Illinois coach Brad Underwood yells from the sidelines during a game against Missouri in St. Louis.
Jeff Roberson/AP
Bad news, everybody:
Illinois men’s basketball has fallen off the map.
Last season’s run to the Elite Eight? Old news. The most wins in Big Ten action of any program over the last five years? Good job, good effort and thanks for playing, but it’s all over now.
Look, don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just following the lead of the national experts here.
If you believe those experts, the Illini aren’t going to be much to look at next season; they’ll be taking a turn on the pay-no-mind list. This is according to what many who cover college basketball and football nationally are fond of billing as “way-too-early” preseason rankings, as though acknowledging that they’re way too early somehow mitigates the inanity of publishing them six months before the start of the season (otherwise known as way too early).
Anyway, for reasons of which a simple local yutz like me wouldn’t be aware, a bunch of national writers published their way-too-early rankings at the start of this week.
For example: CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish put out a top 26 that had Purdue (12), Ohio State (14), Indiana (17), Rutgers (22) and Michigan State (25) in it but not Illinois. ESPN’s Jeff Borzello put out a top 30 with Purdue (13), Indiana (16), Ohio State (21), Maryland (23) and Rutgers (28) in the mix but not the Illini. CBS’ Jon Rothstein, writing for Fanduel, took his list 45-deep, with a whopping eight Big Ten rivals — Purdue (9), Indiana (15), Ohio State (16), Michigan State (24), Rutgers (26), Michigan (29), Wisconsin (34) and Maryland (36) — coming before the Illini, who were way down at No. 40.
Are they right? Don’t ask me. I make it my business not to know things until failing to do so can only lead to outright humiliation.
Still, it seemed important enough to ask Illini coach Brad Underwood about it.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” he said Tuesday in a phone call with the Sun-Times.
Underwood said what a lot of media critics say, that this sort of thing is just a gambit to generate clicks and sell subscriptions. He added that the transfer portal remains open and the Illini roster isn’t yet complete.
“I know what we’re building and what we’re trying to build,” he said. “Those guys have no idea what I’m trying to build. I haven’t done one interview with any of them. …
“My argument would be: Check out the last five years and see where we’ve been. And who had Marcus Domask last year as a top transfer? None of them. So I don’t give two rips what any of those guys say.”
It’s a tough business Underwood is in, and it has only gotten tougher with the rises of the portal and NIL. This year, “for the first time in forever,” he says, he didn’t go to the Final Four for the customary schmoozing with fellow coaches from around the country. Instead, he started running the roster-rebuilding race even before the Illni’s Elite Eight loss to UConn. Since that disappointing night in Boston, Underwood has taken all of two partial days off — to play golf with his son, assistant coach Tyler, in the Florida Panhandle — and even on those days, he and Ty worked the portal and did a total of five Zooms with recruits.
Illinois has had more roster turnover than most. Five players — including Champaign native Kylan Boswell, a former five-star guard prospect who joined the Illini from Arizona — have been added via the portal. There are three incoming freshmen signed so far, one of them Thornton forward Morez Johnson, who was the 2024 Sun-Times Player of the Year. The only returning players of note are Ty Rodgers and Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn, who between them scored 300 points last season.
Underwood apparently thinks more highly of his additions than the aforementioned experts do. Most college watchers are unfamiliar with the name Ben Humrichous, but Underwood believes the 6-9 Evansville transfer — whom he calls “maybe the best shooter I’ve seen in my time here” — could have a Domask-level impact. Croatia center Tomislav Ivisic, who is 7-1, will begin his freshman season as a 21-year-old with three seasons of professional experience. Underwood describes the lefty as an “elite” passer who can shoot and protect the rim. If Humrichous and Ivisic are under the radar, their new coach isn’t worrying about it.
You know what Underwood does worry about? Trying to work as nonstop as a big-time coach in 2024 must without paying the price — cracking a bit here and there — mentally.
“I worry about life balance,” he said. “I worry about the younger coaches coming up in this business and raising families, having a weekend to go see their kids play soccer. I think life balance is completely out of whack. The mental part is so drastically different than it was.”
That’s no joke. If and when he does get a respite from the constant grind, there’s zero chance it’ll come way too early.
But those rankings, on the other hand? Underwood doesn’t give a rip, let alone two of ’em. That goes for how the national experts and the local yutzes might be sizing things up.
“Any of you,” he said.
Great, so that’s settled.