By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Staff Writer
May 13, 2026
CHAMPAIGN — Illinois and Duke have announced a historic home-and-home, two-year agreement that will end with the Blue Devils making its first ever trip to the Champaign campus.
The agreement, which was announced Wednesday morning, will begin this upcoming season with Illinois making its third appearance to Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C., a year after the Illini made its first Final Four trip since 2005 and Duke is coming off a 35-3 campaign with an NCAA Tournament regional final appearance, along with Atlantic Coast Conference regular season and tournament titles.
The road game at Duke on Nov. 17 will be its fourth game of the 2026-27 season that will take place away from State Farm Center in Champaign. Illinois also has a road game at Texas Tech as part of the back half of a home-and-home agreement that started with the Illini defeating the Red Raiders in Champaign 81-77 on Nov. 11, 2025. Illinois also is slated to play a rematch from its most recent Final Four loss to Connecticut at the United Center in Chicago as part of the back half of a two-game series that started with a 74-61 loss to the Huskies on Nov. 28, 2025 in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. Finally, Illinois will continue the Braggin' Rights series game against Missouri at Enterprise Center in St. Louis near Christmas 2026.
This matchup inside Cameron Indoor Stadium in a few months could be an early-season game featuring Top 5 programs as Duke, which is slated to return four of the top six scorers from last year’s roster that will be injected with talent from the transfer portal that include former Wisconsin leading scorer John Blackwell, Belmont transfer Drew Scharnowski, Loyola Maryland transfer Jacob Theodosiou and four five-star high school signees (Cameron Williams, Deron Rippey Jr., Bryson Howard and Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje). Illinois could likely be returning five of the top eight scorers (Andrej Stojakovic, David Mirkovic, Tomislav Ivisic, Zvonimir Ivisic and Jake Davis) that will joined by Providence transfer Stefan Vaaks along with four-star prospects Quintin Coleman and Lucas Morillo with three-star prospects Ethan Brown and Landon Davis.
Duke leads the all-time series 6-3 but the Illini are undefeated in two matchups (1995 and 2020) at Cameron Indoor Stadium. This matchup in November will be drastically different from when former All-America selection Ayo Dosunmu led the Illini with 18 points and 12 rebounds to a 83-68 victory in front of no fans in the stands due to the coronavirus health pandemic regulations of the 2020-21 season.
Duke has wins against Illinois all coming in various neutral site environments at Madison Square Garden (2025), Chicago’s United Center (1994 and 1999), the Maui Invitational in Hawaii (2007), Georgia Dome in Atlanta (2004) and the Greensboro (N.C.) Coliseum (2000).
This series is Illinois' fourth scheduled home-and-home contract with a power conference program in the Underwood era, following Arizona, Tennessee, and Texas Tech.
Duke will be making its first ever appearance inside the State Farm Center building slated for Saturday, Dec. 4, 2027. Since Jon Scheyer took over the Duke program prior to the 2022-23 season after the retirement of Mike Krzyzewski, the Blue Devils are 4-1 all-time in true road non-conference games with wins over Tennessee, Army, Michigan State and Arizona.
