We might never get another Aaron Jordan or Malcolm Hill — a four-year scholarship player who never makes a NCAA Tournament. The closest the Illini might get again is with Trent Frazier and Da’Monte Williams, and the two of them still have two years to make a tourney (which is most definitely the expectation right now).
Clearly, those two players (Frazier and Williams) are only juniors, and they’re only considered because the two seniors on this year’s team don’t qualify by that logic. There’s Andres Feliz, who enters his second and final year with the Illini, and Kipper Nichols, who technically is playing his fourth season for Illinois, but didn’t play the entire 2016-17 season.