Big Ten transfer portal guard hears from the Illinois basketball team

When it comes to the transfer portal, the Illinois basketball team is leaving no stone unturned.

Brad Underwood has been hard at work trying to replace some key players who are departing the program for one reason or another. So far, the Illini haven’t landed a player, but there are a few options on the horizon.

With Underwood casting a wide net, more and more players continue to get added to the mix. On Sunday, another name was added that list. According to Tobias Bass of The Athletic, Illinois has been in contact with Sebastian Mack.

Mack is a 6-foot-3, 200-pound guard from UCLA. He has spent his first two seasons with the Bruins, averaging 10.8 points, 2.8 rebounds, 1.7 assists, and 1.1 steals per game over those two campaigns.

It is interesting to see Illinois basketball targeting Big Ten guard Sebastian Mack from the transfer portal

Let me first start off by saying that I wouldn’t be sad about any transfer portal player who wants to come to Champaign. We need a roster for next season, and depth killed this program at times in 2024-25.

With that being said, Underwood needs to learn from his mistakes. This past season, Illinois had a bunch of talent that couldn’t shoot from three-point range. Yet, Underwood still wanted to run an offense that jacked up a bunch of three-pointers.

Mack is an interesting target because he hasn’t shot well from three-point range during his career. As a freshman, he attempted 3.0 three-pointers per game and hit them at a clip of 28.3%. This past season, he took 2.1 three-pointers per game and shot 31.4%.

You would think Underwood would want to fix the three-point issues, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I think Mack would be a good option for Illinois if we didn’t try to shoot as many three-pointers as possible. But that isn’t the case. The fact that we are targeting Mack is a curious one.