The 1942âÂÂ43 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team represented the University of Illinois.
The 1942âÂÂ43 Illinois Fighting Illini menâÂÂs basketball team represented the University of Illinois, finishing the season with a 17-1 record. Illinois won the Big Ten Conference Title and finished the regular season as the nations' top ranked team in the Dunkel Index. The season was cut short as three of the five starters headed off to active duty in the armed forces. Paced by a group of players known as the Whiz Kids, the team consisted of 20-year-old All-America forward Andy Phillip and teenagers Ken Menke, Gene Vance, Jack Smiley and team captain Art Mathisen. These players were so dominant in the Big Ten that only Northwestern's Otto Graham could crack the all-conference team.
The Army drafted Mathisen, Menke and Smiley. Head coach Doug Mills made a decision in February 1943 that all five always supported: the club did not participate in either the NCAA or NIT tournament. In June 1943, Vance and Phillip joined the military as well. The team was retroactively listed as the top team of the season by the Premo-Porretta Power Poll.
Four of the five, minus Mathisen, returned to Illinois and tried to recapture the glory for one more season in 1946âÂÂ47 after the war ended, but the chemistry had changed as well as their talent. Illinois went 14âÂÂ6.
The final living Whiz Kid, Gene Vance, died in 2012.
|- !colspan=12 style="background:#DF4E38; color:white;"| Non-Conference regular season
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|- !colspan=9 style="background:#DF4E38; color:#FFFFFF;"|<span style="color:#FFFFFF;">Big Ten regular season</span>
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