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Abingdon-Avon Tornadoes Boys Basketball: 2026-27 Schedule and History

Abingdon-Avon Tornadoes · Abingdon, Illinois · Lincoln Trail Conference

Coach: Cory Link · 2025-26: 29-4 · All-time: 263-162 (.619)

Abingdon-Avon went 29-4 last season — the best record of any boys basketball programme in this coverage area, by a wide margin. They have also never won a sectional title.

The one regional

In fifteen recorded seasons, the consolidated Abingdon-Avon programme has won exactly one piece of IHSA hardware: a Class 1A regional championship in 2014-15, by a 17-13 team under Kent Jones. No sectional, no super-sectional, no state finals appearance.

Set that against 29-4 and the shape of this programme’s situation becomes clear. The talent is current; the trophy case is not.

What the predecessors won

The consolidation split the history, and most of it sits under the old names.

Abingdon carries a printed record of 434-206 with rows running from 1912-13 to 2012-13. Their titles: district championships in 1912-13 and 1929-30, and regionals in 1939-40, 1950-51, 1971-72, 1972-73, 1982-83, 1991-92, 1994-95, 1995-96, 1997-98, 1998-99, 2002-03, 2003-04, 2006-07 and 2011-12. The 2002-03 season carried a sectional title as well — the only one in the whole Abingdon lineage.

Avon carries 107-227 across 13 recorded seasons, with district titles in 1922-23, 1923-24 and 1936-37, and regionals in 1984-85, 1985-86, 1987-88, 1989-90 and 1990-91.

Both predecessor totals need a caveat. Abingdon’s “24 years” sits under a century of rows, meaning most seasons carry a coach and no record. Do not read 434-206 as a genuine all-time mark — it is a partial sample.

The same problem in the current record

Abingdon-Avon’s own table has the identical flaw at the front end. The rows run from 2001-02, but the first ten seasons — 2001-02 through 2010-11 — carry coach names and no win-loss figures at all. That is why a programme with 25 seasons of rows shows only 15 recorded years.

So the .619 describes the last fifteen years, not the school’s history. We would rather say that than let the number stand unqualified.

Cory Link has built something

Link’s five-year record at Abingdon-Avon is 96-63, and the trajectory runs one way: 20-13, then 19-13, then 29-4.

Twenty-nine wins is an unusual number at this level. For comparison, the next best area record last season was Annawan’s 20-7, and Galesburg — a school many times the size — went 18-13.

One caveat we will state rather than skip: the IHSA has not posted a title code against that 29-4 season. That is not evidence the Tornadoes failed to win a regional; the 2025-26 postseason codes appear to be only partly filed. We are checking.

How it compares to A-Town football

Abingdon-Avon are one of the few area schools currently doing well in both major boys sports. The football Tornadoes are 2-1 this autumn under Rick Quinn, back on the sideline after a season away, having won 41-16 at Bureau Valley in Week 3.

Unlike Annawan or Wethersfield, A-Town field their own eleven-man football team rather than co-oping — a sign of a school with enough numbers to stand alone in both seasons.

2026-27 schedule

Around six games are posted for 2026-27, several with dates listed as TBA. IHSA boys practice is scheduled to open Monday, November 9.

We will publish the full schedule on this page as soon as it is posted, and update results through the season.

What we are still chasing

  • Whether the 29-4 season produced a regional title the IHSA has not yet filed
  • The full 2026-27 schedule and roster
  • Win-loss records for the ten blank Abingdon-Avon seasons, 2001-02 to 2010-11

The school

Abingdon-Avon Community Unit School District 276 serves Abingdon and Avon, two small towns about ten miles apart in southern Knox and northern Fulton counties, roughly fifteen miles south of Galesburg. The two high schools consolidated for the 2013-14 school year, which is why every current programme record starts there.

It is one of the smaller schools in the Lincoln Trail Conference and competes in Class 1A in most sports — which makes three consecutive 26-win girls seasons, and a 29-4 boys season, more striking rather than less.

Finding Abingdon-Avon online

Searching for this team is harder than it should be. Abingdon is also a town in Virginia and a market town in Oxfordshire, England, both considerably better known online than Abingdon, Illinois. The school appears variously as Abingdon-Avon, Abingdon/Avon, A-Town and, in the IHSA’s own records, as “Abingdon (A.-Avon)” — four spellings of one school. Adding “Tornadoes” or “Illinois” to a search is usually what makes the difference.

The consolidation also means older results sit under Abingdon or Avon separately, so a search for the current name will not reach anything before 2013-14. Coverage of Lincoln Trail basketball is thin in general. MaxPreps carries schedules and scores when schools update them, which is inconsistent at this level. The IHSA’s record pages are authoritative but frequently years behind. No local outlet runs a nightly area scoreboard in winter.

We will post results on this page through the season. If you have a score before we do, send it and it goes up with credit.

Where Abingdon-Avon Tornadoes rank in the area

Across the fourteen boys basketball programmes we cover, Abingdon-Avon Tornadoes sit twelfth by all-time wins (263), fifth by winning percentage (.619) and twelfth by regional championships (one).

The nearest programmes by wins are Monmouth-Roseville Titans above (352) and United Red Storm below (250).

The sectional round is the wall. Abingdon-Avon Tornadoes have won one regional title and lost the sectional every time — one exit at the same stage, and no sectional championship in the programme’s history.

No state finals trophy. Seven area programmes have one; this is not among them.

Full comparisons for every programme, plus conference structure, season dates and how the Illinois postseason works, are on our area boys basketball guide.

By the numbers

Games on record 425
Recorded seasons 15
Average wins per season 17.5
Average games per season 28
Regional titles 1
Share of all area regionals 0.7%
Years since last regional 11
Calculated from the IHSA record. Averages use recorded seasons only, so where the file has blank years the true per-season figures will differ.

11 years without a regional means nobody currently in the school has seen one won.

Send us results

Rosters, schedules, scores, corrections, photographs — send them and they go up with credit. We correct errors the same day we learn about them.


All-time record, championship years and state finishes from the IHSA’s per-school record page at ihsa.org, with the school total arithmetically verified against its individual season rows — the coach subtotals sum exactly to 263-162 across 15 recorded years. Coaching and schedule detail from MaxPreps team pages, retrieved September 2026. Corrections posted the same day.

C. Jackson Cowart

C. Jackson Cowart is a sports writer and editor whose work has appeared in ESPN, Forbes, Front Office Sports and Advance Local publications. He edits Muddy River Sport's coverage of high school and college athletics in Galesburg, Monmouth, Knox County and the surrounding communities of west-central Illinois. He works remotely from Washington state. Muddy River Sport's Friday night coverage depends on people who are actually in the bleachers — coaches, parents, scorekeepers and photographers across west-central Illinois who send in scores, results and photos as games end. If that's you, we want to hear from you: [email protected]

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