Aug. 29—CHAMPAIGN — Brad Underwood's address to the crowd at Atkins Golf Club ahead of the 25th annual Illini Rebounders/Lou Henson Golf Outing included a mea culpa.
The Illinois men's basketball coach brought up the sting of this past April's Final Four loss to Connecticut and his insistence the Illini would get back to that stage during his 31/2 minute speech. He also thanked the fans in attendance for their consistent support of the program he's about to enter his 10th season leading.
Then Underwood discussed the recently released nonconference schedule for the 2026-27 season. A 12-game slate featuring multiple games against power-conference teams, but one that notably didn't have any of those teams coming to Champaign to play at State Farm Center.
"I will apologize," Underwood said. "I'll take the heat. It was very hard. Because we're expected to be OK, nobody wanted to come to Champaign and play us in a home-and-home."
Illinois, of course, is expected to be more than just "OK" this coming season. Five returning rotation players from a Final Four team with a high-level transfer addition and a six-man freshman class led by five-star guard Quentin Coleman has the Illini in the conversation among the best teams in the country.
That group will be challenged with games against Texas Tech on Nov. 10, Duke on Nov. 17, Connecticut on Dec. 4 and North Carolina on Jan. 30 in addition to the annual Braggin' Rights showdown with Missouri on Dec. 20. None of those games, however, will be at home.
Illinois will hit the road to play Texas Tech and Duke, face Connecticut in Chicago, head to St. Louis for its longtime rivalry game with Missouri and square off against North Carolina in Nashville, Tenn. The other seven nonconference games will be played at State Farm Center, but will feature teams from the Northeast Conference (Fairleigh Dickinson on Nov. 2), Ivy League (Penn on Nov. 5), Conference USA (Sam Houston on Nov. 13 and Western Kentucky on Nov. 27), Ohio Valley Conference (Eastern Illinois on Nov. 20), Big South (Winthrop on Nov. 23) and West Coast Conference (Seattle on Dec. 29).
"I'm a big fan of home-and-home, yet everybody's in a world where it's neutral-site games are great and trying to make money," Underwood said. "People are trying to use games for (name, image and likeness). Whatever those things are, whatever reasons why, it just didn't work this year. I thought the Duke series was a good one to get started and it's good for both programs — both top-five teams. We'll keep working at it. I think it's probably more a tribute to our fans and our environment and our culture that people don't want to come. I take it as a compliment."
Illinois will get a power-conference team into State Farm Center before Big Ten play when it hosts Baylor for an Oct. 23 exhibition. The game against the Bears is one of three exhibitions on the schedule along with an Oct. 17 game at Cincinnati and an Oct. 28 home game against Illinois-Chicago.
College basketball teams are now allowed to schedule three exhibitions — up from two — after a series of NCAA rule changes focused on deregulation. Also among the new rules is the ability to take a foreign tour every year.
"We wanted to make sure we get a road game in there to get that feel," Illinois assistant coach Tyler Underwood said. "It kind of goes back to process and routine. Understanding for our newcomers what a road game looks like — from the night before to the day of the game. Just get that experience under our belt before we go to Lubbock."
The exhibition home games will serve a similar purpose for a team that, while returning key rotation players and seven total from last year's 28-win squad, still has eight newcomers. Playing Baylor and UIC in October will be the first chance for Illinois' six freshmen, plus Providence transfer Stefan Vaaks and recent Arizona State transfer Quentin McCoy, to play in front of the fans at State Farm Center.
"They're great trial runs," Tyler Underwood said. "I love the secret scrimmages, but I do think there's an element of the game feel and game pressure exhibitions offer that can accelerate some of the growth for the newcomers."
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