| Mode: | Basketball |
| Year: | 1997–98 |
| Team: | Illinois Fighting Illini |
| Conference: | Big Ten Conference |
| Short Conf: | Big Ten |
| Aprank: | 22 |
| Record: | 23–10 |
| Conf Record: | 13–3 |
| Asst Coach3: | Steve Henson |
| Hc Year: | 2nd |
| Ac1 Year: | 2nd |
| Ac2 Year: | 2nd |
| Ac3 Year: | 1st |
| Captain: | Jerry Hester |
| Captain2: | Brian Johnson |
| Bowl Result: | second round |
The 1997–98 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team represented the University of Illinois.
During the 1997-98 season, head coach Lon Kruger did the unthinkable as he took a team picked to finish seventh in the Big Ten and guided theIllini to a share of its first Big Ten title since 1984. On the way to the league crown, Illinois went 5-0 against Indiana, Iowa and Michigan, marking the first time inschool history the Illini had gone undefeated against those teams during the course of a season. Illinois advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament after earning a No. 5 seed in the West Regional. The Illini defense was the Big Ten's best as Illinois finished the year first in scoring defense, fieldgoal defense and three-point defense in conference games. Additionally, this would be the inaugural season for the Big Ten tournament, thus reducing the number of regular season conference games by 2, from 18 to 16. Illinois received 2nd seed for the tournament.
Source[1] |-!colspan=12 style="background:#DF4E38; color:white;"| Non-Conference regular season |-!colspan=9 style="background:#DF4E38; color:#FFFFFF;"|Big Ten regular season|-!colspan=9 style="text-align: center; background:#DF4E38"|Big Ten tournament|- !colspan=9 style="text-align: center; background:#DF4E38"|NCAA tournament|-
| Player | Games Played | 2 pt. Field Goals | 3 pt. Field Goals | Free Throws | Rebounds | Assists | Blocks | Steals | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kevin Turner[2] | 33 | 137 | 78 | 76 | 105 | 91 | 2 | 44 | 584 |
| Jerry Hester[3] | 33 | 146 | 40 | 74 | 175 | 49 | 8 | 28 | 486 |
| Matt Heldman[4] | 33 | 30 | 67 | 98 | 97 | 131 | 0 | 42 | 359 |
| Jerry Gee[5] | 33 | 115 | 0 | 49 | 175 | 23 | 29 | 32 | 279 |
| Brian Johnson[6] | 33 | 83 | 0 | 66 | 147 | 78 | 17 | 29 | 232 |
| Sergio McClain[7] | 33 | 38 | 4 | 28 | 103 | 54 | 9 | 40 | 116 |
| Arias Davis[8] | 28 | 7 | 24 | 3 | 22 | 10 | 0 | 6 | 89 |
| Victor Chukwudebe[9] | 33 | 25 | 0 | 10 | 110 | 1 | 19 | 13 | 66 |
| Awvee Storey | 17 | 24 | 0 | 6 | 32 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 54 |
| Rich Beyers | 21 | 4 | 0 | 6 | 18 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 14 |
| Jelani Boline | 28 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 10 | 16 | 3 | 0 | 8 |
| David Freeman | 19 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 |
| Jeff Reichardt | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Luke Williams | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
See main article: 1997–98 NCAA Division I men's basketball rankings.