The Deuce: Yeah, the script white jerseys and orange throwbacks can stay but toss the rest of the set.*

Overall, I see the season as a success. Yes, Sweet 16s are awesome, but this team pretty much played exactly to par. Finding a way to win a couple more close games and create an easier path to the Tourney would have been great, but at the end of the day, it was a young team that played like a young team. Today feels a lot like March 2000 after we went out against Florida in a game we were never really in, but minus the knowledge that we knew we were getting everyone back (and obvi. before Kruger bailed for the Hawks in May)

Overall what Underwood built from scratch is pretty impressive. It would just feel a lot better if this was 25 years ago and you knew you had them all back. That said, I hope he finds a way to balance talent in the portal and continuity--there has to be some of each. There were very specific and understandable reasons why we parted ways with each returning player a year ago, but collectively you can't do this kind of roster reset again and again.

And of course I hope he takes a hard look at the defensive scheme. There is a reason most of the top defenses in college bball hard hedge and trap. Obviously there are personnel limitations here--Tomi simply can't run that. But I also mentioned this in a discussion below--part of the reason he's so wedded to drop is because we rely so heavily on rebounding to win the possession battle and offset bad shooting nights. If you're in rotation it's a lot harder to rebound at the level we've been able to. But at the end of the day, this team could not be counted on to consistently get stops when it absolutely needed them. Some of that was probably personnel, but I'm convinced a lot of it is scheme too. Bring in a new assistant and figure that out. The drop in defensive numbers since we went to this NBA scheme two years ago are pretty stark.

Wishlist for the offseason:

1. Upgrade at the TA assistant spot with a true tactician.

2. Rethink defensive scheme

3. Bring back Kylan, Tre, Tomi, Morez as the core. Grab one big fish in the portal in a proven scorer/ball handler/shooter alongside Kylan and/or an athletic wing, and a backup big. Keep Jake and DGL as role/bench guys if they're interested in that (seems like Jake probably would be, can't imagine DGL is).

4. Random: Bring back the blue uniforms. Maybe not the current cursed versions (though I'm the only person in the world who actually likes them), but if this is a true wish list, some Flying' Illini blue throwbacks for the road would be the dream.

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Rare occasion where the lower seed is favored.
Let's do it for Lou, Efrem, Bruce, and all the others.