This won’t be immediately obvious, but this post celebrates what is – by far – the most memorable University of Illinois basketball season in 16 years, and maybe the most likeable Illinois team I have ever followed, in any sport. So if you’re here for Illini content, stay with me. And if you’re not, stay for the movie quotes.
In the Summer of 1981, I turned 16, and a few weeks before my birthday the movie Stripes was released. It was one of the top five movies at the box office in North America that year, a careening comedy starring Bill Murray and featuring Harold Ramis, John Candy, John Larroquette, Judge Reinhold and a bunch of other recognizable actors.
Stripes is one of those movies teeming with sticky lines. Teenage boys who saw the movie over and over and over through their college years have become middle-aged men who frequently recite its many memorable lines.
For whatever reason, an early scene in Stripes is one I remember vividly. In that scene, loser-in-life and soon-to-be U.S. Army recruit John Winger (Bill Murray) returns home after quitting his job as a cab driver. As he walks up to his apartment, his car gets re-possessed, and he drops a pizza he is carrying onto the street. Having an all-time bad day, he staggers dejectedly into his apartment. And promptly gets dumped by his girlfriend, Anita (Roberta Leighton).
Murray desperately attempts to keep Anita on board with a combination of flattery and humor. He tells her, “you’re a sexual dynamo! Most guys couldn’t even handle you. I’ve been reading books on the outside just so I can keep up with you!” Anita is unmoved. She tells him: “It’s not funny. You’re going nowhere, John. It’s just not that cute any more.” And then – with John on his knees and Anita on her way out the door – came the exchange that inspired the title of this post:
Anita: Look, I like you, but I need something more. I need somebody who is going to develop with me, someone who is going to grow with me. Goodbye.
John: Who could grow more than me? Talk about massive potential for growth! I am the little acorn that becomes the oak! You can’t go! All the plants are gonna die.
stripes, 1981.
A Return to Relevance
What does any of this have to do with Illini basketball, you ask? Well, there has been a noticeable uptick in chatter about my beloved Fighting Illini this year, and just about every time I’m asked my thoughts about this team, I summon that word: growth.
Through the steady guidance of fiery Head Coach Brad Underwood, the Illinois basketball program is the little acorn – okay, maybe a sapling? – that is becoming an oak, right before our eyes. Illinois – now ranked #3 in the nation – has returned to relevance in a sport in which it should be relevant, given history, proximity to great high school basketball talent, and other factors. The barriers to building a sustainable, competitive football team do not exist when it comes to basketball. And Illinois, ranked #16 in college basketball history in wins and generally considered a Top 15 program based on its accomplishments, really should be an NCAA tournament team year in and year out, even playing in the uber-rugged Big Ten.
And not too long ago, it was. Between 1981, when Stripes was released, and 2011, Illinois made the NCAA tournament field 24 times. It made Final Four appearances in 1989 and in 2005, when it lost to North Carolina in the title game. Lou Henson. Lon Kruger. Bill Self. Bruce Weber. All kept the train moving forward.
But, as John Winger said to himself in an empty apartment several seconds after Anita left him: “And then, depression set in.” The energetic and earnest John Groce coached the Illini for five seasons (2012-2017), and delivered a whopping one NCAA tournament appearance, in his first year coaching Weber’s leftovers. Not good enough. Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman took the flickering torch of the basketball program from Groce’s hands and searched for someone to bring the flame back.
Enter Underwood. I heard the news of Underwood’s hiring on a chilly Saturday afternoon in March 2017, while watching my son’s high school baseball game. I remember thinking, “Brad Underwood? I know the name … but where does he coach, again?” I quickly caught up on his story. Hard-nosed coach from the Bob Huggins/Frank Martin coaching tree. Decades-long dues payer as an assistant at various colleges. Junior college coach. Got his shot at Stephen F. Austin and had enormous success and two NCAA tournament appearances. Got hired by Oklahoma State and led the Cowboys to the tournament in his one year at that school. And then he got sideways with his AD and felt underappreciated, giving super-hero AD Whitman the opening he needed to strike fast and spirit him away to Champaign on a private jet. That’s how super-hero athletic directors roll.
