Familiarity, comfort key for Illini as workouts resume

CHAMPAIGN — Classes start at the University of Illinois on Monday for the new school year.

The Illini men’s basketball team will have the week to get settled on the academic front. While resuming their work with strength and conditioning coach Adam Fletcher, of course.

That’s a day one undertaking.

A return to the practice court at Ubben Basketball Complex will follow. Mostly individual workouts and small groups through September with some full-team days mixed in before official practices begin at the end of the month.

Then it’s a mad dash to the start of the 2024-25 season, which includes an Oct. 27 charity exhibition at Mississippi before the Nov. 4 season opener against Eastern Illinois at State Farm Center. Just more than two months, all told, for a new-look Illinois team to prepare for a markedly tough schedule in and out of Big Ten play.

The foundation for the coming season was set this summer. For the most part. Pace of play, floor spacing and a defense that could protect the rim better were all emphasized, and Illinois coach Brad Underwood was pleased with his team’s effort.

“We’ve spent a lot of the summer playing fast,” Underwood said. “We’ve spent a lot of the summer talking about spacing and having guys in multiple positions so we can throw five guys out there and not worry about, really, who, where and why. Just put them in the right spots and know we’ve got good basketball players in all those spots.

“The basics of what we’re doing (defensively), we changed some things schematically because of our size. That foundation is in. Again, it always comes down to guarding the basketball, and I do think we will protect the rim better than we have in some time. Kofi (Cockburn) was different just because of his mass, but we weren’t great at it last year.”

Not having the entire team on campus at the same time during the summer, however, was the only drawback to Illinois’ offseason efforts. By the time five-star freshman Will Riley arrived after his late June commitment and four-star Croatian freshman Tomislav Ivisic cleared the admissions process, four-star freshman guard Kasparas Jakucionis had returned to Europe to play for Lithuania in the FIBA U18 EuroBasket.

“You want familiarity,” Underwood said. “You want comfort. You want to see how guys play and react to each other. You want to see different lineups that KJ being gone here in July didn’t give us the luxury of seeing this summer. There’s a lot of things out there we’re really excited to look at from a lineup standpoint and see how they interact.”

That familiarity — that comfort level together — is going to be important. Illinois can ease into the first week of the 2024-25 season with home games against Eastern Illinois and SIU-Edwardsville, but high-level matchups loom. From Nov. 20 through Dec. 14, the Illini will play three almost assuredly ranked SEC teams in Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee with a pair of Big Ten games between the showdowns with the Razorbacks and Volunteers. The Big Ten has yet to release its schedule for the season.

“It’s not so much about the talent level being that much different,” Underwood said. “I think it’s more about the chemistry that must develop as we continue to grow, understanding how to win. That’s what we do. How to win and how tough you have to be to handle that. All those things are challenges with a young team.

“I love our talent. I love our work ethic. It’s just now about making them tough and making them come together and understand what winning is all about.”

Illinois’ starting point — from a sheer talent perspective — is different than in past seasons. Last year’s experienced team went 29-9 and advanced to the Elite Eight, but Terrence Shannon Jr. was the only one to wind up selected in the NBA draft. This year’s team is younger, but already has multiple players like Jakucionis, Riley and Kylan Boswell projected by someone, right now, as a first-round pick in the 2025 NBA draft.

“Part of it is you look at next-level projections, to be very honest,” Underwood said about how he evaluated where his team was at talent-wise as it came together between April and June. “Guys that the next level likes. It’s nice to see us have some of those guys. … Getting more action guys — more guys who can do things and stay within the influx of our size and shooting — I think we’re in a really good spot there. I feel good about our talent, and then I just like the fact we’ve got a lot of versatility with size.”