$20 Million Dollar Club

Twenty million dollars.

That’s the line Isaac Trotter and Matt Norlander drew in their new CBS Sports report on college basketball roster spending, and Illinois sits on the far side of it.

They spoke with more than 100 people in the various programs and around the sport. Then they projected which programs will spend more than $20 million on their 2026-27 rosters. Eleven made the cut. Illinois is one of them.

In the Big Ten, only Michigan is in the same neighborhood. Indiana isn’t far behind. The average Big Ten roster runs $12.7 million, by Trotter and Norlander’s count. So Illinois is spending more than $7 million above what a typical conference opponent spends.

For Illinois, the most important word is retention. Most of that money didn’t go toward new faces. It went toward keeping the ones already in Champaign. David Mirkovic. Andrej Stojakovic. Tomislav and Zvonimir Ivisic, the twin centers.

Illinois and Michigan are the top dawgs in the Big Ten. Retention was not cheap for the Illini, but keeping David Mirkovic, Andrej Stojakovic and the rest of the Balkans was well worth the price of admission. The Illini were prepared to dole out top-of-the-market money for Year 2 of Keaton Wagler, but he went pro (smart decision), so the Illini's Final Four hopes hinge heavily on just how good Providence transfer guard Stefan Vaaks and five-star guard Quentin Coleman can become.

I’m not predicting another Final Four, but that would be an amazing accomplishment. Winning a National Championship? I don’t even want to dare to dream.