Underwood, Illini begin rebuild after being eliminated from NCAA Tournament
The Fighting Illini are out of the NCAA Tournament — they were plagued by turnovers against Kentucky in the second round on Sunday evening, and
went on to lose 84-75.
While a majority of the team — including Kylan Boswell, Tre White, Tomislav Ivisic, and Morez Johnson could likely run it back next season, the transfer portal opened on Monday — and Head Coach Brad Underwood's work to rebuild now begins.
How much work is cut out for Underwood depends on what Kasparas Jakucionis and Will Riley decide to do. Both are expected to be NBA Draft picks.
"No idea if it's the last or not the last," said Jakucionis, "but this year, I think I learned a lot. I grew a lot as a player and as a person."
"That would be awesome if they came back, but I know for a fact those two have got to go just live out their streams," added Boswell.
Underwood emphasized that the rebuild process has just begun.
"It's literally just next step. It's speed dating. It's gathering information," he said. "We've got a pretty good idea of that. We've got a lot of really smart people on our staff who have been working really hard at it, gathering information, figuring out what our roster looks like for '25-'26."
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