Illinois' Brad Underwood reflects on doorstep of 100th Big Ten win: 'I'm in basketball heaven'

You can be sure of this: Illinois men’s basketball coach Brad Underwood isn’t wasting any time these days lamenting past losses.

Why would the man think like that when his team is right on the cusp of the top 10 in the national polls and aiming for the school’s first Final Four in over two decades?

“I don’t live in those moments too much,” he said Thursday.

On the other hand, when a nudnik reporter corners Underwood on the phone and asks what’s the one thing he wishes he could have back — the one thing that still sticks in his craw — a negative thought is bound to come to mind.

“If I had one game I would want to have over, it would probably be the Loyola game,” he said. “Our first NCAA game. We didn’t know how [not] to lose, the urgency of losing.”

Just a killer for an Illini fan. They were a No. 1 tournament seed in 2021 when they ran into the eighth-seeded Ramblers in Indianapolis. Ayo Dosunmu, Kofi Cockburn, Trent Frazier — how did that 71-58 second-round upset go so wrong?

“I should’ve done a much better job with that team because that team was maybe one of the two best teams in the country that year,” Underwood said. “That was maybe my biggest disappointment, that I couldn’t grow that team better.”

Ah, well, things seem to be as bright as ever at Illinois, at least measured against the rest of Underwood’s outstanding nine-season run at the school.

After blowing out Maryland 89-70 Wednesday in Champaign, the Illini (16-3) are on an eight-game winning streak for the first time since the aforementioned Loyola game. At 7-1 in a Big Ten that’s in rare form, with Michigan, Purdue, Michigan State and unbeaten Nebraska also soaring, the deep Illini — the tallest team in the country — are among the biggest boppers. And they have been for years, underscored by the fact no one has won more Big Ten games — 88 — since the start of the 2019-20 season.

Purdue and Illinois share that impressive number, 88. Saturday in West Lafayette, Indiana, either the fourth-ranked Boilermakers (17-1) or the 11th-ranked Illini are going to make it 89.

And if Underwood’s team wins, he’ll have his 100th Big Ten win — all at Illinois — joining Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, Purdue’s Matt Painter and Wisconsin’s Greg Gard in the triple-digit club among current coaches.

That’s got to be reason enough to do a little reflecting, right?

“I’m so simple, it’s always kind of the next-game mentality,” Underwood said. “But, you know, I do reflect a little more now than maybe I used to. I don’t know the true significance of 100 wins, but I’m fortunate.”

How fortunate?

“I’m in basketball heaven,” he said.

Underwood, 62, makes well above $4 million a year and has a lengthy contract that, if certain performance benchmarks are met, could keep him on the Illini sideline through 2035. Is he certain he’d like to do this that long?

“No, but I know what I want,” he said. “I want good health and I want the enjoyment that I still feel on the first day of practice. It’s so exhilarating for me, the first day of practice. …

“I’ve got a great contract that allows me to keep moving forward and progressing. We’re on a pretty good upswing. I don’t know who’d want to step away.”

At his introductory press conference in 2017, he delivered at least a couple of memorable lines.

“Losing’s not an option,” was one.

“I dream big and I dream bigger,” was another.

Has it all lived up to his dreams so far?

“Not yet,” he said. “We haven’t won a national championship, haven’t made a Final Four. I’ve always said this job is that. It should be that. The day that anybody expects us and this program to not do that, they can look for a new ball coach.”

That’s keeping it 100, as the youngsters say.

At Illinois, only two of Underwood’s predecessors made it to triple digits in the Big Ten. Harry Combes was 174-104 (.626) in conference games from 1947 to 1967. Lou Henson was 214-164 (.566) from 1975 to 1996. Underwood sits at 99-67 (.596) with a conceivable shot at passing Combes and even Henson if everything keeps falling into place.

But who would dare take all that for granted?

“It’s already been unbelievable,” he said, “everything that I hoped it would be and could be.”

His first Illinois team went 4-14 in the Big Ten, worse than John Groce’s worst (5-13), worse than Bruce Weber’s worst (also 5-13), worse, still, than any other Illini season since the turn of the century.

“I never questioned we would win,” Underwood said, “because I knew the job was so good.”

Now he’s up there with the best coaches in the conference. Maybe Izzo stands alone. Maybe Painter is right up there with Izzo. These days, though, it’s not going to take anyone long to get to the name Underwood.

That, too, has to be reason to do a little reflecting, right?

“Somebody else can determine all that crap,” he said.

All right, then. We won’t push it.