It is officially May and the College Basketball season has ended. In the same vein that The Floor Slap did season previews and in season spotlights for every team in the Big Ten, now it’s time to look back on everyone’s season and reflect. Going from the Bottom to the Top in the standings, we will be releasing Exit Survey’s for all 14 teams in the conference. Today, we have the 7th place Illinois Fighting Illini.
Preseason
Illinois entered the 2022-23 season still riding a high from the previous three seasons.
The Fighting Illini had won 20+ games and 13+ conference games for three straight seasons under Brad Underwood. They had two All-Americans in Ayo Dosunmu and Kofi Cockburn, they won a Big Ten Regular season title and tournament, and even earned a 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
They had regained the sort of form that the Illini had in the early 2000s.
At the same time, the Illini also hadn’t made the second weekend during the whole stretch and got upset by Loyola Chicago when they were a 1 seed. Losing to Houston, whether fair or not, created a narrative about Brad Underwood and March. Part of this season’s expectations were baked into that.
Illinois was also facing a massive overhaul that saw 6 of their top 7 in minutes leave and 10 overall players from the previous season’s roster gone.
The year prior they lost Ayo Dosunmu and replaced his production with Trent Frazier and Alfonso Plummer at guard while Kofi Cockburn elevated himself in the paint.
Now they had to replace all three of those players and most of the supporting cast in Jacob Grandison, Da’Monte Williams and the streaky Andre Curbelo.
How do you replace so much production?
Underwood decided to replace it with a top rated recruiting class and a top rated transfer class.
The Illini had four 4-Star recruits in Skyy Clark, Ty Rodgers, Jayden Epps and Sencire Harris coming to Champaign. Illinois also brought in three sought after transfers from the Big 12 in Terrence Shannon Jr (Texas Tech), Matthew Mayer (Baylor) and a mid-season transfer from the year before in Dain Dainja (Baylor). Finally, key returnees Coleman Hawkins, RJ Melendez and Luke Goode were guys meant to fill out the roster.
My preview focused on the idea that nobody in the Big Ten had been more successful during the regular season than Brad Underwood the past three years. Now after such a big roster turnover, Underwood had the chance to prove his staying power. If Illinois fans were really lucky, change the post-season narrative in the process too.
I had landed on putting Illinois in the top tier with Michigan and Indiana as Big Ten Title contenders heading into the season.
However, this year’s Illinois season would prove to be a cautionary tale for recruiting rankings and roster continuity.
The Season
Illinois came out HOT this year.
The Illini cruised thru their first three games and then beat 8th ranked UCLA 79-70 off the back of 29 pt 8-9 3pt performance from Terrence Shannon Jr., who was becoming a star.
However, Terrence Shannon Jr. disappeared the next game and the Illini fell short to 16th ranked UVA 48 hours later.
From there on out, Illinois started to be inconsistent. Whether it was Terrence Shannon Jr., Dain Dainja, Coleman Hawkins or really anybody on the team, nobody was the same game to game.
Because of their inconsistency, Illinois would lose games they maybe shouldn’t lose. The Illini dropped games to Penn State and Maryland soon after losing to UVA.
Still, Illinois was capable of beating elite teams. Underwood and his team won in Madison Square Garden against 2nd ranked Texas in December. Matthew Mayer finally had a good game scoring 21 points and going a perfect 5-5 from 3 and the former Baylor kid once again beat Texas.
The wins over Texas and UCLA showed their potential but Illinois rarely lived up to their talent the rest of the season.
Soon after beating Texas, Illinois got obliterated by unranked Mizzou in the Border War. A loss that showed the team’s floor and chemistry issues.
Those chemistry issues were made public after starting point guard Skyy Clark stepped away from the team 13 games into the season. This forced a new freshman guard in Jayden Epps into the starting lineup.
Other issues like Luke Goode missing 20+ games and Underwood struggling to find the right minutes formula for Dain Dainja, Coleman Hawkins and Mayer lead to Illinois falling to 9-5 and 0-3 to start conference play.
After falling to the bottom of the Big Ten, the Illini won 7 of their next 8 to storm back into the fringes of the conference title race discussion.
However, the Illini could only tread water for the rest of the season finishing 4-5 in the last 9 games to finish 11-9 in conference, their lowest win total since 2018-19.
Illinois just couldn’t beat the Big Ten’s best, going 2-6 against the 6 teams ahead of them in the standings.
After their loss in the first game of the Big Ten Tourney, Illinois had their 3rd loss to Penn State. 3 Losses to Penn State in one season!
Illinois had won enough to earn a spot in March Madness, but they faced an uphill battle as a 9 seed.
Post Season
Illinois’ post season was once again short as they lost to Arkansas in the first round of March Madness.
Illinois shouldn’t feel terrible since Arkansas went on to beat 1 seed Kansas in the next game, but still it is another 1st weekend exit for Coach Underwood.
With the high standard Illinois holds themselves to under Underwood, this season crashed and burned.
Illini were too inconsistent. Every player was streaky, and if Terrence Shannon Jr. wasn’t killing it, they leaned too heavily on supporting players in Mayer and Hawkins to be scorers.
The team churned and burned players this year too.
Both Skyy Clark (Louisville) and Jayden Epps (Georgetown) transferred. So did reserve big Brandon Lieb (Illinois State) and starting wing RJ Melendez (Georgia) who really should’ve had a breakout season this year. Plus, Shannon Jr., Mayer, and Hawkins all are likely gone to the pros.
After losing 6 of their top 7 heading into this season, Illinois is looking at 5 of their top 6 being gone going into next year.
Did Underwood learn some lessons?
Terrence Shannon Jr., Matthew Mayer and Dain Dainja were three of his best players and all came from the Portal.
True freshmen Epps and Clark struggled to produce to the level the Illini needed. Both likely would’ve been great players in Champaign given time, but in the transfer portal era when you face adversity … it is easier to start fresh at a new campus.
I think Brad Underwood is smart enough to adjust strategies after this season.
He has already gone hard in the transfer portal landing three players in Justin Harmon (Utah Valley), Marcus Domask (SIU) and Quincy Guerrier (Oregon). All three are upperclassmen and double digit scorers who shot above 33% from three. All three are players who are ready to be productive day one.
The recruiting is still good with two four-stars in Amani Hansberry and Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn. It might be smart for them to follow the path of Ty Rodgers and Sencire Harris who earned their minutes and played better as the season went on.
Finally, guys like Zacharie Perrin and Niccolo Moretti have been around the program and had the space to develop in the background this season, similar to Dain Dainja last year.
After leaning on long running players like Ayo Dosunmu, Kofi Cockburn and Trent Frazier, Underwood and the Illini faltered trying to retool. The team showed their potential beating top programs like UCLA and Texas, but failed to be consistent at playing to their talent. Underwood is one of the best coaches in the Big Ten, and I am confident he will learn from this year’s mistakes.
Illinois should come back better prepared next season.