Illinois coach Brad Underwood pumps up the Illini faithful after beating Duquesne in Omaha, Neb., to get through to the Sweet 16.
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OMAHA, Neb. — One day after Selection Sunday, college basketball’s transfer portal opened. Why wait? Straight into the madness of March erupted a different kind of madness altogether, as 2024 as it gets. It’s a zoo out there — the wild West — and nothing as important as Illinois’ run to the Sweet 16 is going to put it on hold.
“The profession is changing,” Illini coach Brad Underwood said. “It’s getting harder. It’s not getting easier. We’re dealing with the portal right now. Right now, the portal. Really? This is the greatest moment in time for a college coach and a team. All of that takes from other things.”
But Illini staffers are scouting the next opponent, Iowa State, and monitoring the portal all at once because what other choice is there?
The portal brought, after all, Terrence Shannon Jr. to Champaign after his three years at Texas Tech. And Marcus Domask after his four at Southern Illinois. And Quincy Guerrier after two at Syracuse and two at Oregon. Dain Dainja came to the Illini from Baylor and Justin Harmon (Curie) from Utah Valley.
If anyone is winning the roster-building race in this fraught time for coaches attempting to sustain success, it might be Underwood and the Illini. When he says this team might be his favorite of all he has coached, it’s a real mouthful — old-fashioned relationship-building being a relic as a concept.
Just think of how different the team that was a No. 1 seed in the 2021 NCAA Tournament was. Ayo Dosunmu was in his third season as an Illini from the jump. Trent Frazier and Da’Monte Williams were in their fourth. Kofi Cockburn was in his second of three seasons at his only school. They were Illinois guys or, as Underwood calls them, “Every Day Guys.”
And just think of how different it was with Illinois’ gangbusters squad in 2005, the school’s last one to get past the first weekend of the tournament and one that reached the national final. Dee Brown came from Proviso East and was in his third of four Illini seasons. Luther Head, from Manley, was in his fourth year, as was Roger Powell Jr. from Joliet. Deron Williams, from Texas, and James Augustine, who played at Lincoln-Way Central, were third-year Illini. The whole beautiful experiment was mostly homegrown even if it was Bill Self and not Bruce Weber who had recruited them.
Underwood has won big with Illini “originals” and now with a team thrown together by necessity. It’s impressive. This 28-win Illini team could win the national championship and not come close to the 37 victories of the 2004-05 squad, but crafting a roster like the one from back then might not be possible anymore.
Still, Illinois not going to the Sweet 16 for 19 years is hard for Underwood to believe.
“That’s mind-numbing,” he said.
It’s certainly not all on him. Illinois is the winningest team in Big Ten play over the last five seasons.
“This program is elite,” Underwood said.
It’s not so easy to argue with that.