Illinois Basketball: Brad Underwood repeating history left by Lou
Illinois basketball head coach Brad Underwood hasn’t coached a single game in the Orange and Blue.
This will all change come November as the Fighting Illini attempt to reroute the losing culture that was developed by the previous coaching regime. This won’t be easy considering the bad habits and lack of postseason experience the current squad possesses.
There is one person who does have a lot of postseason experience, though. Coach Underwood comes in as the leader of this program with a solid resume built up from his previous stops. These stops include three seasons with Stephen F. Austin where he took the Lumberjacks to the NCAA tournament every year. He also had one season with the Oklahoma State Cowboys and turned that team into a 20-win program which included an NCAA tournament berth.
Underwood is now tabbed with a new task. He needs to resurrect a program that only 12 years ago went to the national title game and was oh so close to beating a superstar North Carolina team. This is a monumental ask of athletic director Josh Whitman and the dedicated Illini fans and alums, but it can be done.
If you are a more “experienced” Illini fan you will probably remember something similar to the current situation fans face today. The year was 1975 and Illinois just came off an 8-18 season under Gene Bartow. He would then leave the Illini after only one year to succeed John Wooden at UCLA. This also left Illinois with only three scholarships the next two years because of sanctions handed down by the NCAA.
Many media members and really the entire basketball world was down on the Illini. They had just missed their 12th straight NCAA tournament and they were now looking for a new head coach to, hopefully, resurrect what was once a great program. This is where Lou Henson stepped into the picture.
Henson was the New Mexico State Aggies head coach for the previous nine years before taking over at Illinois. He had made the NCAA tournament six out of the nine years with the Aggies and even reached the Final Four in 1970. This was a hiring of a proven winner on the basketball court, something the Illini needed at the time.
In an article by David Condon of the Chicago Tribune circa April 9, 1975, he said it best when he described the challenge Henson accepted by becoming the Illinois basketball head coach. Here is the quote from the newspaper article that day.
"…and in accepting the Illini challenge, Henson takes over a school that has been losing the big ones, the small ones, and whatever comes between."
This rings true today as the Illini basketball program isn’t a powerhouse who is feared by many. They have recently been a team who has lost the important games in Big Ten Tournaments, floundered late in the season that clinched missing the NCAA tournament and hasn’t won too many of the games in between.
Condon continues on in the article with more lines that give me goosebumps of what the program is going through today.
"So, with Henson already rushing in where angels fear to tread – he’s whirlwinding thru a late-starting Illini recruiting campaign – I’d suggest that the Illinois basketball future is bright."
Much like what Henson came into in 1975, Underwood is going through the same struggles. He has to recruit the state of Illinois and around the country on such short notice. He enters a struggling program that needs a boost but he is behind the eight ball in the recruiting game.
Henson accepted the challenge all those years ago. He had a plan to recruit outside of the state of Illinois but still wanted to pitch to the in-state kids that staying home is a great option. His strategy was to propose the argument that there is immediate playing time at Illinois and with other programs you have to sit a year or two.
There isn’t a lot different about the Illinois basketball program today than what it was 42 years ago. Sure, the program went through two years of reduced scholarships which made it harder for Henson to recruit. But, much of the same framework is there. The program was left in bad shape by the previous regime. The connection to the Chicago area was close to being non-existent. Illinois hadn’t been the NCAA tournament in years. And the program was on the verge of being a laughing stock of the college basketball world.
Next: Illini class of 2018 confidence meter
What changed the Illinois basketball program was the fact Henson accepted the challenge. He wasn’t afraid of the state the program was in. He had confidence in his recruiting and the ability to hire great coaches who could recruit as well. He wasn’t afraid of the bad stigma the program had or the inability to recruit the Chicago area anymore. He accepted the challenge and now Underwood has accepted the challenge too.