International flavor helping Illinois shine on March Madness stage again

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Illinois coach Brad Underwood has looked all over the map for players.

The result has Illinois one win away from advancing beyond the NCAA Tournament’s opening weekend for a second straight year. The sixth-seeded Fighting Illini (22-12) face No. 3 seed Kentucky (23-11) on Sunday for a spot in the Midwest Region semifinals.

Illinois has gotten this far with a lineup featuring players from four countries. The Illini’s three leading scorers are all from outside the United States.

“Truthfully the basketball world is a pretty small network of people,” Underwood said. “And it’s not that big.”

Kasparas Jakucionis, a potential NBA lottery pick, is originally from Lithuania but had spent the last three years in Barcelona before coming to Illinois. Tomislav Ivisic, a 7-foot-1 center, is from Croatia. Will Riley grew up in Canada.

Underwood said he was quite familiar with Illinois’ two European additions well before he started recruiting them. Illinois needed to rebuild its roster because reserve guard Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn is its only available player who saw any game action during the Illini’s NCAA Tournament run to a regional final last year.

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“We’ve known about Kasparas for a couple of years,” Underwood said. “Even though he’s from Lithuania, he’s been in Barcelona and played on a big stage for a long time. And everybody knew about Tommy and his brother, the 7-1 twins.”

Ivisic is the twin brother of Zvonimir Ivisic, who plays for Arkansas and already is in the Sweet 16. He’s coming off a 20-point, 10-rebound performance in an 86-73 first-round victory over Xavier and is averaging 12.8 points and 7.7 boards this season.

Illinois’ most notable offseason addition was Jakucionis, a 6-6 guard who has a team-high 15 points per game.

“I got some offers from basically everywhere in the world – Australia, Europe and colleges,” Jakucionis said. “When I decided to go to college, I watched how their playing style is, how their coaching staff is, and I thought there’s very nice people working here. I saw their trust in me, and I felt like I could trust in them. I saw that it’s a winning program, they’re practicing hard. That’s what made me decide to come here.”

Jakucionis had 16 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds against Xavier. According to StatsPerform, Jakucionis became the first freshman to have at least 15 points, 10 assists and five rebounds in an NCAA Tournament game since Kenny Anderson did it for Georgia Tech in 1990.

The two Europeans have rewarded the international recruiting efforts of Underwood, who acknowledged that the ability for players to profit off their name, image and likeness had proved beneficial in that regard.

“Every month, every six weeks, we’re somewhere in Europe, our staff,” Underwood said. “It fits our university. We have a very diverse university with a lot of international students. I love coaching them.”

Underwood sees only one disadvantage to having a roster with players from so many different countries.

“It’s been much easier, other than probably those guys cussing at me in their foreign language and I don’t know what they’re saying, which I’m sure that’s happened a good amount,” Underwood quipped after the Xavier game.

The two Europeans aren’t Illinois’ only international players to shine on the March Madness stage. Riley had a team-high 22 points in the Xavier game and went 8 of 12 while displaying the shooting touch that caused Illinois to pursue him.

Illinois’ offseason moves weren’t limited to international players. The Illini also went in the portal to get Tre White from Louisville, Kylan Boswell from Arizona and Ben Humrichous from Evansville. Boswell attended high school in California and Arizona but was born in Champaign, Illinois, and lived there through eighth grade.

But it’s the international guys who arguably have made the biggest difference. They’ve adapted well to college life while living in a new country.

“It was way easier than I expected, to be honest,” Ivisic said. “Every one of my teammates (is a) great guy, and we figured things out pretty quick. Started building on our chemistry and our game plan. I felt like everything clicked from the first week, and just we kept building on that.”

Jakucionis said the process was easier for him because he already had adapted to this kind of move before.

“I moved to Barcelona when I’d just turned 15,” Jakucionis said. “That was the biggest adaptation process. Now I think I can just go anywhere, and I will adapt pretty quick.”

It hasn’t been entirely smooth sailing for Illinois.

The Illini went through multiple illnesses and injuries last month as they capped a three-game skid with an embarrassing 110-67 loss to Duke. But they’ve won five of six since, with the international guys leading the way.

“We definitely have faced a lot of adversity this year, being young and also with illness and injury,” Riley said. “We faced a lot, but we’ve picked up from that. There really hasn’t been anything we haven’t seen. Right now is the perfect time to peak, and I feel like that’s what we’re doing.”

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