Illini Basketball 2025-2026

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#101      
RollChief
If you want to temper your personal expectations for this team, do not go to the KenPom single-game team records page.

Through two games, this team already has 2 games in the top 10 in Offensive Efficiency for all Illinois teams since 1997:

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Additionally, I didn't realize that we've scored 113 or more only 6 times since 1997, and we've done it twice this year:

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Perhaps the funniest stat is opposing team turnover rate - we set a record for not turning it over to opposing teams last Friday against FGCU (we turned them over 1.3% of the time):

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#102      
Bigtex
IMO, Illinois will be good/great if Mirk is a threat from 3 but relatively few 3's shot. Team will be better if he is distributing and effective in the lane as well as a tenacious rebounder.
 
#103      
AirNeazy
BretMyBeachHouse said:
Are we going to go all year with these types of comments?

For the record, the personnel decisions last year and three years ago basically sucked. So perhaps we can wait on evaluating this season's decisions until we see how things pan out. Underwood’s a good coach. He's not above criticism.
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Wow, seems pretty good that even when our coaching personnel decisions "suck" we still got 9 and 6 seeds in the tourney then.

On a non-sarcastic note, IDK how anyone can say that last years' roster construction was bad? We were a 6 seed (top 24 team in the nation ultimately) that lost to a 3 seed in the tourney and had multiple 1st round NBA draft picks. We're not talking about Steve Pikiell here LOL
 
#105      
Bigtex
AirNeazy said:
Wow, seems pretty good that even when our coaching personnel decisions "suck" we still got 9 and 6 seeds in the tourney then.

On a non-sarcastic note, IDK how anyone can say that last years' roster construction was bad? We were a 6 seed (top 24 team in the nation ultimately) that lost to a 3 seed in the tourney and had multiple 1st round NBA draft picks. We're not talking about Steve Pikiell here LOL
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When your best 2 players are freshman (and first 1 and dones in Illinois history) that plays into roster construction. Hard to anticipate injuries but 24-25 roster couldn't keep up the production during injuries. That is my take on roster construction. This years roster seems like it is better constructed to 1) be very good and 2) there are adequate (maybe better than adequate/8 possible starter quality players) back up players. So I agree this years roster construction is better than last years. I hope it means better results but absolutely not guaranteed
 
#106      
AirNeazy
Bigtex said:
When your best 2 players are freshman (and first 1 and dones in Illinois history) that plays into roster construction. Hard to anticipate injuries but 24-25 roster couldn't keep up the production during injuries. That is my take on roster construction. This years roster seems like it is better constructed to 1) be very good and 2) there are adequate (maybe better than adequate/8 possible starter quality players) back up players. So I agree this years roster construction is better than last years. I hope it means better results but absolutely not guaranteed
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100% agree with your post. All I take issue with is the characterization that our staff "sucked" at constructing the roster last year. If that was true, we wouldn't have sniffed the tourney, let alone been a 6 seed.
 
#107      
the juiceman cometh
BretMyBeachHouse said:
Are we going to go all year with these types of comments?

For the record, the personnel decisions last year and three years ago basically sucked. So perhaps we can wait on evaluating this season's decisions until we see how things pan out. Underwood’s a good coach. He's not above criticism.
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I guess I'm wondering what specific personnel decisions were bad? What players did Underwood turn down that he should have taken, and what players did he take where we'd be better off without them or with an unnamed/replacement player (essentially addition by subtraction).

You could say bringing in Mayer was bad and I think there'd be some validity to that.

I suppose you could say that not taking Fears as a reclass was bad, but I'm still not sure there's a universe we end up with both KJ and Fears, and I'm not sure the team performs better with Fears instead of KJ (if you didn't like KJ's 3p% and turnovers, well just take a look at Fears' performance in those categories).

You could say we should have focused more on retention, but would we have been better off paying CoHawk what KSt. ended up paying him? And if we do that, who do we end up not signing?

Carey Booth clearly didn't work out, but if we don't take Booth, who gets that spot and do we know they'd be a difference-maker?
 
#108      
Fighter of the Nightman
@IlliniInBuckeyeState with the football guesses a bit more boring this year, I humbly ask again if you have any guesses for our attendance as of today vs. Alabama at the UC! :cool:

Alabama vs. Illinois | United Center

For reference, here was the ticket map on October 24 when I guess I last screenshotted it, haha.

