Illinois basketball's Brad Underwood makes guarantee during rant after Kentucky loss
03/24/2025 10:39 AM
Brad Underwood and the No. 6 seed Illinois basketball are no longer in contention for the 2025 NCAA Tournament title after getting bounced out of the Big Dance by the No. 3 seed Kentucky Wildcats on Sunday in a second-round showdown at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.
The early exit from the tourney meant that Illinois failed to surpass its run in the 2024 NCAA Tournament when the Fighting Illini reached the Elite Eight round, where they got crushed by eventual national champs and No. 1 seed UConn Huskies.
But the desire to win the ultimate team prize in college basketball is still burning inside Illinois basketball head coach Brad Underwood, who expressed his confidence in the program following the loss to Kentucky.
“Our program is in great shape,” Underwood told reporters during the postgame press conference (h/t Zain Bando of Sporting News). “We’ve got great leadership and facilities. We’ve got the ability to keep getting players. We sell out every night. We got the best fan base out there. “We came up short today, but we’ll be back. We’re not going anywhere”
"My goal is nothing more than to win a [national] championship,” the 61-year-old Underwood added. “If you hear me say anything like that other than that, then it's probably time for me to hang it up."
Underwood started calling the shots from the sidelines for the Fighting Illini in the 2017-18 season. Illinois basketball missed the boat to the Big Dance in each of his first three seasons with the program before making five consecutive March Madness appearances in a row, including in this year’s iteration of the tournament.
Illinois basketball falls prey to Kentucky
But after eliminating Sean Miller and the No. 11 Xavier Musketeers in an 86-73 win in the first round, the Fighting Illini ran into a brick wall in the form of Mark Pope’s Wildcats. Illinois basketball suffered an 84-75 loss at the hands of the SEC program, failing to overcome Kentuck’s lead that went as high as 16 points.
The Fighting Illinois struggled with ball security, as they turned the ball over 14 times to just five by Kentucky. Those Illinois turnovers were efficiently converted into 26 points by the Wildcats, a big defining factor behind the loss of Underwood’s team.
Illinois basketball finished its 2024-25 college basketball campaign 22-13 overall and also posted a 12-8 record in Big Ten play.
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