Green Street 'Positionless basketball'

Sep. 2—The Illinois women's basketball team has built a roster around having players that can do more than just one thing. It makes a lot of sense in today's game to have players that can play one than one position on the floor. But the 2026-27 roster Illini coach has assembled might be the closest thing Illinois has had to the idea of positionless basketball. "It's huge," redshirt junior guard said. "Being on a very versatile team it's fun just because it's kind of like positionless basketball, and I think you can do a lot of stuff within the offense and defense and combining both of those. And I think once you have a group of people on the floor that you know are really versatile, it opens everything up." Where — and how — that shows up for Illinois this upcoming season remains to be seen. Still, the Illini are hoping it allows this team to take that next step as a program. Expectations are high for this group of players. Especially given that Illinois had instant success last season with one of the youngest teams nationally producing a 22-12 record and a first-round NCAA tournament win against Colorado as a No. 7 seed. "It gives us flexibility," Illini associate head coach said. "Absolutely. We have got versatile players. You know we can go big. We can slide some people over and go really big. We can go small against some of these teams in the nonconference that don't have as many bigs that we could struggle to guard a little bit. We just have a lot of flexibility. "I think when you look at our team, it's not just the depth offensively. We have got some depth defensively also. And with Coach Green really hammering home our defense — defense is going to help us win games — and we score a lot in transition. So, if don't defend, we don't get those opportunities. So, we're excited about the depth in a lot of different areas for our team."