It has been a rough start to the offseason for Illinois basketball, but you know what they say- when defections occur, replacements are inevitable. When you have notable exits, it preludes meaningful additions. The Morez Johnson departure shocked us all. The Tre White exit, not so much. However, reinforcements are coming for Brad Underwood, with Josh Dix having taken his official visit to Champaign.
The twin brother of Tomislav Ivisic, Zvonimir Ivisic, has left Arkansas and entered the portal.
He has been longed link with a move to the Illini basketball program.
Morez very quickly went from hero to villain, in the eyes of Illini basketball fans, by signing with Michigan. As for White, his next team will be his fourth in four years, so this is just simply who he is and what he does, a la Skyy Clark.
The Illini also got official confirmation that Ty Rodgers will return, and given that he red-shirted last season, he was a transfer risk.
He’s a key piece to get back as he started all 38 games for the 2023-24 Elite 8 team, and led the squad in offensive rebounding.
So where does this leave the state of the program?
Brad Underwood has said since day one that this program should be expected to compete for national titles.
Not just Big Ten championships, but national championships. Flash back to when Underwood first took the job, in 2017. That same year, the Associated Press released their comprehensive, all-time poll.
Illinois came in at #11, and Brad Underwood made his ambitions known- the program should reacquire/maintain the kind of “swagger” that goes along with that all-time #11 ranking.
Illinois has five Final Fours and one national runner-up finish (2005) in their history. The team that they lost to in their lone national title game appearance, North Carolina, is a good standard to try and aspire to.
According to RG.org, North Carolina, who have more Final Four berths than any other school, are the only program to have achieved an active streak of reaching the national title game in nine straight decades (no other school has done it in more than six decades) and to have reached at least two Final Fours in six straight decades.
Obviously, Illinois has a long way to go in order to reach the high standard set in Chapel Hill, NC, but Brad Underwood has/has always had lofty goals.
“My goal is nothing more than to win a championship,” he said in his final press conference of the season, after the NCAA Tournament second round elimination at the hands of Kentucky.
“If you ever hear me say anything other than that, then it’s probably time for me to hang it up.”
It is not news to hear Brad Underwood say this. He says this over and over again. However, it still seems that this belief would feel like news to a big swath of the Illini fanbase.
You saw this all season long on social media, we call them the “just happy to be here” crowd.
They constantly tweet things like “look how much better things are than they were under John Groce” and/or “hey, at least we make the tournament now every year.”
Yes, that is true- the Groce era was awful. He was a bigger disaster hire than Tim Beckman.
And yes, you can be thankful to Brad Underwood for how he elevated this program out of the ditch. In fact, you should be very thankful that he did that.
However, you should also not be complacent, and find yourself settling for March Madness second round outs every season.
Both things can be true.
You can hold both thoughts in your head at the same time.
You can be thankful for what Brad Underwood has achieved, AND expect/believe that Brad Underwood wants, can and will do more beyond this.
What is the message that Underwood has to the portion of the Illini fanbase that doesn’t have national championship ambitions and/or doesn’t believe this program should have national title goals?
“If they haven’t heard me say that before, they’re probably not our fans,” Underwood responded in his answer to the final question, in the final presser of the 2024-25 season.
“Because I’ve said it since the day I got here, my introductory press conference. And I’m going to keep saying that. I think we’ve built something that can stand the test of time.
“I think our program, our fans, I’ve said it a lot.”
“If they’re not on board now, then they’re probably — I don’t know, they’re somebody else’s fans; they’re not ours.
“We are playing a national schedule every year, competing at the highest levels. We’re producing really good players who are really good people. I think there is a lot that our fans can be really, really proud of.
“We’re going to come back next year with a group of guys that are going to have the same goals and ambitions.”
Brad Underwood also said, earlier on in the same session:
“I came here to win a national championship, okay? And I think the one thing that will never change with me is that.
“We’re trying to do that. But to do that, you have to have a great program.”
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to USA Today’s NFL Wires Network. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Post and ESPN. You can follow him on Linked In and Twitter.