The Illinois basketball team had a very interesting 2017, to say the least.
As a fan of the Illini, it feels like just yesterday John Groce was let go after another disappointing end to a season. But, we are now coming up on a year here in a few months since Groce’s departure. His firing was just the start of some craziness within the program.
Groce had landed a really good class of 2017 when he was sinking the ship. But, after he was let go, two players – Jeremiah Tilmon and Javon Pickett – both decommitted from Illinois. This was a big hit, at the time, to the program.
Illinois rebounded nicely, though, and essentially stole Oklahoma State head coach Brad Underwood in the middle of the night. This was the best hire for the Illinois basketball program since they brought in Bill Self in the early 2000’s.
Underwood brought a tremendous track record of winning, but he was tasked with gluing the class of 2017 back together. He managed to do this by landing Illinois Mr. Basketball Mark Smith. Smith committed to Illinois over blue bloods like Kentucky and Duke.
Illinois’ recruiting wasn’t done. In fact, it was just getting started. Underwood needed to make up ground on some class of 2018 recruits as well. He did just that and even got Ayo Dosunmu to commit to the program. He is a five-star guard who is the No. 25 player in the class of 2018.
Oh yeah, and Illinois had a season to play as well. Underwood’s changes to the program have shown so far through 15 games. While the team can’t put two good halves together, they still fight hard and win games that the previous regime would have lost.
Now that we enter 2018, I wonder what is in store for the Illinois basketball team. There are so many things I would like to see change or happen this upcoming year. Illini fans have spoken as well. Here are some of the tweets by those Illinois fans.
"GO DANCE IN MARCH!"💯
— Ish Jr. (@IshGomezJr) December 31, 2017
A Mark Smith red shirt season.
— JNelson (@Jtnlsn60) December 31, 2017
— Dr. Jeffrey Wallace (@rocketman528) January 1, 2018
Win games they’re not “supposed” to on the road. Make up for the early misses during non-conference play.
— Kedric Prince (@KedPrince4) December 31, 2017
A tournament appearance
— Da Voice ♋ (@Reecedavoice) December 31, 2017
A leader to emerge.
— Mike Locke 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 (@Locke_4) December 31, 2017
Consistency, the ability to come out on fire, then play two halves hard and stay sharp and keep their turnovers under check.
— SouthFarmsIlliniGear (@SFIlliniGear) January 1, 2018
Try Smith at PG, Start Frazier, see more of Kipper. We've got to get some offense going.
— Steven Deist (@DeistSteven) December 31, 2017
Steady improvement
— John Bushur (@jb9fingers) December 31, 2017
Whoop ass in the B1G to go dancing
— TJ Hendricks (@IlliniFanTJ) December 31, 2017
Next: 3 takeaways from the win over Grand Canyon
Here is to putting 2017 behind us. The Illini will prevail in 2018 and We Will Win.