If you get news from around the Illinois basketball social media universe, you’d think junior transfer Kylan Boswell was having a terrible season.
While most of the talk centers on Boswell’s poor three-point shooting, he is quietly putting together a great season and is a very important cog in the Illini machine.
As a sophomore, Boswell started 35 games for the Arizona Wildcats. He, Caleb Love, and Oumar Ballo led their 2023-24 Arizona team to a Pac-12 Championship and a Sweet Sixteen loss. Boswell averaged 9.6 points, 2.3 rebounds, 3.6 assists, and 1.4 steals per game. He also shot 40% from the field and 38% from three-point range.
Kylan Boswell's numbers are up across the board, but his defense has been even better
While Illinois' Big 3 freshmen have made all the noise this season, Boswell is putting up 11.5 points, 5.3 rebounds, 3.4 assists, and 1.3 steals per game. He has already amassed 2.7 win shares including 1.5 defensive win shares.
The junior Arizona transfer is putting up career highs in minutes, points, rebounds, trips to the free throw line, and free throw percentage while putting up career lows in field goal percentage and three-point percentage. While his field goal percentage has dropped less than one percentage point, his three-point percentage dropped nearly 15.
This is the confidence of someone who knows they can make shots
— ᗩᑎT ᗯᖇIGᕼT (@itsAntWright) January 3, 2025
Kylan Boswell in and out crossover to get Shelstad behind the screen into a jumper pic.twitter.com/mSzFW6HLeZ
All I’ve seen regarding Boswell on social media is how bad of a three-point shooter he has become and all I think about is how many times he gets to the bucket and goes to the free throw line. Something he’s added to his game this year. He is getting to the line 4x as much as he was a season ago.
It isn’t very often that a shooter completely loses his ability to shoot. It comes and goes. Good shooters will always be good shooters, as long as they keep putting up shots every day. In other words, I’m not worried about Boswell's three-point shooting. He can always find his shot again, it's much harder to teach a shooter to get buckets through contact and get to the line 400% more often than it is to shoot 38% from deep.
Kylan Boswell could be the floor general for the Illinois basketball team in 2025-26
If Kasparas Jakucionis hadn’t turned out to be the player he is, I think Boswell would likely play floor general for this Illinois team. Even with KJ, the offense often still runs through him. On nights when he’s off on that end of the floor, his defense speaks for itself and will keep him on the floor. Boswell is one of the most consistent players Illinois has on defense.
So, let’s stop complaining and talk about what he excels in. I would love to see Boswell stick around for his senior year and be able to make even more of a mark on the program. If he and one of Illinois’ two dominant bigs stay another year, the Illini defense and pick-and-roll game could be off the charts in the 2025-26 season.