Brad Underwood’s pivot to largely recruiting internationally at Illinois has received a lot of attention in recent months thanks to names on his roster like Andrej Stojakovic, Mhihalo Petrovic, Zvonimir Ivisic, Tomislav Ivisic and David Mirkovic. It’s inspired funny memes and deep discussions about whether there’s something broken in the developmental system here in the United States considering one of the Big Ten’s best coaches, at one of the Big Ten’s best programs, has decided it’s just smarter for him, for a variety of reasons, to build his team around Eastern Europeans.
That’s a discussion for another day. On this day, I’m just here to tell you that the Illini bounced back from their midweek loss to Alabama with a 98-58 victory over Long Island.
Stojakovic, born in Greece, led all scorers with 20 points. Mirkovic, born in Montenegro, added 12. The Ivisic brothers are from Croatia. One of them (Tomislav) got nine points and four rebounds, the other (Zvonimir) got eight points and four rebounds. Mihailo Petrovic, born in Serbia, provided four points and a steal.
Illinois is now 5-1 with one more buy game (UT Rio Grande Valley) on the schedule before things intensify. On Friday, the Illini play UConn. Eight days after that, they’ll play Tennessee. After that, they’ll open the Big Ten portion of their schedule with games against Ohio State and Nebraska.
The Illini are 14th in Sunday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 dally college basketball rankings, where Arizona remains No. 1 for the fourth consecutive day. Why Arizona at No. 1? It’s because Tommy Lloyd’s Wildcats are 5-0 with three wins over other teams in the Top 25 And 1 — specifically victories over No. 4 Uconn, No. 6 Florida and No. 15 UCLA. Nobody can match that body of work, even if, as I explained Saturday, I do expect Purdue to remain No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll when it updates Monday, which, as I explained Saturday, is perfectly reasonable even if it doesn’t line up with the Top 25 And 1.
Is Purdue college basketball’s best team?
Perhaps.
But, right now, Arizona has college basketball’s best body of work, undeniably, thanks to Jaden Bradley developing as a real First Team All-America candidate, and Koa Peat emerging as one of the sport’s best freshmen. Again, Purdue might be the sport’s best team. But, 21 days into this season, it’s easy to defend a “No. 1” beside the Wildcats’ name.
Their next game is Monday against Denver.
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