Illinois basketball's Brad Underwood reveals silver lining from Duke beatdown after Purdue win
Yesterday at 03:11 AM
Illinois basketball head coach Brad Underwood revealed how his team has grown from their blowout loss to Duke a few weeks ago. The Fighting Illini picked up another critical Big Ten win on Friday, this time over No. 18 Purdue. The 88-80 victory gave Illinois basketball its 20th of the year.
Riding a three-game winning streak, Brad Underwood’s program seems to be peaking at the right time as the NCAA Tournament looms. In a postgame interview, the veteran head coach revealed the silver lining the loss to Duke provided to his team and how its confidence has grown a lot with Friday’s performance.
“We had to get punched. We got smacked pretty good in New York. They bounced back. When you can get off the mat, that’s what we want everyone in our program to be: to be the guy who gets back up after getting knocked out…(on Purdue performance) It grew a lot tonight (with) the confidence to win a close game when things are really, really hard against an unbelievably good opponent.”
Illinois basketball is poised to be a dangerous team in March
This group is younger than many of the previous teams Brad Underwood has coached in Champaign. And with that youth has come a lot of inconsistencies throughout the season. The Fighting Illini have been ranked as high as No. 13 in the country this year. However, they have also gone through several multi-game losing streaks at certain points. That uneven play is the main reason why Illinois has not been ranked since early February.
The good news is that the Fighting Illini seem to be turning a corner over these past few weeks. Brad Underwood’s team has won three games in a row, including two victories over ranked squads. One of the keys has been this group becoming more multi-dimensional on offense. Illinois basketball relied on freshman sensation Kasparas Jakucionis to carry the scoring load earlier in the season. And with that reliance came the inconsistencies, as expected when an 18-year-old is your best player.
Fortunately, more experienced starters like Tre White and Kylan Boswell have elevated their play over the last few games. The Fighting Illini will need to lean on these players more in the tournament, as veteran guards are usually the key to a deep run in March. Heading into Friday’s game, Illinois basketball was projected as a No. 7 seed in ESPN’s Bracketology. That projection is bound to improve as this team prepares for the Big Ten Tournament.
Overall, Brad Underwood knows his team has the talent to make it to the tournament’s second weekend again. And should the Fighting Illini continue the form they’ve shown over the past few weeks, they could go even further than that. Even if that journey involves playing Duke again.
The post Illinois basketball’s Brad Underwood reveals silver lining from Duke beatdown after Purdue win appeared first on ClutchPoints.
