Illini’s dark scrimmage game to be at South Carolina

Illini to play at South Carolina in dark scrimmage later this month

Illinois head coach Brad Underwood has agreed to play his unofficial dark scrimmage game against his former boss.

Illinois will travel to South Carolina on Oct. 27 in the preseason scrimmage commonly referred to the “dark scrimmage”. Stadium.com’s Jeff Goodman was the first to report this news but it was later confirmed Wednesday afternoon by Illini sophomore forward Giorgi Bezhanishvili in a Big Ten Network panel interview during the league’s media day. Due to NCAA regulations, the scrimmage will not be televised and the two programs are restricted from discussing publicly specific results from the game.

Underwood as associate head coach at South Carolina under current head coach Frank Martin. He went to Columbia with Martin after serving on his bench for five seasons as an assistant at Kansas State, with his final season elevated to associate head coach. Underwood spent his first year at K-State in the role of director of operations for then-head coach Bob Huggins.

The Illini finished 12-21 last season but have preseason NCAA Tournament expectations as they welcome back eight of their top nine leading scorers including 85 percent of the points, 82 percent of the minutes and 79 percent of the rebounds from a year ago. South Carolina went 16-16 last season despite finishing tied for fourth in the Southeastern Conference. The Gamecocks return three starters from last year’s team including sophomore guard A.J. Lawson (13.4 points per game, 4.3 rpg, 2.9 apg).

Four days after this dark scrimmage at South Carolina, Illinois will open its season Nov. 1 with an exhibition contest against Lewis University. The Fighting Illini will then host Nicholls State for the regular-season opener on Nov. 5 at 7 p.m. The Illini’s non-conference slate includes a road game at Arizona (Nov. 11), a home game against Miami in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge (Dec. 2) and the annual Braggin’ Rights game in St. Louis vs. Missouri (Dec. 21). Illinois will open Big Ten Conference play at Maryland on Dec. 7.