1943–44 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team one player from the 1942-43 season, Gordon Horton, who wasn't even a starter, which meant the entire lineup was made up of rookie/unproven players. The starting lineup consisted of Walton Kirk, Howard Judson, Ray DeMoulin, Bob Morton, Don Delaney and Gordon Gillespie. !colspan=12 style="background:#DF4E38; color:white;"| Non-Conference regular season !colspan=9 style="background:#DF4E38; color:#FFFFFF;"|Big Ten regular season 1943–44 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team The 1943–44 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team represented the University of Illinois. March 1, 1943, changed the future of Fighting Illini men's basketball when the team was broken up due to all five starters from back-to-back Big Ten
Ron Jacobs (basketball) was to improve the quality of basketball in the Philippines. After watching some Philippine Basketball Association games, he came up with the idea of naturalizing American collegiate players as Filipinos, to pass basketball technology to Filipino cagers. Jacobs formed his first team in 1981; it had eight American players (Steve Schall, Steve Lingerfelter, Bruce Webster, Willie Polk, Eddie Joe Chavez, Jeff Moore, Dennis Still and Michael Antoine), two Filipino-Americans (Willie Pearson and Ricky Brown) and two local players (both from San Beda - JB Yango and Frankie Lim). The starting unit for that team included the 7'0 Steve Schall, the