Green Street | Hanging more banners at Ubben

To subscribe, click here. Sign up for our daily basketball newsletter here Welcome to "Green Street," your dose of women's college basketball news from Illini beat writer and AP Top 25 voter Joe Vozzelli. He'll offer up insight on Shauna Green's Illini team and the women's game at large every week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Shauna Green has referenced it before. The idea of looking up at the banners — or lack thereof — on the south end of the Illinois women's practice gym at Ubben Basketball Complex. There are very few, after all. Although one specific one stands out: the 1997 Big Ten championship banner the Theresa Grentz -led Illini added. That 1996-97 team was back in town this past weekend, celebrating what will be next year the 30-year anniversary of that team's title, as No. 23 Illinois won 99-28 against Southern last Saturday afternoon at State Farm Center in Champaign. The Big Ten title team was recognized during halftime with Grentz, who's in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, joined by several of her former Illini players. Grentz took the mic for a nearly three-minute speech, during which she spoke about the high ambitions of Green and her coaching staff. "This new group, they're doing a great job," Grentz said as she addressed an announced crowd of 4,768 fans at State Farm Center. "Their goal is to win the Big Ten championship and the national championship and to go on and get this thing done. So, ladies and gentlemen, Illini, thank you to (athletic director) Josh Whitman . Thank you (senior woman administrator) Sara Burton, the whole crew, K.B. (assistant director of development, Varsity I Kendall Bostic ) who have done a great job taking care of us. You're wonderful. Thank you." Green was asked in the postgame press conference about what it's meant to have Grentz and that 1996-97 Illinois team back on campus. But it's not just been that. Some of Green's former players — starting with Bostic, who's become a key voice on the WDWS radio broadcasts as the color analyst alongside play-by-play announcer Mike Koon — have stayed connected with the program. A Friday practice saw former Green-coached Illini players turned alumni Bostic, Genesis Bryant and Adalia McKenzie get the better of the current Illinois group. "They did beat us in the first quarter (of Friday's practice," Green said. "I'm not proud to say that. But I am proud I said, 'OK, let's go out (Saturday) and since you lost to those old guys, let's go out and beat Southern.' They did respond from those guys beating them. But those (former players in Bostic, Bryant and McKenzie) are the ones that turned this around. We got here and they were also committed with K.B. and Dal already being here and Gen and the other guys coming on board (as transfers). "They're the ones that set the tone here. They're the ones that started the winning. They made it cool again to come to Illinois, where no one wanted to come to Illinois for so many years. And so, those guys will always have a special place in my heart as players but more importantly people. And they've left their legacy here and to be able to spend time with them and see the joy and the pride that they have for this program, it doesn't get any better than that." A group that added their own banner in Ubben with the WBIT championship in 2024 — the program's only-ever postseason tournament title — and put two new years onto the banner featuring the Illini's NCAA tournament appearances with trips to March Madness in 2023 and 2025. A mantle Green's newest team — led by Berry Wallace alongside a young core featuring Destiny Jackson and Cearah Parchment , among others — and additional veterans like Gretchen Dolan , Jasmine Brown-Hagger and Maddie Webber — has followed with an NCAA tournament berth in 2026. Now, it's Green's goal to take that next step by matching — and possibly surpassing — the accomplishments Grentz's teams achieved nearly three decades ago. "Coach Grentz is the best," Green said. "From the day that I took this job, she reached out and she embraced me. I have been able to lean on her. I am very blessed to have someone that I can call up and ask and be mentored by a Hall of Famer. Most people don't have that. And it's always nice to be able to talk with someone ... it's hard sometimes people don't know what it's like to be a head coach. And she did it for so long and had so much success at a variety of schools. So, it's been really cool to be able to learn from her, have a friendship with her. It's awesome to have this team back. You know a lot of them were at shootaround (before Saturday's game). Some of them have been back before and have given us messages. Especially from that championship team. "You know we look up there (and see) that banner, and there's only one one there. And every day I know that drives me — I hope it drives our players. There should be more banners up there. I mean that's a long time ago. I mean I graduated in '98 (from high school in Clinton, Iowa). That's a long time ago that they haven't won (another Big Ten title). So, I think that's the thing: Let's let that banner drive us to work harder and harder and harder every single day, so eventually we can be the ones to put a banner up of our own in the gym."