Illinois Basketball: Illini flipping the page to a new year

LAS VEGAS, NV - DECEMBER 09: Head coach Brad Underwood of the Illinois Fighting Illini reacts to a call during his team's game against the UNLV Rebels at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on December 9, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Sam Wasson/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS, NV - DECEMBER 09: Head coach Brad Underwood of the Illinois Fighting Illini reacts to a call during his team's game against the UNLV Rebels at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on December 9, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Sam Wasson/Getty Images)

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.

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.