October 24
United Center - Alabama vs. Illinois (2025.11.19) v1 - 2025.10.24.png


November 10
United Center - Alabama vs. Illinois (2025.11.19) v2 - 2025.11.10.png


So a tiny bit of positive movement in some sections, but it is still looking like it will be an underwhelming crowd. :( Hoping if we can go 2-0 this week, we could see a late surge of tickets, and I also wonder how many fans like me are planning on going and just haven't decided what tickets they want to buy.
 
#109      
BretMyBeachHouse
I dont think Fears helps us much last year over KJ. Personally I'm not a fan in this day of the primary ball carrier having that little experience. I feel much better about that this year.

Booth, Hum, White were questionable pickups. I have no idea who else we could have landed. But these were all promoted as big deals. They weren't.

We ended up out of the top 25. In my book that sucks. I know others seem to be fine with that or put it a few levels above "suck".

To the original post I still believe there has been plenty to question in how we have constructed those two teams.

I'm happy BU's our coach. I don’t think that requires putting on blinders.
 
#110      
Toews
I saw it was just AJ Redd was at the captains meeting for the first game, did anyone see who was there for FGCU? My guess is Kylan is a captain but has a very specific warmup routine he doesn't like to lose focus from, as he was a captain last season and wasn't in the meeting either.
 
#111      
jamarvelous31
Fighter of the Nightman said:
@IlliniInBuckeyeState with the football guesses a bit more boring this year, I humbly ask again if you have any guesses for our attendance as of today vs. Alabama at the UC! :cool:

Alabama vs. Illinois | United Center

For reference, here was the ticket map on October 24 when I guess I last screenshotted it, haha.

October 24
View attachment 44807

November 10
View attachment 44808

So a tiny bit of positive movement in some sections, but it is still looking like it will be an underwhelming crowd. :( Hoping if we can go 2-0 this week, we could see a late surge of tickets, and I also wonder how many fans like me are planning on going and just haven't decided what tickets they want to buy.
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The tickets are wildly overpriced for a Weds night game with an 8pm tipoff during a non holiday week.

If it were the next week or a weekend night, it'd be sold out.
 
#113      
OrangeKrush1981
the juiceman cometh said:
I guess I'm wondering what specific personnel decisions were bad? What players did Underwood turn down that he should have taken, and what players did he take where we'd be better off without them or with an unnamed/replacement player (essentially addition by subtraction).
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Taking Tre White, in the end (please read that), turned out to not be a good decision. If that's not clear, I guess I can only say that words fail me. If he'd come back for a second season (ha ha, first time in seven such seasons!), I would rate that recruitment differently. But Tre didn't return.
 
#114      
Fighter of the Nightman
Yeah, it is such a shame that this (I guess?) had to be on a Wednesday night. While there are obviously more than enough Illini fans in the city to fill the UC (let alone the whole Chicagoland Area), the simple fact is sporting events continue to get more and more prohibitive for the average person to attend, and events like this need a solid contingent of out-of-town Illini fans coming in. For a Saturday afternoon game during that pre-Christmas season - as all but TWO of our games at the UC have been! - there is no shortage of relatively affluent families who might make a mini vacation out of it. On a Wednesday night, though, you are asking a lot of heavy lifting from the local fan base to pay those prices ... and I am not being elitist, I absolutely consider us with a 1-year old to be in the sticker shock category! :ROFLMAO:

Oh well, I guess to keep perspective, this is what 18,136 or 87% of capacity looked like vs. Auburn in 2012-2013...
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... and this much more humble crowd is what 13,759 or 66% of capacity looked like vs. Oregon in 2014-2015.
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So, my optimistic hope is that we can eventually swell it to cross the 15k threshold ... that would look respectable.
 
#115      
BlueFlag
Tevo said:
The one knock on him could be pure athleticism .
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In regard to David Mirkovic, I'm curious about where this thought ever came from.

I don't see anything slow or plodding in his game so far. He seems to be a very savvy player with good shooting and ball handling skills. His basketball awareness for an early freshman is like "Wow, Dude!"

In our small public sample set, a few times already he quickly hustled down the full length of the court.

Is he the best defender? . . . don't know yet, but I'm not counting him out.
 
#116      
AndyKaufmanstutor
Off topic, but does anyone know what time the Illini play LIU on the 22nd? It’s less than two weeks away and everywhere I look it still says TBD. I’ve got tickets for the game and have a three hour drive. Thanks.
 
