Underwood: 'Our learning curve has been a little smaller'
Sep. 30—Delayed start to practice
Most of the country held its first practice Monday when the 2023-24 season officially started. If not Monday, then at some point this week. Illinois is easing in to the start of its full-on preparations for its Nov. 6 season opener. The Illini won't start practice until Friday, Oct. 6.
Part of seventh-year Illinois coach Brad Underwood's decision to delay the official start of the Illini was rooted in the team's 10 practices in July for three exhibition games in Spain in early August. That this Illinois team is also one of the most experienced he's had in his tenure as coach also influenced his decision. He's not losing anything on the court as the players continue to work more with strength and conditioning coach Adam Fletcher.
"We're older," Underwood said. "This group has a vast knowledge of experience. The teaching and the capability of retaining stuff and learning was pretty quick. I'm not afraid of that. I'm not afraid of our ability to add something. We've got a lot of guys who have seen it and been there, done that.
"This group is a very, very visual group. They love to watch film. They're always doing that, and we haven't had to prod them to do that. Our learning curve has been a little smaller. It's a long season, and I feel like we're getting done what we need."
Healthy and ready
The only question mark from a health standpoint this offseason revolved around Marcus Domask's left hamstring. The Southern Illinois transfer, who arrived in Champaign in May the day after his graduation in Carbondale, dealt with a lingering injury most of the summer. It hampered him enough that, while he made the trip to Spain with the team, he was held out of all three exhibition games on the foreign tour.
Domask is back to full health with Illinois set to begin practice next week. An important turn of events for the Illini given how much they might lean on the 6-foot-6, 215-pound wing who was a three-time All-Missouri Valley Conference player in four seasons with the Salukis.
"He's really, really worked hard on his body — him and Fletch," Underwood said. "He's kind of gone from a power forward/center body to much, much leaner. Just in changing his body he's become more mobile. He's sneaky bouncy. ... He's a guy that's going to be a usage guy for us and is going to play in a lot of different roles. The game for Marcus is very slow, and that's a really good thing. He does not play sped up. You can go put Sencire (Harris) or put Ty (Rodgers) on him or put Coleman (Hawkins) on him, and he just plays the same way. He's got a very, very mature way about him, and that experience helps."
Establishing an identity
Underwood still wants to play with tempo offensively. Still wants to score in seven seconds or fewer. And still believes he has a team that can successfully play with that kind of pace. It's what happens when the easy score inside of seven seconds isn't there. Then what is Illinois' offensive identity?
What Underwood doesn't want is what happened last season. There wasn't a strong offensive identity. The result was a team that could be turnover prone. The Illini averaged 12.9 turnovers in the 2022-23 season and had just seven games (out of 33) with single-digit turnovers.
"The freedom and the randomness which we played with last year hurt us," Underwood said. "We didn't take care of the ball. We had too many unforced turnovers. ... One of this team's great, great assets is our ability to run and ability to play with great tempo. When we don't have that, that's when we've got to execute. We have to be able to go a little deeper into the shot cock and execute and not take that contested three. Those are all things we've talked about ad nauseam already with this group."
