2010–11 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team

The 2010–11 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team represented the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in the 2010–11 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. This was head coach Bruce Weber's eighth season at Illinois. They played their home games at Assembly Hall and are members of the Big Ten Conference. They finished the season 20–14, 9–9 in Big Ten play and lost in the quarterfinals of the 2011 Big Ten Conference men's basketball tournament to Michigan. They received an at-large bid in the 2011 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament where they beat UNLV in the second round before falling to Kansas in the third round.

Pre-season
Illinois welcomes back all five starters and its top seven players from last season. The Illini return 89.4 percent of its points, 79 percent of its rebounds, and 85 percent of its minutes played from the 2009–10 campaign. In addition to the returning players, Illinois adds a top-15 ranked recruiting class to its roster. Three true freshmen join the squad this season in guard/forward Jereme Richmond, center Meyers Leonard, and guard Crandall Head. The 2010 recruiting class is ranked No. 11 by Scout.com and No. 13 by both Rivals.com and ESPNU. Richmond earned Illinois Mr. Basketball honors and was selected to play in the 2010 McDonald's All-American Game, becoming Illinois' 13th McDonald's All-American and first since Dee Brown. A top-25 recruit, Richmond averaged 21 points, 11.5 rebounds, three assists and three blocks as a senior. Leonard was a consensus first-team all-state selection who led Robinson High School to the 2010 Illinois state title in Class 2A. A top-50 recruit, Leonard averaged 19 points, 11 rebounds and 4.5 blocks as a senior. Head is the younger brother of former Illini All-American Luther Head. Crandall missed his senior season after having surgery to repair a torn ACL. He is a top-75 recruit who earned all-state honors as a junior, averaging 21 points, seven rebounds and four steals.

Schedule
Source

!colspan=12 style="background:#DF4E38; color:white;"| Exhibition

!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

National rankings
Various publications and news sources released their preseason rankings prior to the start of the 2010–11 season. Illinois has been ranked by the publications below. The Fighting Illini were ranked 13th in the AP Poll and 16th in the Coaches Poll in their respective pre-season polls.