Green Street | Early bracketology

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Sign up for our daily basketball newsletter here Welcome to "Green Street," your dose of women's college basketball news from Illini beat writer and AP Top 25 voter Joe Vozzelli.

He'll offer up insight on Shauna Green's Illini team and the women's game at large every week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Selection Sunday is 165 days away.

Of course, there's also the matter of, you know, a four-month regular season and the conference tournaments before the field of 68 for the NCAA women's basketball tournament is revealed.

But seeing its name show up on Selection Sunday is among the top goals for Illinois and third-year coach Shauna Green .

One the Illini missed out on last season.

A WBIT championship and a veteran roster with an all-senior starting five has Illinois poised to get back in the Big Dance after an NCAA appearance in 2023.

ESPN's Charlie Creme thinks the Illini are a solid NCAA tournament team entering the 2024-25 season.

His latest bracket update in mid-September projected Green and Co.

as a No.

7 seed (a drop of one seed line from the 6-seed he had for Illinois back in the spring).

But still far from a bubble NCAA team.

Creme's 68-team bracket had the Illini going to Ames, Iowa, in a four-team pod with Tennessee, host Iowa State and North Carolina A&T.

A first-round matchup with 10-seed Tennessee would be an interesting draw for Illinois with the Volunteers still looking to rekindle what made Tennessee great under the late Pat Summitt .

First-year coach Kim Caldwell is a break from the Summitt coaching tree in Knoxville, Tenn., after Holly Warlick and Kellie Harper couldn't bring the Vols back to their previous heights.

Green has made clear she thinks her team is capable of reaching the second weekend of the NCAA tournament.

A fairly lofty aspiration considering the Illini have only ever reached the Sweet 16 twice in school history (and haven't won an NCAA game since 2000) with back-to-back Sweet 16 trips in 1997 and 1998 under Hall of Fame coach Theresa Grentz .

But this Illinois team is trying to take advantage of a five-player core group of Makira Cook , Genesis Bryant , Adalia McKenzie , Kendall Bostic and Brynn Shoup-Hill that has been together from the start of the Green era before the 2022-23 season..

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