Turn Down the Volume? Illinois' Brad Underwood Wants 'Good Shots'

Basketball is about balance. It's a game of athletic balance, sure, but also one of finding a certain philosophical equilibrium.

Consider last season's Illinois basketball program. An excellent offseason recruiting haul – including top freshmen Kasparas Jakucionis and Will Riley – allowed coach Brad Underwood to unleash one of his most talented groups ever in a quick-paced, threes-and-rim-finishes offensive attack that is theoretically backed by solid statistical-analytics support.

#Illini Brad Underwood on Ben Humrichous' playing time:

"If you think I'm gonna take a guy out because he misses a couple jump shots, I'm not"

Humrichous was shooting 42.9% from three this season before going 1-9 from behind the arc. pic.twitter.com/ILz5xqIwOH
— Tristan Thomas (@TristanThomasTV) December 7, 2024

But what it led to was a Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight – a collection of gifted but relatively inexperienced players whose quick triggers and lack of discernment in shot quality actually made them easier to guard – and may have led to a crisis in confidence that only exacerbated the problem. The Illini kept on chucking even as the misses piled up, and they went on to finish 2024-25 with the fourth-most three-point shot attempts in Division I (30.1) while ranking 311th out of 355 teams in three-point shooting percentage (31.3).

The Illini's age of equilibrium?

Underwood, who blends tough love with player empowerment (balance!), now says the Illini leaned in a bit too enthusiastically to the let-'em-fly approach.

"We were very, very young last year," Underwood recently told NBC Sports. "We took too many contested shots too early in the clock, and we've spent a summer and a fall now talking a lot about shot selection. And I hope that will help in those areas, because I do think we have some very talented offensive players, and good shots will help help us on the defensive side as well."

Illinois' top three long-distance shooters from a year ago – Ben Humrichous, Tomislav Ivisic and Jake Davis – are back again, and transfers Zvonimir Ivisic (37.6 percent on threes) and Andrej Stojakovic (son of an all-time great NBA three-point shooter) have been added to the mix. Tellingly, there isn't a freshman or sophomore in the bunch.

"You need the experience," Underwood said. "Two years ago, our Elite Eight run, we were old. Last year we had 11 new players. We had a great group of guys, I loved them to death – but arguably two of our best players were freshmen."

That would be Jakucionis and Riley, two huge talents (they became the program's first one-and-done players in its history when they were selected back-to-back in the first round of June's NBA Draft) who nevertheless could have used more seasoning, more trial and error at the college level, a stronger sense of what separates a quality shot from one that can be made.

"Freshman are very important – but in growing and in earning their way through your program and building that culture and keeping it. There's tremendous importance of understanding the moment, being in a weight room for two or three or four years. It's a value, for sure."