CHAMPAIGN — Three months ago today the Illinois men’s basketball team last took the court together.
That practice at Hinkle Fieldhouse on the Butler campus has taken on somewhat mythic proportions from the conversations about just how good the Illini looked that ill-fated day, March 12, in Indianapolis.
When they were finished, though? That was it for the 2019-20 college basketball season. The Big Ten tournament had been canceled, and the NCAA tournament met the same fate that Thursday afternoon as the team made the roughly 120-mile trip back to Champaign.
The Illini won’t be back on the court together today.
That moment is still a ways off. But today will mark the team’s return to campus for voluntary workouts nearly 100 days following the disappointing end to a successful season and the team scattering in all directions away from Champaign because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think people kind of forget how abrupt it was with the season ending and the players were getting out of town,” Illinois assistant coach Stephen Gentry said. “You didn’t really even get to say good-bye to a lot of the guys. We were all just scrambling. It will be so good to see them eyeball to eyeball and obviously get the new guys here as well. I couldn’t be more excited to get everyone back.”
It’s not just the players who will return. The coaching staffs have been shut out of their offices at Ubben Basketball Complex the past three months, too. Communication has been 100 percent virtual. Phone calls. FaceTimes. Text messages. The now ubiquitous Zoom meetings.
All of that can be a bit impersonal.
“Everybody uses, ‘We’re family, we’re family’ but we live that,” Illini assistant coach Orlando Antigua said. “We are family, and we miss them. Even though we communicate frequently — we text frequently and we Zoom frequently — we miss them. Even though for a little bit of time we won’t be able to physically touch them as much, it will be good to see them up close.”
Illinois coach Brad Underwood misses that interaction, too. Particularly what he called the “liveliness of 18 to 22 year olds.” The feeling he’s received from his players is they’re just as anxious to get back together and get back to basketball.
“You’d probably be hard pressed to find in their lives where they have been off — I’m not saying totally inactive away from basketball, but pretty close — for a period of time like this,” Underwood said. “I think they’re eager. They’re high-level college athletes, and I’m sure they’re excited to get back as I am. I’m excited to see them. You can only do so many Zooms and so many text messages.”
The personal touch will also make for better conversations, Underwood said, on the topic of the past couple weeks. The best the Illini could manage during the nationwide unrest following the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day and the bright light shined on racial injustice was a team Zoom.
“It’s one of those things you want the personal relationship,” Underwood said. “You want the interaction. Any time somebody is hurting or somebody is wanting to communicate, it’s not as personal when they’re not here. That’s one of the real positives of coming back is we can sit down and listen and be supportive and understand what’s gone on.”
The looming return to campus, though, is simply a small step toward the return of basketball. The voluntary workouts won’t include much basketball at all. At least not right away. Strength and conditioning coach Adam Fletcher will spend the most time with the players once they’re tested for the novel coronavirus and are cleared out of the initial quarantine period.
“They will have the ability to get back into the gym at certain times and do shooting,” Underwood said. “I’m calling it a kind of ‘kick the rust off’ period. But to get themselves back in shape with Fletch is the most important piece — get acclimated again and get settled with the new normal if you want to use that term and what that looks like.
“We’ll wait on the NCAA to guide us through what July will look like. Hopefully, at some point, we’ll be able to get back on the court with them and actually do some organized workouts.”
The Illinois coaching staff is ready for that next step where on-court instruction can return. They’ve spent the past three months reviewing the 2019-20 season, kibitzing with coaches around the world and compiling notes on top of notes with new plays to try or new wrinkles to add to the established scheme.
“I’m just chomping at the bit,” Gentry said. “All the film study and all the research, it comes down to that time on the court with the players and implementing all these new ideas and ways of doing things. I’m just so excited to get back on the court with the players. I’m sure there will be some unique restrictions and all that, but at this point we’ll take it.”
Underwood is just as eager. He can like how a play is drawn up on paper or how it looks on film, but until he sees his team run it in person, he can’t form his final opinion.
“To see all the opportunities that come from a new action or something different, I’m missing that like crazy,” he said. “ If I go through anymore, ‘What are we going to do in transition?’ scenarios, I don’t think there’s any more to go through than what I’ve gone through in COVID. It’s great on one hand because you gather a lot of information, but I’m a visual guy and want to see it on the court.”
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June 12, 2020 at 08:00PM
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