Underwood has plenty of talent to work with

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CHAMPAIGN — Brad Underwood, in May, was cautious about going beyond 10 scholarship players for the 2024-25 men’s college basketball season.

Illinois was looking for one more player at that point. Maybe.

Too many players wasn’t just worrisome. It was potentially disastrous, according to the Illinois coach.

Underwood, in late June, had clearly alleviated himself of those concerns. The more the merrier, with Illinois heading into the 2024-25 season with 12 of its 13 scholarships filled. That the final two spots went to Kasparas Jakucionis and Will Riley — projected first-round picks in the 2025 NBA draft — was the difference-maker.

Too much talent? No such thing.

“I’m not going to buy that you can have too much,” Underwood said at the end of last month. “That’s a cop out. People that say that are the people that don’t have it.

“We’ll figure it out. It always works itself out. We spent a ton of time studying character, studying guys we know fit what we’re doing. We’ve been very decisive, I think, in trying not to waver on character, on talent and the specific needs of these guys.”

How that talent coalesces on the basketball court is Illinois’ summer project. Workouts are underway at Ubben Basketball Complex with most of the team on campus. The only two players missing are Riley and Tomislav Ivisic, both whom are both going through the university’s admissions process.

It’s an important summer for the Illini given only Ty Rodgers and Dra Gibbs Lawhorn return from last season’s 29-9 team that reached the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament. The broad concepts haven’t changed — Underwood still intends to run a matchup-hunting offense — but the personnel has turned over almost completely.

“It’s all going to fit together,” Underwood said. “There will be some growing pains. There’s no doubt. The defensive side is the hardest side to learn, but we feel like we’ve got a group who fits and we won’t have to search as much on the offensive side to find those fits.”

A few weeks of workouts have given Underwood some insights into his new-look team. Evansville transfer Ben Humrichous and Mercer transfer Jake Davis have both lived up to their reputation as shooters and floor spacers and flashed even more overall game than Underwood said the staff had anticipated.

Kylan Boswell has dropped 20 pounds since his arrival and has approached workouts with what Underwood called an “unbelievable attitude.” Freshman big man Morez Johnson Jr. has also led the team in rebounding in every stint of five-on-five action — a daily staple — since he joined the team after winning gold with Team USA at the FIBA U18 AmeriCup.

“This is really kind of ground floor teaching,” Underwood said. “We’ve emphasized spacing. We’re trying to play very fast. ... The month of June is really a lot of individual stuff and really just talking spacing. We haven’t gotten into a lot of the specifics. We’ll pick that up after the (Fourth of July) in terms of some actions. Same thing we did last year.

“It’s a time we’re doing a lot of teaching, but, more importantly, we’re playing. We want to rev up their competitive juices and develop some chemistry with these guys through playing.”

Underwood intends to take advantage of his new-look team’s positional size and shooting to max out lineup options. Big lineups might see the 6-foot-9 Humrichous play the 3 next to Carey Booth (6-10) and Ivisic (7-1). The Illini could go smaller if the situation called for it with a pairing of Boswell (6-2) and Gibbs-Lawhorn (6-1) in the backcourt.

“I hope we have a group where we’ve got eight, nine or 10 guys that are starters,” Underwood said. “Let’s go compete. We had three bad practices last year out of 107. Three. Two of them were before Penn State, so no wonder we lost that game. We’re going to have that same thing this year. You don’t perform in practice, just come sit. I’m good with that. I like that. I like having the talent to know there’s not a huge drop-off.”