Underwood came in with a reputation for fast-paced, efficient offense and high-pressure defense. The coach Underwood replaced, Groce, had actually lined up a stellar recruiting class on his way out the door, including two current Illini (Floridian Trent Frazier and Illini legacy Da’Monte Williams) and two standouts from the Metro East area on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, Jeremiah Tilmon and Javon Pickett. But when Groce was fired new Missouri coach Cuonzo Martin pounced, flipping Tilmon and Pickett to his side. In an early recruiting win, however, Underwood did convince Mark Smith of Edwardsville, Illinois’ Mr. Basketball, to join the Illini. So the new guy could recruit a bit. Good start.
Goodbye, Mark; Hello, Ayo
In Underwood’s first year, the Illini were 14-18, and won all of 4 games in the Big Ten. Four! And at the end of the year, Smith transferred to … wait for it … Cuonzo Martin and Mizzou. Based on tidbits I’ve picked up in my Illini hoops reading over the years, it seems Smith and his parents were not enthralled with Underwood’s tough love coaching style, and maybe even less enthralled with Smith taking a back seat to Frazier, who made the All-Big Ten Freshman team and was second on the Illini in scoring. Oddly, Smith’s departure may have kickstarted the ascent of the Illinois program. And that’s not necessarily a knock on the kid – he was unhappy and had every right to transfer, and Illinois did not stand in the way of his pitch for immediate eligibility at Mizzou. He has gone on to have an okay career. He’s not a star, but he’s okay (and, maddeningly, has beaten Illinois three times in the annual Braggin’ Rights matchup!#$!).
In hindsight, Smith’s departure worked out well for Illinois because it made it easy for Underwood to hand the reins of the program to the highest-rated Illinois recruit in a decade, Ayo Dosunmu from Morgan Park High School in Chicago. Dosunmu was a big, big get. A top-tier recruit who stayed home, ending the exodus of Chicago Public League standouts to blue blood programs like Kentucky and Duke and Kansas. At 6-5, he arrived as a wiry 170-pounder, soaking wet. Mediocre jump shot. Average ballhandler. Underdeveloped physically. But it was apparent from Day 1 he could play. From the start of his college career, you could see Ayo had it. Like all great basketball players, he was unafraid of the big moment. He glided around the court with his head on a swivel, he had good court awareness. He found ways to score. Not a jump-out-of-the gym type, Ayo just had a knack for finding the ball in his hands with the game on the line. He embraced pressure. He embraced the role of Face of the Program. He wanted to be great, and he wanted to put in the work to be great.
Still, even with Ayo on board – as well as the effusive and surprisingly effective Giorgi Bezhanishvili, another freshman – the Illini limped to a 12-21 record, improving to seven wins in the conference. Ayo flirted briefly with turning professional after his freshman year (all great high school players think that “one-and-done” is a possibility when they leave high school).
Enter Kofi
But Ayo wasn’t ready, and help was on the way – principally in the person of a 7-foot, 290-pound Jamaican named Kofi Cockburn (pronounced, KO-burn, for those of you who giggled), who played as a prep in New York and then Virginia. A relative neophyte to basketball, Cockburn has what coaches cannot teach or drill – size. Kofi is a large, large human being.
Cockburn started at center for Illinois from Day 1. And beginning with the 2019-2020 season, Illinois basketball became the Ayo and Kofi Show. Ayo was the lightning fast guard, Kofi was the thunderous presence in the middle. The program was back to cooking with gas. Ayo’s legend grew with game-winning shots on the road at Penn State and Michigan. Kofi – raw as he was – was immediately a factor. The Illini basically flipped their record from the prior season – from 21 losses to 21 wins. From 7-13 in the Big Ten to 13-7. A key piece of that turnaround was senior guard Andres Feliz, a bulldog of a guard who personified everything Underwood wanted the program to become on the court: tough, smart, relentless. Illinois was back, and headed for the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2013. The six-year streak of missing out on March Madness was over. Illinois was entering the post-season on a roll, playing its best basketball of the Underwood era.
And then, just when Illinois had pried open the door and had one foot across the threshold, COVID-19 slammed it shut. First, the Big Ten tournament and NCAA tournaments were cancelled. Then, Ayo announced he was entering the NBA draft. And then, Kofi announced he was entering the NBA draft. Cue John Winger. For Illinois fans – for what seemed like the umpteenth time in the last decade – depression set in.
