Illinois vs. Kentucky: NCAA ends are too sudden — and the Illini want no part of it
MILWAUKEE — A little over a month after last year’s breakthrough to the Elite Eight, Illinois coach Brad Underwood was hearing crickets.
All the national college basketball writers had put out “way too early” top 25s for the 2024-25 season, but none of them had included Illinois or even reached out to Underwood to ask where things were headed.
An old team had run its course, and the Illini were on the pay-no-mind list.
“I don’t give a rip,” Underwood told the Sun-Times then.
“I know what we’re building and what we’re trying to build. Those guys have no idea what I’m trying to build.”
What Underwood and his staff built — a high-end roster with dazzling newcomers to the college game and some key veteran transfers — has amounted to a lot more than just a decent transition season. The talent put on display by the Illini (22-12) in an NCAA Tournament first-round win against Xavier was a brassy declaration that a dangerous team has arrived on the March stage.
The Illini, seeded sixth in the Midwest Region, are all set to meet third-seeded Kentucky (23-11) on Sunday, with a Sweet 16 berth on the line. The Wildcats represent blue-blood history as well as this season’s “it” conference, the SEC, which put 14 teams into the tournament. But this one is a total tossup, with the Illini actually as the slightest of betting favorites as of Saturday night.
Now, it’s about being all lathered up and ready to go from the opening jump ball. In other words, the opposite of what the Illini did at the Big Ten tournament, when they opened with a 106-point barrage against Iowa before utterly no-showing one game later against Maryland.
“The urgency of the end,” is what Underwood calls it.
A loss would be no typical “end” for this team. It has likely one-and-dones in freshmen Kasparas Jakucionis and Will Riley, who are 11th and 21st, respectively, in the latest NBA.com mock draft. Fellow first-year player Tomislav Ivisic, a 7-1 center, has a chance to put himself more prominently on the map in this tournament.
And in the Wild West of college basketball in 2025, there’s no telling how many of Underwood’s other players will peel off an Illinois uniform for the last time as soon as Sunday.
“Will somebody unexpectedly leave? Probably,” he lamented earlier this month. “Don’t know who, what, when. It’s just the way it is.”
The opening performance against Xavier was one for the books, literally. Riley made eight straight shots on the way to 22 points, breaking the Illinois tournament record for a freshman of 21 set by Frank Williams against Penn in 2000. Jakucionis was a rebound shy of a triple-double, and his 10 assists broke the school’s freshman record of eight set by Dee Brown against Western Kentucky in the 2003 tournament. And Ivisic’s four three-pointers were the most made by any 7-footer on any team in tournament history.
It could be happy trails for all three of them if any one lets his guard down against Kentucky.
“Every game matters, and especially here in March Madness, every detail matters in the game,” Jakucionis said. “Every stop, every rebound.”
Ivisic sounds ready, too.
“Just [knowing] that if you win, you go next, and if you lose, you go home,” he said. “With that mentality, it’s just great to be here.”
Midway through his freshman campaign, Riley’s minutes per game had slipped into the teens. Since then, he has blown up as a scorer and improved in all other facets, to such an extent that Underwood not only starts him but rarely pulls him off the floor.
“It’s definitely a big confidence thing,” Riley said. “My mindset wasn’t right throughout that little gap. I was just playing with my head down. Now, I know my role and I know what Coach wants of me. I just established that. I played the way that these guys want me to play.”
It can’t stop now. There are still too many rips to give.