Brad Underwood still believes.
That’s what the Illinois coach said Friday night in a United Center tunnel as his team tried to make sense of a 91-88 overtime loss to Wisconsin in a Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal.
The Illini suffered their fifth loss — and fourth in overtime — in nine games, all since Feb. 7.
Underwood’s team looked to have stunning promise in early February after knocking off Purdue and Nebraska on the road in back-to-back weekends and then beating Northwestern by 40 on Feb. 4.
But opponents have poked holes in the argument that Illinois should be considered one of the best teams in the country since then. First Michigan State and then Wisconsin and UCLA pulled off overtime wins. Then Michigan breezed by the Illini at State Farm Center. And in the conference tournament, Wisconsin stormed back from 15 points down in the second half to become the only team to beat Illinois twice this season.
Illinois’ best win in that stretch was against an Indiana team that very well could miss the NCAA Tournament.
Now, as the Illini (24-8) await their NCAA Tournament assignment Sunday evening, there are serious questions about whether an undeniably talented group of players has what it takes to come together to make a March run.
Underwood thinks they do.
“We’re so close,” he said. “At some point, somebody’s going to flip the switch, and we’ll make the shot, we’ll get the rebound, and that can start six wins in a row. There’s no one that believes in us more than I do and our ability to make a deep, deep run.”
For the Illini to validate that belief, they need to address some major issues that popped up again against Wisconsin. Here are some things that need to be fixed — and fast.
1. A closing mentality
Friday night wasn’t the first time the Illini let a big lead slip away in the second half.
They led by 12 with 8:10 to play in the first game against Wisconsin and led by 11 points early in the second half against UCLA. Both teams roared back to force overtime.
On Friday night, Underwood and his players said they relaxed too much defensively and became complacent when they got big leads. The Badgers rallied from a 15-point first-half deficit, and then after falling behind by 15 again, they used a 23-7 run in the second half to take a 68-67 lead with 4:50 to play.
Wisconsin guards Nick Boyd and John Blackwell scored all 23 points during the second-half run.
“Lately when we get really in the flow, when we start hitting shots, when we play great, we stop guarding,” Illinois freshman David Mirković said. “And they get going. That’s just a thing of mental focus that we’ve got to fix in the upcoming days we have.”
Senior Kylan Boswell said the Illini need to understand how to keep their foot on the gas, especially in such a charged atmosphere as an NCAA Tournament game. They want to keep their cushion rather than play more close ones down the stretch.
“No lead is safe ever in March Madness,” Boswell said. “Your job is if you have that lead to continue to dig into the dirt making sure that they don’t get a chance to ever come back. The biggest thing is to be able to maintain our focus. We didn’t score in like six minutes (in the first half) in that game and gave them a chance to come back.”
2. The boards war
Underwood took out his stats sheet Friday and read down the line of players to punctuate his displeasure.
No Illinois starter had more than five rebounds against Wisconsin, and while Andrej Stojaković and Zvonimir Ivišić came off the bench to grab seven apiece, it wasn’t enough.
The Badgers outrebounded the Illini 37-36, and Blackwell darted into the lane to grab a key offensive rebound with 52 seconds to play. Mirković was called for a foul on the board, and Blackwell made two free throws to tie the game at 78 and send it to overtime.
Underwood has harped on missed rebounding opportunities before, including late against Michigan State and UCLA. The Illini talked about it for two days leading up to Friday’s game. So the fact it was an issue against Wisconsin, he said, “pisses me off.”
“It’s not the stop,” Underwood said. “We’ve gotten stops in almost every one of those games. It’s the damn rebound.
“We’ve got to have somebody nasty enough and give-a-s— enough to want to go grab a rebound. And it’s very frustrating because we’re getting the stop.”
Underwood has talked about his Illini missing “nastiness” before, and it clearly perturbed him to be talking about it again.
“Maybe they’re not born with it,” he said. “Maybe I haven’t done a good enough job. I don’t know. But we have to emphasize it. We have to have some nasty, competitive fire to go get a rebound. And then sometimes just do your job, block out.”
3. A guarding guards problem
It was no secret going into the quarterfinal what Illinois’ biggest challenge was going to be.
Boyd, a fifth-year senior on his third team, and Blackwell, a junior in his third season with the Badgers, combined for 49 points and nine assists in the teams’ first meeting in February. In their third-round tournament game against Washington, Blackwell had 34 points and Boyd had 23 points and nine assists.
They’re recognized as one of the best guard tandems in the country for a reason.
Still, their game Friday was exceptional. They combined for 69 points — a career-high 38 from Boyd — the first time two Badgers players put up 30 or more in the same game since 1968.
They combined for six 3-pointers, at times got to the rim at ease and made 21 of 22 free throws.
Illinois’ excuse the first time around was that they were missing two strong defenders in Boswell and Stojaković. They both played Friday, though Boswell got into foul trouble quickly with two in the first minute.
“When guards — like when Nick and John today — step out and maybe hit a couple, maybe we sometimes kind of drift from what we were trying to focus on,” Boswell said. “Today they got into the gaps there for easy shots for them to get downhill. You let two great players like that find their way to the line, find easy layups, and then they feel good. The whole point is to eliminate that from the jump. We have to sometimes make sure we stay committed to our philosophies.”
Opposing teams’ guards have been a problem at times this season.
Jeremy Fears Jr. had 26 points and 15 assists in Michigan State’s 85-82 overtime win. Fears is a first team All-Big Ten player, but there have been others that hurt the Illini, including Maryland’s Andre Mills scoring 30 in the regular-season finale.
Underwood called Boyd “hard to handle” when he gets downhill and draws fouls. The Illini need to figure out how to better slow talented guards like him.
“I didn’t think we won the point of attack very well,” Underwood said. “Kylan played in foul trouble all night, was for the most part a nonparticipant, even though he did play very well in his minutes. But we need his tenacity defensively. Again, it takes everybody.”
4. Clutch plays needed
Underwood will argue that the Illini haven’t been bad in all their close games, despite being 0-4 in overtime this season. They have pulled out close ones, including at Purdue and at Maryland.
They had players hit big shots Friday too. Stojaković had a go-ahead layup with 1:08 to play in regulation, and Mirković had a 3-pointer and a layup in the final eight seconds of overtime to give the Illini one last chance.
But there have been missed opportunities — that Blackwell rebound Underwood harped on, a couple of missed free throws by Mirković in overtime, missed shots by Wagler in the final minute of regulation and final seconds of overtime.
Do the Illini have the leaders on and off the court to come through?
Underwood said the Illini talked after the game about what happens if they can’t rise to the occasion the next time around — and probably won’t talk about it again.
“This stinks,” he said. “I keep trying to prepare them that it’s the one possession that matters, and next time it’s over.”
After the game, players said they planned to have a day of recovery, maybe a team-building activity such as a dinner to get their minds right and focused again. And then they planned to dive back into practices.
A couple of them mentioned the way they bounced back after tough losses to Connecticut and Nebraska in November and December. The long layoff after each resulted in good practice time, and they came back with strong wins against Tennessee and Missouri.
The first step is believing — like Underwood — that they can do it again.
“We have a group of guys who all know how good we are,” guard Jake Davis said. “Our coaching staff knows how good we are. They trust in us, we trust in each other. We know we have the pieces to make a run, so I think we’re all very confident we will.”
