Dec. 7—EVANSTON — Results across the country this week gave real credence to the idea it’s tough to win on the road. Nearly impossible, it seems, if you’re an ACC team.
Multiple Top 10 teams lost true road games earlier this week. Top-ranked Kansas got run by 13 points at unranked Creighton, while No. 2 Auburn lost at No. 9 Duke. Then there was No. 5 Marquette experiencing “Hilton Magic” in Ames, Iowa, with a loss at No. 6 Iowa State plus No. 15 Baylor helping No. 25 Connecticut snap a three-game losing streak in a 76-72 win for the Huskies.
And that was just Wednesday. The Big Ten got a taste of the rigors of the road Thursday with Penn State beating No. 8 Purdue by 11 — in a game that wasn’t really that close — in Happy Valley.
But some Big Ten teams kicked off conference play by winning away from home. Michigan did so at No. 11 Wisconsin on Tuesday, while No. 12 Oregon stayed unbeaten by rallying in the second half to beat Southern California in Los Angeles.
Illinois, however, was the latest ranked Big Ten team to lose on the road Friday.
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Just the right amount of chaos to jumpstart life as an 18-team league. A new-look Big Ten that Brad Underwood is simply going to let play out as it will. The Illinois coach has no expectations for the first season post-westward expansion.
“We don’t know how travel is going to impact things,” Underwood said before Friday night’s 70-66 overtime loss by his No. 19 Illini at Northwestern. “I’m literally trying to keep it as simple as I can. Pay attention to the NET. Pay attention to KenPom. You’re going to see discrepancies in strength of schedule. All of that’s probably going to play out. It has in football. It’s a conversation point. I’m not worried about that. I just want for us to get better. All of our games right now up to Washington are Quad I games except for Chicago State. That’s pretty good strength of schedule and fares pretty well for the NET. We’ve just got to continue to get better and take it game by game.”
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UConn coach Dan Hurley made headlines (again) with his thoughts on three-game, multi-team events after the Huskies went 0-3 at the Maui Invitational. Mostly because Hurley said his teams would never — ever — play in another three-game MTE.
It came off as sour grapes considering how Hurley acted in Maui, but UConn had reportedly already had conversations about avoiding those kinds of MTEs in the future.
The Huskies aren’t the only program moving in that direction. Don’t expect to see Illinois in the Maui Invitational any time soon as long as it sticks with hits current format
“I’m not going to go to three-game multi-team events,” Underwood told The News-Gazette on Thursday afternoon. “I don’t see any value in that. I’ve got no problem with two.”
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Illinois spent “Feast Week” this season playing a pair of neutral-site games a week apart. The game against Alabama will be repaid with another next season in Chicago. The Thanksgiving Day showdown with Arkansas is something Underwood wouldn’t mind seeing again. That game drew 5.1 million viewers on CBS with the NFL as a lead in, making it the second-largest regular season college basketball viewership since 2008.
“It’s always exciting, a curiosity, to see what the draw would be and the people who were watching,” Underwood said. “To see those kinds of numbers, it was just terrific. Great exposure for our program. The marketing and public relations of that for our program were fantastic.
“I love what we did. If they want to put us on Thanksgiving after the Bears, sign me up. I’m in every year they want to do that.”
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The Maui Invitational and Battle 4 Atlantis are the two remaining top-tier, eight-team MTEs. Neither necessarily has an elite field next season. Taking over the MTE space might be the Players Era Festival, which awarded $1.5 million to Oregon as its winner from an eight-team field this season in Las Vegas with plans to expand to 18 teams in 2025 with a guaranteed $1 million in name, image and likeness opportunities for each program still the idea.
Is the Players Era Festival on Underwood’s radar?
“Sure,” he said. “There were decent games and there were good opponents. It’s something you’ll always track as we move forward, but, again, it’s a long time in Vegas.”
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Underwood can’t say enough good things about fifth-year forward Ben Humrichous. Like how heady the Evansville transfer is. Or how he makes the plays he knows he can make. And you can’t forget the highly-touted outside shooting.
But rebounding?
“He still has to be better,” the Illinois coach said of Humrichous. “He’s (6-foot — 9), and I’m going to be unrelenting on guys that are 6-9. They’ve got to rebound the basketball. When he rebounds it, he’s got the ability to push it in the break. He’s a one-dribble, two-dribble outlet guy. He’s making a concentrated effort to be that guy. I love that about him. He’s cerebral. He’s as assignment sound as anybody we have, and I appreciate that.
“Defensively, his man may not get it, but somebody else needs to clean it up because he may not get it because he’s blocking his guy out. We’re working on that, and he’s doing a great job thus far.”
Humrichous entered Friday’s game at Northwestern averaging 3.3 rebounds. Seventh on the team.
“I’m a big believer that rebounding is a big team effort,” Humrichous said. “That everybody has to do their job when it comes to rebounding. I love a challenge.”
Snagging more rebounds, though, isn’t exactly a straightforward exercise. Humrichous is typically playing with either Tomislav Ivisic or Morez Johnson Jr. Ivisic leads the Illini in rebounding, and Johnson is second and not that far behind Ivisic despite averaging half as many minutes.
Johnson basically sees every available rebound as his.
“It has happened twice where we’ve both been on the basketball at the same time,” Humrichous said. “He’s not going to let go of it. Rebounding is such a team thing that if we end up with the basketball I’m going to be OK and I’m going to look to run the floor.”
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The latest group of inductees into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame included two former Illini in Frank Williams and Steve Lanter, the organization announced earlier this week.
Williams, who starred at Peoria Manual before doing the same in Champaign, parlayed a successful Illinois career into being a first-round pick in the 2002 NBA draft. The 6-3 guard was 2001 Big Ten Player of the Year and an All-American that season. He averaged 14.3 points, 4.3 assists and four rebounds in three seasons with the Illini. Lanter saw the court in two seasons at Illinois after a standout prep career at Mascoutah. He started 25 games as a freshman in 1976-77 and averaged a career high 6.4 points to go with 3.4 assists per game.
