2002–03 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team

The 2002–03 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team represented University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the 2002-03 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. This was head coach Bill Self's third (and final) season at Illinois.

Season
The 2003 squad started three freshmen, a sophomore and one senior, and still finished with a 25-7 record and second-place finish in the Big Ten. Brian Cook earned Big Ten Player of the Year honors and the Illini won the Big Ten tournament championship for the first time.

Schedule
Source

!colspan=12 style="background:#DF4E38; color:white;"| Non-Conference regular season

!colspan=9 style="background:#DF4E38; color:#FFFFFF;"| Big Ten regular season

!colspan=9 style="text-align: center; background:#DF4E38"| Big Ten tournament

!colspan=9 style="text-align: center; background:#DF4E38"| NCAA tournament



NCAA basketball tournament

 * West regional
 * Illinois 65, Western Kentucky 60
 * Notre Dame 68, Illinois 60

Awards and honors

 * Brian Cook
 * Big Ten tournament Most Outstanding Player
 * Big Ten Player of the Year
 * Chicago Tribune Silver Basketball award
 * Team Most Valuable Player
 * Fighting Illini All-Century team (2005)
 * Sporting News 2nd team All-American
 * Associated Press 3rd team All-American
 * National Association of Basketball Coaches 3rd team All-American
 * Basketball Times 3rd team All-American