2016–17 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team

The 2016–17 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team represented the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in the 2016–17 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. Led by fifth-year head coach John Groce, the Illini played their home games at State Farm Center as members of the Big Ten Conference. They finished the season 20–15, 8–10 in Big Ten play to finish in ninth place. They lost in the second round of the Big Ten tournament to Michigan. They received an invitation to the National Invitation Tournament where they defeated Valparaiso and Boise State before losing in the Quarterfinals to UCF.

On March 11, 2017, Illinois fired head coach John Groce. Shortly thereafter, the school announced that Assistant coach Jamall Walker would coach the team in the NIT. On March 18, the school hired Brad Underwood as the new head coach.

Previous season
The Fighting Illini finished the 2015–16 season with a record of 15–19, 5–13 in Big Ten play to finish in 12th place in conference. The Illini defeated Minnesota and Iowa to advance to the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament where they lost to Purdue.

2016 recruiting class
On September 16, 2015, Te'Jon Lucas of Milwaukee, Wisconsin verbally committed to attend Illinois in the fall of 2016 and signed his National Letter of Intent to finalize his recruitment on November 11, 2015. Lucas attended the NBA Top 100 camp in June 2015, had scholarship offers from California, Memphis, Purdue, and Wisconsin, and he strongly considered both USC and Old Dominion before committing to Illinois. Lucas is only the third player from the State of Wisconsin to commit to Illinois, and is the first since 1926.

Schedule and results
Source:

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

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

!colspan=12 style="background:#; color:#;"| Big Ten regular season

!colspan=12 style="background:#; color:#;"| Big Ten tournament

!colspan=12 style="background:#; color:#;"| NIT