#117      
Dan
AndyKaufmanstutor said:
Off topic, but does anyone know what time the Illini play LIU on the 22nd? It’s less than two weeks away and everywhere I look it still says TBD. I’ve got tickets for the game and have a three hour drive. Thanks.
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It'll finally be announced right after the IL @ Wisconsin football game time gets released, this Saturday night or Sunday morning.
 
#119      
GoodePodzMelendez
It’s been kind of an adventure since Brad has been here. He tried a hybrid of his SFA teams and. The one year at OKST. Play a trapping style defense with try to score in 7 seconds offense. We did not have the personnel top run either which is why we were down in the standings. AYO comes with Kofi and Giorgi. He implements a drop step defense and a dump the ball in the paint or let AYO isolate. That seemed to work until Loyola played a defensive scheme that Brad either refused to adjust or he had no answer to their style. The next year, to me was the most frustrating as I took a minority view to Brad’s philosophy. He was stubborn in how he ran the 21-22 team. He stuck with playing 7 guys instead of giving the three freshmen, Goode, Melendez and Podz were not used properly nor developed. I have always said the biggest mistake Brad did was when TF was injured, he put DMW as the point guard instead of Podz. Developing Podz would have helped us in the long run that season. Yes, we would not have won the regular season but my thinking is that winning the B1G regular season really doesn’t mean anything. We lost as the 1 seed to IU on Friday with a depleted and completely drained/wore out team. If Brad would have developed the three freshmen, we would have been deeper and fresher instead of being hit with the injury and illness bug. Truth be told, in the Houston game, we were playing better with Goode, Melendez, TF, Plummer and Kofi as we were within striking distance until that clueless ref Technical Foul call on Melendez for slightly hanging on the rim. That call completely changed the momentum of the game. So now we turn to the 22-23 season where it started badly with Goode getting hurt to Clark quitting. The team really had no chemistry and we get smoked by Arky in the tourney. So Brad went old with the 23-24 team and we succeeded with a B1G Tourney Champ win a 3 seed and a Elite 8 run. Brad switched his thinking again and went younger and overseas/across the border. Limited success but we could not get over the hump as we lost to UK in the 2nd round. So Brad capitalized on the play of KJ, Tomi and Riley. He brought in the Baltic players that have international experience and two really solid freshmen. We have yet to see the ful compliment of talent we now have and this is Brad’s deepest team. I hope he uses his depth so we are cohesive and ready for March. To summarize, Brad’s years have been kind of a roller coaster but I believe now he has the right philosophy to compete year in and year out. Unlike some coaches, he has embraced the portal. That will pay huge dividends as players wanting to transfer here can see how we are succeeding in the portal process. I believe this will be Brad’s best team since he has been here barely surpassing the 24 team and the 20 team.
 
#120      
Weatherspoon1
BlueFlag said:
In regard to David Mirkovic, I'm curious about where this thought ever came from.

I don't see anything slow or plodding in his game so far. He seems to be a very savvy player with good shooting and ball handling skills. His basketball awareness for an early freshman is like "Wow, Dude!"

In our small public sample set, a few times already he quickly hustled down the full length of the court.

Is he the best defender? . . . don't know yet, but I'm not counting him out.
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I love Mirk my comp with him is Draymond Green he’s very similar to him (I also see a bit of Jokic/Queen). On a side note it makes me laugh a little at how short his steps are when he runs - looks like he’s trying to get off hot coals with a bit of tippy toes mixed in 😛. Honestly he’s my fave player since Giorgi (before that it was Lucas Johnson).
 
#121      
21ChampaignSt
Weatherspoon1 said:
I love Mirk my comp with him is Draymond Green he’s very similar to him (I also see a bit of Jokic/Queen). On a side note it makes me laugh a little at how short his steps are when he runs - looks like he’s trying to get off hot coals with a bit of tippy toes mixed in 😛. Honestly he’s my fave player since Giorgi (before that it was Lucas Johnson).
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My good friend @RowdyFromRow22 had the perfect Mirk comp. He's Curbello stuck in Giorgi's body. And now I can't unsee it 😂
 
#123      
blackdog
Weatherspoon1 said:
I love Mirk my comp with him is Draymond Green he’s very similar to him (I also see a bit of Jokic/Queen). On a side note it makes me laugh a little at how short his steps are when he runs - looks like he’s trying to get off hot coals with a bit of tippy toes mixed in 😛. Honestly he’s my fave player since Giorgi (before that it was Lucas Johnson).
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He also doesn't really swing his arms above waist level so that adds even more to the goofiness.
 
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