Can Illinois' Keaton Wagler, David Mirkovic keep carrying their team? And how far?
In late January, during the heart of the season, the Sun-Times wrangled Illinois men’s basketball coach Brad Underwood into a phone call to pester him about being one victory shy of his 100th in the Big Ten.
It was a subject better saved for later, he said at the time. Too much hooping going on. Still, he ended up recalling a couple of really big wins along the way, ruing one hard-to-stomach loss to Loyola in the NCAA Tournament, extolling the ability his contract gives him to swing for the fences and describing himself, all considered, as being in “basketball heaven.”
But also, he said, “We haven’t won a national championship, haven’t made a Final Four. I’ve always said this job is that. It should be that.”
With the No. 3-seeded Illini (25-8) set for an NCAA second-round game against No. 11 seed VCU (28-7) on Saturday (6:50 p.m., CBS 2), Underwood is staring at another personal milestone: his 300th win as a Division I coach. Well, truth be told, not so much staring at it as ignoring it. Too much hooping going on and all.
One more “W” would be the ninth-year coach’s 300th in all and 191st at Illinois and put the Illini into the Sweet 16. If the season were to end at that point, it would be hard for anyone to knock it as having been unsuccessful. But it’s the thought of the Final Four, where Underwood has yet to take a team — and where he has indicated for months that he sees this team going — that’s driving him extra-hard these days.
He has come a long way since the first NCAA Tournament win of his career. Illinois has never faced VCU in this event, but Underwood’s first Stephen F. Austin team did, in 2014. The 12th-seeded Lumberjacks got a four-point play from Desmond Haymon with 3.6 seconds left to force overtime, then held on 77-75 to upset the fifth-seeded Rams.
“Big moment in my life,” Underwood said Friday.
The Lumberjacks were a senior-heavy team, with the only freshman who played against VCU logging all of three minutes. How different these Illini are, their best two players being freshmen Keaton Wagler, a second-team All-American, and David Mirkovic, who almost singlehandedly destroyed overmanned Penn with 29 points and 17 rebounds in a 105-70 first-round win. Wagler chimed in loudly with 18 points, seven rebounds and seven assists.
The Rams came back from a 19-point second-half deficit and upset sixth-seeded North Carolina 82-78 in overtime, with guard Terrence Hill Jr. erupting for 34 points. It’s a confident team after staring down the Tar Heels.
There likely is some suspicion on the part of the Rams that the freshman-led Illini are vulnerable, too. We can talk senior guard Kylan Boswell’s leadership, 14-plus feet of Ivisic twins and the depth of Underwood’s rotation, but the Illini are going to go as far as Wagner and Mirkovic carry them. Wagner leads them in scoring (17.9 points per game) and assists (4.5), among other categories. Mirkovic is first in rebounding (8.0) and second in scoring (13.8) and has led the team in scoring the last three games. One or the other has topped the team in scoring in 17 of the last 25 games.
Mirkovic’s boffo stat line against Penn isn’t as impressive as Nick Anderson’s 24 points and 16 rebounds against Syracuse in the Elite Eight in 1989. The Illini’s school NCAA Tournament-record 15 threes against Penn is nowhere near as impressive as the 16 made in the all-time-classic Elite Eight comeback win over Arizona in 2005. The games are going to get much bigger, the opponents much better and the performances far more meaningful.
It’s a strength, not a weakness, to have the young studs leading the older guys, according to Underwood.
“I think it speaks to our veterans,” he said. “They’re not in any way threatened by that. They’re accepting. I’ve said it all along, this team has tremendous chemistry both on and off the court.”