USC Illinois Basketball

Illinois' Kylan Boswell competes for the loose ball against Southern California's Wesley Yates III during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Saturday, Jan. 11, 2025, in Champaign, Ill.

CHAMPAIGN — After getting surprised 82-72 by USC at the State Farm Center on Saturday, the Illinois Men’s Baksetball team had to get back to action quick.

After practicing on Sunday, the Illini hit the road on Monday to get ready for a game with Indiana today.

“It was a tough one the other night,” Illinois head coach Brad Underwood said. “We got away from doing things we do normally well. If you don’t make shots and you dont guard, things get off-kilter.

“The thing about a long season is that you get a stinker in there and every year we have had a couple and you have to grow up and learn from it and move forwarrd. But our reward is a team that was picked to win the league on their home court.”

That team is Indiana. The Hoosiers are 13-4 and 4-2 in the Big Ten and is coming off a tough loss of their own in a 85-60 loss to Iowa on Saturday.

Indiana has been playing without Malik (Reneau) and (Oumar) Ballo has stpped up and has been a big force for them. They had a tough one at Iowa but prior to that, they have been playing well after inserting Luke (Goode) in the lineup. They are solid at home and a team with a real good lead guard in (Myles) Rice, who was Pac-12 Player of the Year last year, and Ballo has been holding things down on the front. So there were picked to win the league for a reason and we will have to bounce back and play well.”

Underwood and the Illini will see an old friend in Goode, who was one of the top stars from last year’s Illinois team.

“No one loves Luke Goode more than I do. Luke was a special part of the program and there was no one more coachable. He was part of two conference championships and three NCAA teams. The thing about him is that he is a good player and better teamamate. I always will look at Luke as one my guys and it will be different to see him run up and down, but Luke is still an Illini to me.”

A Illini player that will not be playing tonight is Kasparas Jakucionis, who has missed the last two games. While Jakucionis was not missed against Penn State, Underwood said that too many people were trying to equal him against USC.

“Let’s not forget, we had a lottery pick that didn’t play so everyone’s role becomes different,” Underwood said. “We had guys trying to do too much and not staying in what had been succesful to us. We were fine in the Penn State game and you can handle the initial run but the second one is not going to be easy. I thought we had guys do things uncharacteristically and we were flat and you put that together, you have the USC game. We have to get back, whether KJ is back or not, and we have to get back to elevating each other on the offensive side and playing much harder and aggressive on the defensive side.”

Underwood said that on Sunday, the team was able to get things back to perspective.

“The guys bounced back yesterday in practice. We understood that we were off and understood that we didn’t play with the smae energy and we have to raise that bar,” Underwood said. “We’ve seen some size and some great interior play. It was more about scheme and what we did. USC is different from Indiana in style, but I hope we are back in form.

“You are going to get beat when you play good people and USC is a good team and they have played like a Top 25 team. You are going to have those and everyone in this league is going to have losses like that at some point. It is the ability to move on and not accept them, but learn from them. There are two choices when we lose and our guys were incredible yesterday and their accountablity fort heir mistakes for their lack of effort for us not rebounding and all those things.”

Underwood said as a young team, the process is always there and that the Illini is still learning after Saturday’s tough defeat.

“All I can control is at the moment and get this group to understand the process,” Underwood said. “I am a process-oriented guy and you can do the right things, but it is still about improving and putting yourself in a position when you can win. Winning and losing is a process and you can’t control the variables and that’s our approach, especially with a young team and without our lottery pick. The main thing was we didn’t play hard and we were out of character and that is something that is never going to be acceptable to me.

“There are plateaus and you will settle in and it is not easy to get through it but when we do, it will get better. You can’t master the game of basketball, but you have to keep raising the floor. Knowing that it is a long season with injuries and sickennes, you can’t control everyhting, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t stop trying to raise the floor so that we can hit the ceiling at somepoint. Those are things we talk about a lot and we didn’t do that the other day.”

Today’s game starts at 6 p.m. and it will be streamed on Peacock. The game will also be broadcast on the Illini Sports Network, which includes WDAN-AM 1490 and WDNL-FM 102.1.

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