But this time, depression was short-lived, because not only did the pandemic derail Illinois’ return to the NCAA tournament, it very well may have delayed the professional careers of Ayo and Kofi. Lacking the post-season to showcase their abilities and lacking a normal pre-draft interview/workout process to impress prospective employers, Ayo and Kofi were left with uncertain professional prospects, at best. In fact, most of the pre-draft “mock” drafts had neither Ayo nor Kofi being picked at all in the NBA draft’s two rounds – an assessment that did not surprise me at all. Both remained unfinished products, with lots of room for improvement. So Ayo and Kofi were each faced with the choice of turning professional during a global pandemic with uncertain job prospects, or coming back to attend to unfinished business at Illinois.
The Stars Align
Ayo’s late July announcement that he was returning was quickly followed by Kofi’s announcement that he was returning, too. For Illinois basketball fans, this was nirvana. And to add fuel to the fire of optimism that gripped Illini Nation, in addition to several other key returnees – like Frazier, Giorgi B. and Da’Monte Williams – Illinois was adding two Top 50 recruits in Adam Miller and Andre Curbelo. Finally. The stars were aligning.
But the alignment of stars isn’t ever quite enough. The Illini seemed poised for success, but this wasn’t a Kentucky or Duke deal. Those teams simply re-load every year by signing four or five of the Top 50-100 high school players, usually including one or two each in the Top 10. In normal years, the Coach Ks and John Caliparis of the world roll out the ball, coach ‘em up for a month or two, experience a few growing pains, and then become a problem for everyone else come Spring. Illinois was talented coming into this season, but not that talented. Ayo and Kofi and Miller and Curbelo chose Illinois over other great programs, but not over Kentucky or Duke. The blue blood programs get the NBA-ready guys – like Zion Williamson or Anthony Davis. Not Illinois. Not yet.
Illinois entered the season ranked in the Top 10 because it had taken giant steps forward since Underwood was hired: the talent had been upgraded, sure, but what Underwood really brought was an identity, toughness, and resolve that had been missing for a long time. But it would take more to get to where the Illini stand today: on the verge of a #1 seed in the upcoming NCAA tournament.
The Season
Lots of people get paid to chronicle the college basketball season, but not me. So I’m not going to talk about the games. I’m not going to talk about the losses to Baylor and Mizzou and Maryland. I’m not going to talk about the three straight road wins against ranked teams (two in the Top 10) to end the season, or the outrageous second half at Northwestern early in the year, or the takedown of Iowa at home, or the flawless dismantling of Minnesota at The Barn, or the come-from-behind capstone win in the regular season finale at Ohio State to all but lock up that #1 seed.
Heck, I’m not even going to pause very long to talk about the beatdown of #2-ranked Michigan in Ann Arbor last week. Thanks to Tom Izzo encouraging his players to pretend the basketball court was shaped like a mixed martial arts octagon when Illinois played at Michigan State a couple of weeks back, Ayo’s nose was broken and his brain concussed. So Illinois faced Michigan without Ayo, and the oddsmakers gave the Illini little chance. So what did Underwood do? He unleashed the dogs. Illinois played absolutely suffocating defense, seized every loose ball, dominated the backboards, and won by 23. On that night, Illinois’ basketballers did to Michigan what Ohio State’s footballers have been doing to Michigan for the better part of a decade. Michigan basketball coach Juwan Howard visited the woodshed Jim Harbaugh visits every November, having been taken there not by the Buckeyes, but by the Illini.
The season may end for Illinois with a glorious run to the Final Four, and it may end with a soul-crushing upset loss in the tournament, or with some result neither as glorious or soul-crushing. And that’s why it was important to me to write this right now. For no matter the end to this season, Illinois basketball is back … and I think it’s back to stay. And it’s back to stay because the acorn is becoming the oak.
Becoming the Oak
Underwood grew. Two years ago, he abandoned a defensive style he had long favored because it was simply not working. I like coaches who are “good stubborn” (stay true to core principles) but aren’t “stupid stubborn” (fail to adapt to their rosters). Underwood adapted. He tolerated mistakes from young players. And – this is underrated but a big part of the story – he was forced to do something no college basketball coach has ever had to do: figure out how to guide a group of young men through a college basketball season during a pandemic. Underwood wasn’t alone in facing that challenge, but he met it head on. Perhaps Illinois’ greatest accomplishment this year: zero positive COVID tests since last August among the 30 or so people associated with the program.
