Believe it or not, before posting 29 points and 17 rebounds in his first NCAA Tournament game, Illinois forward David Mirkovic says he arrived at the arena Thursday night not feeling 100 percent.

March 20 2026

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Judging by how his personality is described by every single one of his teammates, of course his NCAA Tournament debut would be David Mirkovic’s best performance in an Illinois jersey.

Why wouldn’t it be? Mirkovic, a 20-year-old who has been called “a kindergartner” by his head coach and “just plain goofy” by the Illini’s senior leader Kylan Boswell, arrived to the Bon Secours Wellness Arena “not feeling his best physically”. With Mirkovic, who arrived in Champaign from the Balkan state of Montenegro showing an attitude of basketball instincts like he’s 30 years old but the humor and social dynamic of somebody who is closer to a 10-year-old, very little that comes in his path is considered normal.

Nonetheless, before arriving to his first NCAA Tournament game, the 6-foot-9 forward said his muscles felt sore and his legs felt tight.

“I just didn’t feel right. I felt off,” Mirkovic said to IlliniGuys.com with that child-like honesty.

Based on Mirkovic’s box score Thursday night, Illinois head coach Brad Underwood might hope Mirkovic feels similarly before every game of this 2026 NCAA Tournament.

Underwood, who is now an even 9-9 all-time in this event after a dominating 105-70 first-round win over 14-seed Pennsylvania, has a rule of thumb about players not being at peak physical health before a key game.

“I’ve always said that my best game came while I was dealing with a 102-degree flu,” Underwood said Wednesday. “It always scares the hell out of me when I hear about a really good player dealing with being sick.”

And for the first time in a while, Underwood was able to watch one his star players perform at an elite level without feeling optimal before the opening tip that’s exactly what Mirkovic provided a double-double - before the halftime buzzer sounded. The Illini’s power forward bullied his way to a career high total in points (29), and an Illinois single-game NCAA Tournament record of 17 rebounds with eight of them on the offensive end in a highly energetic 28 minutes of action.

Mirkovic will have less than 48 hours to regroup before the Illini (25-8) play 11-seed Virginia Commonwealth on Saturday night (6:50 p.m. CST, TNT) for the right to advance to the Sweet 16.

With his 17 rebounds, Mirkovic topped a 23-year NCAA Tournament record for the Illini program when Brian Cook posted 16 boards in a 2003 second-round loss to Notre Dame to match Nick Anderson’s 16 recorded in Illinois’ Elite Eight win over Syracuse. The 29 points was just a bucket short of Deron Williams’ NCAA Tournament program-record of 31 points in a second-round win over Cincinnati in 2004 and passed Kiwane Garris’ freshman NCAA Tournament program record of 27 in a 1997 first-round win over Southern California.

“What’s so interesting about Mirk is when he gets those first couple of offensive rebounds, I’m thinking to myself that well, that’s just free points for him,” said Illinois guard Keaton Wagler, who ended with 18 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. “Suddenly I’m looking at a halftime box score that says he’s got 17 points and 10 rebounds. It’s amazing.”

Don’t bother asking any of his teammates if they can tell in pre-game shoot-a-round, warmups or even the pre-game meal at the hotel if Mirkovic’s nature can signal a star effort is coming. None of them have figured out the freshman at all.

“He’s a such a goofball for sure before the games you can just never tell with him what’s honestly going to happen,” Boswell said. “What I do know is he always manages to get mentally and physically ready like I’ve never seen from anybody else. He’s just Big Mirk and I love he’s on my team.”

Mirkovic wasn’t ill or injured but after playing so much at the elite club level in Montenegro and earning All-Big Ten Conference Freshman Team honors throughout 32 previous game, he said he’s certainly felt less tight and less sore before stepping on the court.

“It wasn’t nerves and I know this is NCAA Tournament but the way I see it, it’s just basketball and my coaches and my teammates keep telling me I’m a good player,” Mirkovic said. “I wasn’t nervous or scared. I don’t know what it was but before the game started I didn’t feel like myself.”

Emotionally Mirkovic was feeling near perfect as his sister and his brother-in-law, who he hadn’t seen in several months before the calendar flipped to March, were in attendance Thursday night in Greenville, S.C. to watch him have a historic outing.

As he checked out of the game for the final time with just over five minutes left and the gleeful Illini faithful witnessing the second-largest blowout in the program’s NCAA Tournament history were giving him a standing ovation, Mirkovic found his sister, Sara, who is 13 years old than him.

“They would say I’m always full of energy but no, they wouldn’t have believed that I could play that well in front of this many people here and on television,” Mirkovic said. “Obviously, (the records) mean so much to me but all I wanted to do was find a way to help my team tonight. Going to the glass and getting points was my game tonight. I’ll say this - when I got that first rebound or two, I was feeling a lot better. A lot better.”