Hey, guess what?
It’s time to start talking basketball. Well, it’s never NOT been time to talk about basketball, because that time is all the time for me. But we are getting closer to the basketball season, and I’ve already started prepping for the SEC Conference Previews. That means it’s also time to look at the non-conference schedule.
The Full Non-Conference Schedule:
- October 24th — vs. Kansas State (exhibition)
- November 3rd — at Howard Bison | Preview
- November 7th — vs. Southeast Missouri | Preview
- November 9th — vs VMI | Preview
- November 12th — vs Minnesota | Preview
- November 17th — vs Prairie View A&M | Preview
- November 20th — vs South Dakota | Preview
- November 25th — vs South Carolina State | Preview
- November 28th — vs Cleveland State | Preview
- December 2nd — at Notre Dame | Preview
- December 7th — vs Kansas (in Kansas City, MO) | Preview
- December 11th — vs Alabama State | Preview | Preview
- December 14th — vs Bethune-Cookman | Preview
- December 22nd — vs Illinois (in St. Louis, MO)
These previews aren’t here to rehash the argument over whether Dennis Gates put together a good schedule or not. It’s simply to talk about the opponents, and what
can be expected. We’re also not going to use these to preview Kansas State since it’s an exhibition. We’ll do a quick K-State preview before the game, but for now we’re going to focus on the games that matter.
Let’s Meet: Illinois Fighting Illini
We’re all well familiar with the University to our (north) East. Maybe not as much as the one to the West; after all there is no blood feud with the Illini. But through the years this matchup has become one of the best nonconference rivalries in basketball.
Located in Urbana-Champaign, or Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, the Illini retired Chief Illiniwek as a mascot in 2007, but the Illini name still represents various tribes of Native Americans which occupied the Mississippi River Valley and what the state of Illinois was named after.
Founded in 1867 as Illinois Industrial University, then 18 years later changing to the University of Illinois, the school began fielding a basketball team in 1905. Fun Fact: This is the 120th anniversary of Illinois basketball! Congrats, guys! The school is a founding member of the Big 10, even though the conference was called the Western Conference there for a while. Other founding members were Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue, Wisconsin, Michigan and the University of Chicago.
In 120 seasons the school has never won a National Championship but has made the Final Four five times, the most recent in 2005 when Bruce Weber took Bill Self’s recruits and went 37-2 and lost in the National Championship game to North Carolina in St. Louis, Missouri. That 5-year run from Self to Weber was the best run in Illini history. They won the Big 10 in 4 of the 5 years, went 141-33, and made four sweet 16s, two Elite 8s and a Final Four.
Head Coach | Brad Underwood | 9th Season 165-101
Brad Underwood is a lot of things. I’m sure there are plenty of fans of Missouri, and those in the Big 10, who don’t like Underwood. I think he’s kind of fun. He’s old school, inasmuch as you can be these days. And he’s got Illinois basketball humming at as good of a pace as they’ve been since the early days of Bruce Weber.
Even last year I thought Illinois was a potential Final Four team until health and consistency knocked them back a few pegs. But there’s no doubt that Underwood has been a success after some very noticeable early bumps. I’m not one to share much off of X these days, even less so with AI. But every once in a while, the two combine for something good. This is one of those examples.
By this point I’ve said plenty about Brad Underwood over the years, we’re all inately familiar with his sideline demeanor. But what’s interesting is the last few years he’s pivoted his roster building away from American players and towards international recruits. In particular, a host of players from what you might consider the former Eastern Bloc of aligned countries with the Soviet Union. Maybe less true Eastern Bloc than the above AI image would represent, but quite a few of the Balkan countries. We’ll get to all that in the feature on the current team, but there’s a lot of Eastern European influence on the Illini roster these days.
Series History | Illinois leads 35-20
Look at those baggy shorts! And L-Bo! Sup, Laurence.
Braggin’ Rights in its current iteration has been ongoing since the 1980 season when the two schools, helmed by Lou Henson and Norm Stewart, began this series in St. Louis. There were four years of games before that which were on campus, and another series back in the mid-50s, with the initial meetings happening during the early 30s. But Braggin’ Rights as we know it, originally sponsored by Anheuser Busch, began with a 22-point Illinois win at the old Checkerdome in December of 1980.
It’s true that Illinois has gotten the better of Missouri in this matchup, but the series was fairly evenly matched for much of the first 20 years. It wasn’t until Bill Self’s 2000 win started a 9-game win streak which is still the longest for either school.
Many Mizzou fans will remember the 32-point drubbing at the hands of Bruce Weber and the eventual dump of popcorn that followed. Mizzou nearly got over the hump in 2006 and 2007, but it wasn’t until 2009 before they righted the ship and got back on the winning side. By then the shine had worn off Weber and Mizzou proceeded to hand the Illini four straight losses.
Then Illinois hired John Groce, who wasn’t great but better than what Missouri did, and the Tigers dropped another 5 in a row.
Since then things have see-sawed. Cuonzo Martin put together three straight wins on the backs of Illinois players. Then Illinois blew the doors off his last team. Then Dennis Gates blew the doors off the Illini in his first season. Illinois returned the favor the next year. And then last year’s close loss where Kasparas Jakucioinis hit a late bucket to put Illinois up for good. Alas, it’s time for revenge, right?
What about the team now?
We already mentioned Underwood and his new love of international players. Jakucionis was the first real foray into the youth international market — ok, that sounds bad but it’s all basketball- related — when he got a commitment from the Lithuanian guard. Jakucionis’s commitment was quickly followed by Tomislav Ivisic from Croatia. Last season those two were the only international players, although you might be confused by Ben Humrichous because of his last name, but yeah, he’s from Indiana.
So both Humrichous, a nearly season long starter, and Ivisic, a season long starter when he was healthy, are back on the roster this year. As is starting point guard Kylan Boswell (a native of Champaign if you were curious). Jake Davis, a role player off the bench, returns, as does little used guard A.J. Redd. Ty Rodgers took a redshirt season last year and returns after being a full-time starter two years ago.
That’s a lot of returning starts if you’re looking at Boswell, Ivisic, Rodgers, and Ivisic.
But Underwood wanted more starters and more Ivisics, so he went into the transfer portal and landed Tomislav’s brother, Zvonimir, a former Arkansas Razorback and Kentucky Wildcat. ‘Big Z’, as they call him, started most of the games for Arkansas last season. He also pulled Andrej Stojakovic out of the portal from Cal. Andrej was Cal’s leading scorer last year and is originally from California… but if the name sounds familiar it’s because his father, Peja, plaeyd 13 seasons in the NBA. Prior to that Peja was a top national player from Croatia!
There’s also Mihailo Petrovic from Serbia, as well as David Mirkovic from Montenegro. That’s a lot of former Yugoslavia countries. Serbia, Montenegro, & Croatia. But it’s also a talented roster.
Petrovic is good enough to start at most places, Stojakovic might be the best pro prospect, and then four other players who are all used to starting.
Illinois should be very good this year. Talentwise possibly a top 10 roster. We’ll see if Big Brad can put it all together this season.
