Retention, culture helped Illinois build championship-caliber roster
- Story byThe News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.
- Retention, culture helped Illinois build championship-caliber roster
Aug. 5—CHAMPAIGN — It wasn't that long ago Illinois men's basketball coach Brad Underwood had to flip nearly his entire roster.
Ty Rodgers and Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn were the only returning scholarship players ahead of the 2024-25 season. Hitting the reset button, starting nearly from scratch, saw Underwood get creative to build his roster.
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Underwood hit the transfer portal hard to land Kylan Boswell, Jake Davis, Ben Humrichous and Tre White. The Illinois staff also secured a pair of key international prospects in Tomislav Ivisic and Kasparas Jakucionis and got five-star recruit Will Riley to reclassify and join a small class headlined, at that point, by Morez Johnson Jr.
Roster retention became a bigger priority the subsequent offseason, and that experienced group — and experienced in Champaign, no less — helped Illinois win 28 games and reach the program's first Final Four in 21 years.
Leaning in to retention defined this offseason, too. Illinois brought back five key rotation players and should still project as one of the top teams in the country even after Tuesday's news of David Mirkovic's foot surgery.
The internal expectation for the Illini hasn't changed. They're chasing a national championship this upcoming season.
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"We just have a sustained culture I feel like now," Davis said. "I'm not saying there wasn't a culture before because there was a great culture, but now it's even more prominent. We have six new freshmen coming in, so you might think there might be some time for them to adjust, but there hasn't.
"When you have so much returning of the culture, it's so much easier to influence the new guys to be a part of that, and they've fit in greatly. I just think we're so skilled all the way around and have all the pieces we need to be the best in the country. Our ceiling is a national championship for sure."
Davis chose to return for another season at Illinois with no guarantee he'd resume even his part-time starter role from his second year in Champaign. A veteran wing that shot 40.6 percent from three-point range on nearly four attempts per game would have had some lucrative options in the transfer portal.
Davis stuck around because of what he helped build the two previous seasons. The McCordsville, Ind., native, who spent his freshman year at Mercer before joining the Illini, sees a foundation in place in Champaign to win at an even higher level.
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"Building a culture and building togetherness with people and getting people to stick around is so valuable," Davis said. "If I can be one to do that and lead that and facilitate people staying and building that culture, I think that is what makes me special. That's one key factor to winning games. That's what I want to do. If I score zero every game this year and we go 34-0 or whatever it is, I'd be happy. I just want to win a national championship, and I think we can do that here."
Davis chose to return for the 2026-27 season alongside Mirkovic, Tomislav Ivisic, Zvonimir Ivisic and Andrej Stojakovic. All five played key roles in the Illinois rotation for last year's Final Four team and all project to do the same this coming season.
Their decision to return, all announced one after another in April, had the entire group on the same page about what they wanted to accomplish in the 2026-27 season.
"I would say all the guys that came back, everybody came mentally ready for new challenges," Tomislav Ivisic said. "Especially after last year, we know what we need to do. We know what's our goal. Everybody came ready to work hard, to compete and also to push younger guys. To be a good example for them to see how we work hard, and they can follow us."
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Illinois' roster wound up split 50/50 between returning players — a group that also includes Jason Jakstys and Blake Fagbemi — and newcomers. The latter group boasts six freshmen and Providence transfer Stefan Vaaks. Getting those seven newcomers on board, Tomislav Ivisic concurred, has been easy. They were ready to accept Illinois' style and principles. The communication and feedback has run both directions, though.
"The new guys are asking us about certain experiences, what we went through," Stojakovic added. "We're also asking them, 'What do you expect from us? How can we help you?'"
Underwood got a few weeks with that full group this summer once Vaaks returned from playing for Estonia in a pair of FIBA World Cup European qualifiers and both Stojakovic (knee) and freshman guard Lucas Morillo (back) got healthy. That time between Vaaks' return and Mirkovic's foot injury was both important and informative for the Illinois coach.
"It just allows you to get a vision, a picture of what it might look like," Underwood said. "I don't want to be like I was last year where it took me until after the UConn game to figure out to put Keaton (Wagler) on the ball and figure out Mirk wasn't a center. It was a challenge last year because we didn't have a lot of the guys in the summer. That's been very helpful. It's also helpful having returners back, and you can see their next steps physically."
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Mirkovic's injury and subsequent surgery does create some uncertainty as summer workouts end. What this group has created across multiple seasons, though, could help them weather his time away.
"The more you can get people to return and really feel a part and want to grow something, which I think me and Tomi both did, you can get other people to buy into that," Davis said. "It builds togetherness, and it builds a winning culture. It goes a lot further than people see. We have talent, yeah, but I think what's going to get us there is our togetherness and what we've built together as a team on the court and off the court."
