Iowa vs. Illinois prediction: Why Illinois is favored to win men's March Madness Elite Eight matchup [3/28/2026]

Men's college basketball action continues on Saturday at 6:09 PM ET as Iowa takes on the favored Illinois in Elite Eight action at Toyota Center.

For this Elite Eight matchup, Illinois—the most efficient offense in college basketball history according to KenPom— face Iowa, a Ben McCollum team forcing plenty of turnovers.

Based on updated simulation results, Dimers' proven college basketball model projects Illinois as the most likely winner of the Iowa vs. Illinois game.

This article offers an expanded analysis of Saturday's matchup, including an expanded look at the predicted score, best bets and picks.

Iowa vs. Illinois prediction: Who will win and advance to the Final Four?

Using innovative machine learning and data, we have simulated the result of Saturday's NCAAM Tournament game between Iowa and Illinois, forming part of our men's college basketball predictions coverage.

Our famous predictive model gives Illinois an 80% chance of defeating Iowa. Our predicted final score has Illinois winning 75-67.

According to our model, Illinois (-6.5) has a 57% chance of covering the spread, while the 138.5-point over/under has a 56% chance of going over.

Iowa vs. Illinois odds

We have researched the best men's college basketball odds in America for this game, which are listed here:

All odds are correct at the time of publication and are subject to change.

Iowa vs. Illinois picks and best bet

After matching our predictions against the best current odds, we can reveal our picks for each of the major markets. Plus, find our best bet for the game below: