loss in its last 10 games, Illinois will now play on the first night of the Big Ten Conference Tournament for the first time since Green took over the Illini head coaching job. Just three days after a heartbreaking road loss to No. 9 Iowa, Illinois (19-10, 9-9 in Big Ten Conference) erased a double-digit deficit in the second half only to see No. 22 Minnesota to get eight of the final 11 points in the game to walk away from State Farm Center with a victory.

In her WDWS radio interview after the loss, Green lamented another slow start to why her team failed to find what was a key regular season finale game that lands the Illini as the 10-seed in the upcoming 2026 Big Ten Tournament at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

Minnesota (22-7, 13-5) earned the last double-bye spot in the Big Ten Tournament with the victory and will enter the conference tournament as the No. 4 seed. The Gophers got 30 of its 36 first-half points in the paint as they physically dominated everything near the rim until deep in the third quarter.

Sunday marked the seventh game where Illinois has found itself in a double-digit deficit before halftime in a Big Ten Conference contest this season. Between the last two losses to ranked opponents (Iowa and Minnesota) Illinois has surrendered 96 points inside the painted area near the basket.

Sophie Hart ended the afternoon with 17 points and six rebounds but Illinois’ frontcourt players had little answer for Hart’s backup, Finau Tonga, as she finished with 11 points and four rebounds in 18 minutes.

The Illinois rally was jumpstarted by the offensive explosiveness of Maddie Webber as the third-year player produced 14 points on a perfect 6 of 6 from the field. Cearah Parchment battled back from suffering what looked like a scary knee injury just 90 seconds into the contest to post 13 points and eight rebounds in 26 minutes. The problem was Green saw her frontcourt give Minnesota basically any paint touch they wanted on offense through the first 20 minutes of action.

Berry Wallace led the five Illinois players that finished with a double-figure scoring effort as the sophomore totaled 15 points and seven rebounds on 3 of 6 shooting from beyond the three-point arc.

Illinois’ chaos defense and ability to make perimeter shots is what allowed the home team to get the game tied at 70 with 61 seconds remaining. The Illini converted on 10 of 19 from three-point range marking this contest as the fourth in five games where Illinois knocked down a double-digit amount of triples.

With the loss, Illinois will be forced to play on the first night of the conference tournament for the first time since Green took over the program before the 2022-23 season. The Illini will play Wisconsin, which is on a 10-game losing streak stretching back to Jan. 21, with a 5 p.m. CST tip on Peacock in Indianapolis with the winner drawing No. 15 Michigan State on Thursday night. If Illinois can survive back-to-back games against the Badgers and Spartans, they’ll get a rematch with Iowa in the quarterfinals.