Brad Underwood Details Illinois' Defensive Woes

There is no sugarcoating it: Illinois has been, at times this season, a nightmare on defense. After the Illini's loss to Nebraska in mid-December, they seemingly turned a corner on that end of the floor, spurring a 12-game win streak.

Then the defense fell apart in a loss to Michigan State before completely crumbling against Wisconsin. But after the return of Kylan Boswell from injury against Indiana and Andrej Stojakovic at USC, the Illini defense was again firing on all cylinders.

Seemingly, Illinois coach Brad Underwood – who had drilled home the point that his club just needed to get healthy – was proven right. But a game later, the Illini were torched by UCLA, which shot 50.7 percent from the field and hit 11 threes.

With six days between games and the opportunity to recoup ahead of a huge date with Michigan, the expectation was Illinois would be thoroughly prepared for the Wolverines. Instead, Michigan bullied the home squad, shooting 52.5 percent from the field while snagging 11 offensive boards. (Underwood summarized the contest best below.)

Brad Underwood on Illinois' loss to Michigan:

"They took the belt off and beat our behinds with it" 😳pic.twitter.com/xO2FtWP4qh
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) February 28, 2026

Brad Underwood details why Illinois must prioritze 'daily vitamins'

Despite Underwood’s recent penchant for pinning the blame on either the referees or a lack of health from his unit, he immediately took full responsibility for the Michigan loss Friday night. And by the time Monday rolled around, he appeared to have a hard solution for the Illini’s next step on defense.

“Simple is better sometimes,” Underwood said in the pregame press conference ahead of Illinois’ Tuesday night matchup with Oregon (8 p.m. CT, Peacock). “I think the one thing we can’t get away from is your base, your daily vitamins, as we call it. You have to do it every day.

“The zone has been really good for us. That’s a part of what we do – and that’s fine. But we’ve got to know what we are. We got size. We’re the biggest team in the country. We’ve got to use that length and that size to contest shots better and block out better. Those are all things that are huge for us. So simple is better.”

As for the specific issues themselves, Underwood recognizes his club has been unable to take away anything defensively. It’s impossible to shut down every aspect of an opposing team’s offensive attack, but ideally, a defense is denying the other team something. The Illini, of late, have not.

“It’s scouting-report mistakes,” Underwood said. “You can’t give up lobs, layups and threes. Can’t give them all up. And that’s what we’re doing. We’ve been really good. We’ve been absolutely some of the best at contesting shots and our block-out rates, and there’s a laundry list of things that we talk about a lot that we’ve slipped in. So we’ve got to get back to some of that.”