Illinois Basketball's David Mirkovic Is Shooting Again, Coach Brad Underwood Says

Preseason All-American forward David Mirkovic remains sidelined for Illinois – which, given its performance at Texas Tech on Tuesday, clearly needs him back sooner rather than later.

Here is the latest update on Mirkovic from Illini coach Brad Underwood, who addressed his recovery progress in a Thursday press conference ahead of Illinois' matchup with Sam Houston on Friday (6 p.m. CT, B1G+):

Brad Underwood provides brief update on David Mirkovic’s recovery

“He is out of the boot,” Underwood said of Mirkovic, who is recovering from both a foot surgery in early August and an appendix removal in early November.

“He’s starting his process. He’s got an appointment today, just for his appendix, and how that’s looking. And then just starts his procedural process back, and pools and AlterGs and that. So he’s shooting the basketball again, which means his stomach is in an OK spot, where it’s not too painful. But doing a good job, and we’ll see what we keep hearing.”

Seemingly, the appendix is trending very much in the right direction, which means Mirkovic can once again begin actively rehabbing his foot. Once he’s rebuilt enough strength in his foot, Mirkovic will then have to bring his conditioning up to speed – which figures to be an especially tall task given the Illini's up-tempo scheme.

Illinois' Texas Tech loss without David Mirkovic

The Illini are ultra-balanced and very deep. We can go down the list: Quentin Coleman, Andrej Stojakovic, Tomislav Ivisic, Stefan Vaaks – there are a ton of bucket-getters and creators on Underwood's roster.

But Mirkovic, who was voted as one of the five best players in the entire country entering this season, likely stands above all of them in terms of his “action guy” abilities. Still, Illinois hasn’t struggled to score. That isn’t really the concern. Mirkovic will boost the Illini’s already top-rated offense (which is surely scary for opponents to think about), but probably only invrementally.

Mirkovic’s absence has surely been felt, though, and in one category specifically: rebounding. Illinois was blasted on the boards by Texas Tech – namely by forward Jamichael Stillwell (13 rebounds) – on Tuesday night.

The Illini gave up 18 offensive rebounds (though they did snag 10 of their own) and were outrebounded overall by 11. If Mirkovic, arguably the best rebounder in the nation, was active, those numbers may have been reversed.

Long story short: Illinois is just fine without Mirkovic against any mid-major foe. But in high-level games against top-25 squads – say, Duke next week or UConn in early December – the Illini will need him. It seems unlikely they’ll have him back in time for the Blue Devils, though, and even a return ahead of the Huskies game may be a too-optimistic projection.

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