Illinois Basketball: Brad Underwood teases Ubben renovations

With the Illinois basketball team set to take the floor in just a matter of days, head coach Brad Underwood hinted that Ubben would get renovations.

Coach Underwood is gearing up for his biggest season-to-date. The Illinois basketball team is ranked No. 8 in the country, and the excitement in Champaign is electric for the team’s biggest season since the 2004-2005 national title appearance.

With the team’s sudden turnaround, Underwood and Company are looking ahead toward the future, and the future is fast approaching. At the conclusion of the season, it is highly likely that Ayo Dosunmu and Kofi Cockburn will re-enter the NBA Draft conversation, given their stature within the program and the college basketball world.

In the first episode of the new podcast “Champaign on Ice,” ex-Illini Deon Thomas interviewed Underwood, to which he dropped some interesting news. It was later confirmed by multiple outlets that Ubben Basketball Complex would be renovated next spring in time for the 2021-2022 season.

This is big news for the program, as they would be the fourth team to undergo major renovations to its facilities. Most notably, the football team, soccer team, and softball team have all seen upgrades since Josh Whitman’s arrival in Champaign.

Edit: A press release from November 23 reports that a $500,000 gift from Steven Miller went to the renovates of Ubben. Here are AD Whitman’s words on the gift.

"“This Ubben renovation has been a passion project for so many. Steven’s love for the Fighting Illini, and in particular for Illinois basketball, prompted him to help with what we believe is a vital cog in the continued advancement of our athletic program,” Director of Athletics Josh Whitman said. “We are grateful to Steven and humbled that he would invest so meaningfully in Illinois Athletics. Through his generosity and the generosity of so many others, we are moving increasingly closer to our vision of life-changing opportunities for generations of Fighting Illini student-athletes.”"

The entire Illinois basketball schedule has not been released.

Even though the Orange and Blue have a few games that are officially set, the entire schedule is still up in the air. At this point, Illinois is expected to follow the Big Ten’s policy of not administering tickets to the public.

With the age of the pandemic and to prevent another cancellation from happening again, the NCAA announced that the 2021 March Madness tournament would take place at one site instead of 13 regional sites from across the nation.

With the recent news of March Madness being played in a so-called bubble, Orange Krush, the Illini student section group, made another hype video encouraging its members to jump in on the action again.