Maybe this won’t be the greatest Illini basketball team in school history, but they will certainly be fun to watch nonetheless. With position-less basketball (almost every guy on the floor having a guard skill set much of the time) and the seven-seconds-and-shoot approach, Illinois will at least provide lots of entertainment, if not a ton of wins.
Expectations are not high for year one of the Brad Underwood era, and the huge embarrassing failure that just transpired last Friday night (80-67 exhibition loss at Eastern Illinois) doesn’t help.
Yes, it’s very alarming that Illinois lost that game, but perhaps even more frightening is the fact that they clearly treated it like an exhibition. When you’re starting over with a clean slate like this Illini basketball program is, you have to get off on the right foot.
Establishing some desire and hunger right off the bat helps.
However, major programs have lost preseason exhibitions on numerous occasions, and still gone on to have fruitful seasons, so it’s really not the end of the world. Another negative vibe surrounding the Illini basketball program is the extremely disastrous season and overall horrifying program trajectory of Illini football.
Sometimes the sentiment spills over, even though it really should not, as the two aren’t actually related. Still, given the mood with Illinois athletics right now, you can understand why many Illini fans are not amped about this upcoming men’s basketball season, which begins Friday night with a contest against Southern.
Not Southern Illinois, but something called Southern.
Making the NCAA Tournament is a long shot, and would be a very pleasant surprise, but take care Illini basketball fans, the overall arrow points upwards. John Groce, a guy who was clearly in way over his head since day one, plunged the program to depths not seen since the 1970s, but Underwood is a true program builder who knows exactly what he’s doing.
There may not be any hope for football (at least not this season or next season), but hoops really has something that’s a very easy sell to blue chip recruits. Ayo Dosunmu, a potentially program changing commit, said it all himself during his decision announcement.
Underwood’s 7 seconds and shoot system, plus his ability to develop guards and get them to the next level, is HUGE to upcoming Illini basketball targets.
For more on the other recruiting targets out there, go to this link.
Key Players:
F Leron Black, G Da’Monte Williams, WG Mark Alstork, G/W/F Mark Smith, F Michael Finke, PG Te’Jon Lucas
Key Games:
@ Wake Forest 11/28- B1G/ACC Challenge rematch of the famed 2004 game when both programs were at their peak.
12/1 @ Northwestern, 12/3 Maryland, 12/9 at UNLV, 12/16 New Mexico State @ the United Center (Lou Henson Testimonial),
12/23 Mizzou in STL (Braggin’ Rights has been lifeless for a few years, but it’s buzzing with new meaningful and important story lines this season) The 2018 league slate opens at Minnesota and at Michigan, the two Michigan State games are 1/22 and 2/20, Purdue comes in 2/22.
For every team, almost all of the pre-conference schedule is exactly like M told James Bond in Casino Royale, after he blew up an embassy in Madagascar and killed a bomb maker: “All that energy, and for what? So you can kill a nobody?”
The Illinois home non-conference schedule is all nobodies this year, with all the worthwhile games being on the road/neutral courts. Bummer they couldn’t get anyone to come from out of conference in November/December this year.
Strengths:
Underwood accomplished quite a bit by getting Oklahoma State to the big dance in his one season, when you consider the dumpster fire Travis Ford left for him in Stillwater. He’s got much more to work with here in Champaign, and that’s definitely a cause for optimism. Illinois may be young, but they are extremely talented on the wings and at the point.
By mid-season to late season, the kids will be growing up and the Illini should be pretty solid at the one through the three.
Finke is okay and fills a good role. He is what he is, and provides consistency to that. For Black, this should be the time that he finally starts to come close to realizing the high recruiting hype that he came in with.
It would be the perfect time as Illini basketball really needs him to be that guy this year.
Weaknesses:
You can’t say this team even has a true full roster, given all the defections and graduations. On top of that, they’re awfully small, and very young. You’ll see a lot of four guard lineups, and that could be taxing on their depth, which is probably Illini basketball issue #1.
Also, if any of the bigs get hurt for a prolonged period of time, look out, because you could really be in for a very VERY long season.
Realistic Outlook:
Unquestionably, the highlight of Illini basketball media day was when Underwood fielded a question on media expectations for the Illini being so low. He bluntly stated the reasons for that, and then of course told the room why people picking his team 12th will be proven wrong.
Here’s video of this portion:
Brad Underwood's thoughts on the media picking the #Illini to finish 12th in the Big Ten ? pic.twitter.com/rfNrtM15te
— Trevor Vallese (@TVallese) October 11, 2017
Of course, Underwood also ruined the moment by reverting into the two industry standard cliches for these kinds of situation:
a.) “you have to write something to fill space” and b.) “these people writing this stuff never played the game.”
I think he has some merit on point a, to some extent. Talking season is kind of worthless, and pointless. I mean, did anyone gain anything of value from B1G Media Day at Madison Square Garden this year? At all?
The “hey, you didn’t play” bit is well shopworn and useless to anyone involved though.
Still Underwood is totally right, this team won’t finish 12th.
They might end up in the #8 vs #9 game again in the B1G Tournament, or perhaps tenth. The top half of the league seems like a pipe dream though.
Illini Basketball Preview Series
Orlando Antigua Exclusive (Recruiting Landscape, Harlem Globetrotters Material)
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Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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