{"id":345322,"date":"2026-06-22T07:31:47","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T07:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/345322\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T07:31:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T07:31:47","slug":"report-illinois-honoring-home-and-home-series-with-texas-tech-after-brendan-sorsby-pushback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/345322\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Illinois honoring home-and-home series with Texas Tech after Brendan Sorsby pushback"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was some speculation that the Big Ten could be considering a potential league-wide ban<\/a> of Texas Tech<\/a> athletics in light of the program\u2019s support of now-former quarterback Brendan Sorsby<\/a>. But it won\u2019t have any impact on Illinois<\/a>\u2018 return trip to Lubbock during the upcoming 2026-27 men\u2019s basketball season.<\/p>\n

According to Illini Guys\u2019 Matthew Stevens<\/a>, a Fighting Illini spokesperson confirmed the men\u2019s basketball team fully intends to honor the return game of its home-and-home series with Texas Tech. Illinois is set to travel to Lubbock for a likely top 15 non-conference game next season. This is the return trip of last season\u2019s 81-77 win for the Illini on Nov. 11, 2025, in Champaign.<\/p>\n

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In light of national backlash to last week\u2019s legal ruling granting Sorsby eligibility to play in 2026<\/a>, overturning the NCAA\u2019s permanent eligibility ban for admitted gambling activities, the Big Ten had reportedly weighed a potential conference-wide ban of all Red Raiders athletic programs. Instead, the league opted to leave it up to each individual Big Ten program<\/a>, according to The Athletic\u2018s Ralph Russo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Big Ten officials held a conference call with league athletic directors late last week after conference member Nebraska<\/a> joined Georgia<\/a> in issuing a program-wide memo formally banning any of its athletic teams from scheduling Texas Tech<\/a> in light of the Red Raiders\u2019 plan to play Sorsby in 2026. Ultimately, cooler heads prevailed, both within the Big Ten and at Texas Tech, which opted to part ways with Sorsby on Monday<\/a> after the Big 12 took its pending legal dispute with the Red Raiders to federal court<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prior to that decision, the Big 12 Conference had considered sanctioning Texas Tech<\/a> for its expressed plan to play Sorsby despite his admission to gambling on his own team\u2019s games when he was a reserve member of the Indiana football team in 2022. The entirety of the Big 12, minus the Red Raiders of course, was pushing the conference office to implement Bylaw 3.6<\/a> that allowed the league to sanction a member for \u201cengag[ing] in any action or a course of conduct materially adverse to the best interests of the Conference\u201d or \u201cotherwise taken any action or omitted to take an action\u201d that other members deem merits such severe actions.<\/p>\n

Sorsby admitted to placing thousands of sports bets totaling more than $90,000 over a four-year period between 2022-25<\/a> while a part of both the Indiana and Cincinnati football programs. But after widespread pushback from across the college sports world and several pending legal challenges, Sorsby formally withdrew his eligibility case against the NCAA<\/a> on Thursday with plans to enter the NFL Supplemental Draft<\/a> next month.<\/p>\n

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Members only \u00b7 one like per member<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was some speculation that the Big Ten could be considering a potential league-wide ban of Texas Tech…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-345322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}