The star of stars, Ayo, grew. He worked relentlessly on his game and his body. The skinny 170-pound kid is now a chiseled 205. And his legend as a late-game closer has grown. Junior-year Ayo and freshman-year Ayo have the same “attack the rim” mentality. But Ayo is now finishing above the rim, scoring over much taller players and absorbing contact that allows him to finish what he starts. There is no doubt Ayo will re-test the NBA waters this Spring. This time, mock drafts project him being drafted in the first round. Good decision to return, young man.
Kofi grew – not physically, but in every other way. His stamina is better. His defense is better. His finishing around the rim is better. He still can exhibit a blacksmith’s touch, especially at the free throw line, and has a long way to go to become a certain NBA player. But Kofi will make a living somewhere playing basketball, whenever he wants to take that step.
The Veterans – Frazier, Williams, and Giorgi B. – grew. Frazier, after leading Illinois in scoring as a freshman, has become a dominant on-ball defender and secondary scoring option. But he’s still got the offensive juice when he needs it – just ask Michigan. And Williams, a jack-of-all-trades glue guy, became a knockdown three-point shooter. Always a willing and effective defender, Williams’ improvement as a three-point shooter has been nothing short of head-scratching in a really, really good way. His three-point shooting percentages in his four years: .225, .317, .283, .545. Giorgi B. – a surprise as a low-post scorer as a freshman – has essentially become Kofi’s butler and occasional frontcourt mate. There is no more infectiously positive player in college basketball. His performances on the court range from scintillating to maddening, sometimes in the same possession! Schizophrenia in shorts. But he’s impossible not to like.
The Freshmen grew. Miller is going to be a big-time scorer before he leaves Illinois, but in the meantime he has become an excellent defender. Bring your fancy high school resume and your Mr. Basketball award and your state titles, but unless you bring the willingness to play defense, you are not going to play for Brad Underwood at Illinois. Miller figured that out immediately.
And then there is the other key freshman, Andre Curbelo, All-Big Ten Freshman team pick and the conference’s Sixth-Man of the Year. He is a dead ringer for Welcome Back Kotter’s Juan Epstein, and a special, special player. For much of the season he made two types of play: the spectacular or the boneheaded. I happened to watch a bunch of Curbelo’s high school video clips when he signed with Illinois, and I knew what the Illini were getting: an electric player with way, way, way above average basketball IQ. He is unlike any player Illinois has had during my 40+ years as an Illinois fan. Fully aware I am stepping out on something of a limb here, I predict Andre Curbelo will go down as the best pure point guard in Illinois history, and that his jersey will hang from the rafters of the State Farm Center. In Ayo’s absence late in the season, Curbelo became maybe Illinois’ most valuable player, Jamaican big men included. The turnovers have decreased, the steady and crafty plays have increased. More, please.
And The Other Guys have grown, too. Every great college basketball team has a bunch of unsung guys, most of whom play little but cheer on their teammates like crazy. A few of The Other Guys – namely transfer Jacob Grandison and freshman Coleman Hawkins – have contributed at key moments on the court. But all of the Illini – whether scholarship players or walk-ons – have formed one of the best, most demonstrative benches in college basketball this year. And that’s a big deal when the energy usually supplied by fans is missing. The non-playing Illini have figured that out; especially this year, they can bring energy to their teammates.
Every Sixteen Years
The Flying Illini in 1989 made the Final Four. Sixteen years later, the Dee/Deron/Luther Illini in 2005 were national runner-up. Sixteen years later, the 2021 Illini have yet to write their final chapter. I cannot get worked up about the debate as to whether 16-4 Illinois deserved to share the conference title with 14-3 Michigan. Josh Whitman wrote an open letter passionately expressing the view that Illinois and Michigan should have been named co-champions. I don’t really care. Win nine straight or even seven straight, and nobody will care.
Illinois fans will be despondent if this team flames out, for good reason. This team is talented, well-coached, and together. That combination normally leads to success in March. But whatever the end for this team, the ride has been a blast. And the ride has been so much more fun because we are two years removed from a 12-21 season. Illinois grew into this, and it didn’t come easily.
Is the oak fully formed and ready to withstand whatever March brings? We are about to find out. But Illinois basketball is back to being relevant, and I have a feeling Illinois fans won’t have to wait 16 years after 2021 for another buzz-worthy basketball season.
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