Aug. 3This week will mark the final week of summer workouts for the Illinois women's basketball team.It's been a successful summer for 's Illini. Even if it's come in fits and starts at times with injuries and absences especially early on in the summer limiting what Illinois could accomplish.But the Illini have at least had a chance to see how certain lineups might fit together. It's given Green, the fifth-year coach at Illinois, a greater sense of what her rotation might look like when the games actually count in three months when early November arrives.There was enough new about this Illini roster to make the summer important. Illinois didn't just add two freshmen and a pair of transfers in the offseason. Freshman forwards and along with junior-college transfer , a junior guard, and LSU transfer , a sophomore guard were among the newcomers.But Illinois also had to work key pieces, like redshirt freshman forward and redshirt junior guard , back from injury. Alves is expected to play an important role in the Illini's frontcourt rotation and could be a potential starting option during the upcoming 2026-27 season. This after the 6-foot-3 forward sat out all of last season with a torn ACL, and Dolan has also found herself on the other side of a major injury. The 5-11 guard had surgery to address a torn meniscus in her right knee on Feb. 23.A full month of 5-on-5 workouts has afforded Green a baseline of what her newest team might look like. Illinois will wrap up its offseason program this week before the players have a few weeks off ahead of the start of the fall semester.Then, when the Illini return, it will be about a month before preseason practices get underway in late September."It's been a lot of fun, right?" Green said. "It's been fun to, you know, have a lot of depth. I just think right away at the 5 spot. Like to see () and Manuella, you know, really competing down there. Every day growing. ... Seeing that piece, you know, it's a little bit different now with () gone (for training camp with the Canadian women's national team). Seeing those different combinations, it's been great. You know, it's been great, just to have options and to have the depth that we have. Now, knock on wood, we have to continue to remain healthy. So, trying to take it step-by-step in that and making sure we're doing everything we can do to keep these guys healthy."