UTM-Illini Game Canceled; Underwood Hopes to Find Big Ten Opponent Replacement

Illinois is hopeful to replace canceled UT-Martin game with one of its six single Big Ten Conference opponents and count that game as a non-conference matchup.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Brad Underwood didn’t want to schedule non-conference games during this coronavirus pandemic 2020-21 season.

Therefore, after losing a non-conference game against Tennessee-Martin that was announced earlier this week, Underwood’s response is to tell Joey Biggs, who is in charge of consulting the Illinois coaching staff on its non-conference scheduling, to not sweat the idea of finding a replacement.

“I won’t play non-conference games that aren’t in sync with what we’re doing from a testing standpoint,” the Illini fourth-year head coach said.

 “I’m more worried about navigating a conference season than worrying about one non-league game.” - Illinois head coach Brad Underwood

Illinois announced Friday morning the cancellation of its game against UTM slated for Saturday at 8 p.m. and was supposed to be televised by Big Ten Network. Illinois officials confirmed the reasoning behind the cancellation was UTM suffering at least one positive test for COVID-19.

Saturday's game against UT-Martin has been canceled after positive COVID-19 testing within the Skyhawks program. pic.twitter.com/f2uuJFx8vG

— Illinois Men's Basketball (@IlliniMBB) December 4, 2020

Underwood said Friday in his media availability that he and his staff will not look to fill this game with another non-conference game. The solution Illinois will search for is to try to reach out to their Big Ten Conference colleagues in the hope of finding a conference opponent to play in what would be considered a non-conference game on its postseason resume for the NCAA tournament selection committee.

“The league has built in opportunities to do that whether it is a Purdue, Michigan, Michigan State or Iowa and we’ll just wait because there’s no set date available with conference play beginning on Dec. 15,” Underwood said. “It’s all about playing as many games as we can, as safe as we can. With the officials and the league opponents all doing the same type of testing, that gives us the best chance.”

In its 20-game Big Ten Conference schedule, Illinois is slated to play No. 3 Iowa, No. 8 Michigan State, Michigan, Rutgers, Maryland and Purdue once this season so hypothetically, potentially picking up one of those six teams is an option for the Illini.

In the preseason meetings and Zoom calls among Big Ten Conference coaches, Underwood says he presented and pushed for league schools to just schedule 26 conference games in a complete round-robin in order to resemble the football schedule idea that would guarantee the same COVID-19 testing and protocols among all opponents.

“What people need to understand is we would not bring anybody in here for a non-league setting for a game when they have not been part of our testing (protocols),” Underwood said. “For these non-league games, we don’t know how to handle a positive test and contact tracing. You just cancel the games because we can’t afford to have a guy out 21 days.”

Nobody should be surprised at this cancellation because every single day of this 2020-21 college basketball season has involved news of game postponements and/or cancellations. According to ESPN stats and information as of Dec. 2, 274 men’s college basketball games have been either postponed or canceled.

“We will just move forward with our next opponent and have obviously had to reschedule our weekend plans but it’s about being able to do things with flexibility and some understand and patience that this was going to happen,” Underwood said. “We’re looking at a 20-25 percent clip of games being canceled so to say this is abnormal would not be the truth. It’s very normal and commonplace. We’re feeling very fortunate that we got our first four (games) in but we knew there would be hiccups and this won’t likely be the last one.”

Illinois will now have this weekend off and will begin the preparations for a trip to Cameron Indoor Stadium to play No. 6 Duke (1-1) on Tuesday, Dec. 8, as part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

“I’ve spoken to one Division I coach who has had five games canceled or moved already and he’s literally working on 72-hour time frames to schedule games,” Underwood said. “I think that is about the right time frame.”

The final non-conference game for the No. 5 Illini (3-1) will be at Missouri in a unique continuation of the Braggin’ Rights Game in Columbia, Mo., against a Tigers program that is coming off a 83-75 upset win over No. 21 Oregon on Wednesday.