A mass exodus of players from last season’s Illinois men’s basketball squad, which saw the Illini lose key contributors to the NBA, the transfer portal and eligibility expiration, leaves the current roster with very little returning experience.
The good news: Coach Brad Underwood and his assistants did very well for themselves in rebuilding with transfers and a group of freshmen that Underwood believes may be the most talented to ever set foot on campus in Champaign – 10 newcomers in all. The bad? Now the Illini staff has to figure out how to put all the pieces together.
A quick look across the college basketball landscape shows that the Illini aren’t alone in churning the talent waters. So at Big Ten media day last week, Underwood was asked: Is this sort of roster turnover the new normal?
“I don’t know if that many is normal,” Underwood said. “I think it’s kind of what we expected, knowing what we had with last year’s team, but I think we’ll see it mellow out a little bit now that we get rid of fifth-years and the COVID guys.
“But, yeah, it’s not something I haven’t done before. As a junior college coach, that was pretty much the norm. But I do like this group, and I think our staff has worked really hard to acquire the right blend of portal guys with high school guys.”
Underwood says the Illini are currently much further along offensively than defensively, but that’s probably to be expected.
Offensive skill development has become a cottage industry at the youth levels, and many of Illinois’ newcomers are elite athletes and scorers who have the advanced ability to create their own shots.
What they lack at the moment is physicality and the defensive cohesion that comes with repetitions together.
“We’ve played a lot more – just in terms of the chemistry on the court, just actually playing, getting a feel for each other,” Underwood said. “We’re mixing a lot of lineups up. We’re never playing the same group every day together. I’m trying to learn that piece of it – who works well together, who doesn’t. But that’s all part of the process. But on the character side of things, they’re all getting along, and I like that.”
