Basketball

By Zeno Jo - IlliniGuys Staff Writer April 3, […]

Connecticut point guard Silas Demary is still dealing with […]

Illinois veteran forwards Ben Humrichous and Jake Davis will get to play a Final Four game in their home state in a stadium they’ve both attended games as fans of NFL’s Indianapolis Colts.

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Staff Writer

April 2, 2026

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

INDIANAPOLIS — As he stepped onto the platform court inside Lucas Oil Stadium, Illinois forward Jake Davis immediately attempted to find the seats he’s occupied for Colts in the upper deck 400 level.

“I’m not passing judgment on the folks who have bought those tickets for this weekend, but I don’t completely understand watching basketball from those seats,” Davis said from the locker room inside Lucas Oil Stadium following the Illini’s closed practice.

Davis, who will hear his name introduced in the Illinois starting lineup on Saturday night (5:09 p.m. CST, TNT/TBS/truTV) when the Illini (28-8) face Connecticut (33-5) in the first national semifinal, played his high school basketball at Cathedral High School in Indianapolis - just under 12 miles north of Lucas Oil Stadium on Interstate-70.

Davis was one of four returners from the Illini’s 2024-25 season that saw its season end in the NCAA Tournament second-round loss to Kentucky in Milwaukee. Davis, along with guard Kylan Boswell, center Tomislav Ivisic, and forward Ben Humrichous, were part of a quartet that collected 45 percent of the Illini’s minutes in the 2024-25 campaign posting 41 percent of the team’s points and 43 percent of its rebounds. From the moment Davis became offseason workouts in the summer knowing he would be returning to the Illini lineup, he circled this particular weekend as the best possible homecoming for him as he hails from McCordsville, Ind., an Indianapolis suburb located just 20 miles northwest of the downtown scene.

“I’m just sorry I can’t get everybody who asked tickets for this,” Davis said. “I’ve been asked by everyone I’ve ever met growing up for tickets and I finally ran out of the allotment so I could start saying no.”

Illinois senior guard Kylan Boswell sat distraught in his locker in Milwaukee after a second-round loss in Milwaukee and made a vow that March 2026 would be different.

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Staff Writer

April 2, 2026

(Cover photo courtesy Matt Stevens/IlliniGuys)

INDIANAPOLIS — It wouldn’t be very difficult at all to trace this current Illinois postseason run back to Kylan Boswell’s stool one year ago inside the losing locker room at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.

The then-junior guard, who had finished his first season at Illinois after transferring back home from Arizona made a promise about where his final year in a Illini jersey was headed starting the minute he got back to his apartment in Champaign-Urbana.

“When it comes to my senior year, I think I have to approach it with a totally different mentality,” Boswell said in Milwaukee following the second round loss to Kentucky in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. “There was little stuff that I let slip this year and stuff in practice or off-the-court stuff (but) that (expletive) isn’t going to fly anymore. I’m going to talk a lot. I think I need to get some advice from Terrence (Shannon Jr.) to see what his thought process was going into his final year here.”

The advice Boswell got from Shannon Jr. and other players currently in the NBA was more simple than you’d think.

While growing up in Shawnee, Kansas, Keaton Wagler further developed his quiet and reserved attitude on and off the court as early as first grade playing with peers who were four or five years older.

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Staff Writer

April 2, 2026

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

The nature versus nurture debate of Keaton Wagler’s quiet and discreet personality on and off the court may have begun as early as when the Illinois guard was entering first grade.

As Wagler began to show physical, athletic and basketball gifts even before starting full school days, the parents of the Illinois leading scorer and consensus All-America selection believed their youngest son was capable playing in leagues with boys who were at least three and sometimes four years older than Keaton Wagler.

“He came to us and said he wanted to test himself against the older kids and my wife and I, who were both college basketball players, talked about it and decided to test it out,” said Logan Wagler, Keaton Wagler’s father. “After just a few practices and games, it became obvious this was the right path and the one he needed to be on.”

From as early as first grade through his summer basketball teams and his time as a ninth grader at Shawnee Mission Northwest High School in Shawnee, Kansas, Wagler has always been competing against players essentially older than his normal social group. One shouldn’t misunderstand that Wagler never showed on the 94-foot basketball court that he didn’t belong - quite the opposite in fact. Both of Wagler’s parents met while they were playing at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas and Wagler’s father, Logan, can remember when a young Keaton would participate in drills he would lead on his older brother’s youth basketball team despite the fact Keaton didn’t yet play on that team.

Keaton Wagler’s older brother, Landon, began his college career at Hutchinson Community College and now plays for NAIA’s MidAmerica Nazarene University.

“I never wanted to be seen as this younger player who needed to be babied or protected,” Keaton Wagler said. “Also, I’ve always believed, that while being a younger player, body language is such a big part of being on a basketball team. I couldn’t be the youngest player on a team and be known as the guy who complained or whined or talked back to coaches or anything like that. That was only going to hurt me.”

It is worth considering the pop psychology element of how Keaton Wagler became the reserved and quiet confident killer on a basketball roster who is likely seen and seldom heard. Both Logan Wagler, Keaton Wagler and his current college head coach believe there is some validation in the idea that playing in youth leagues with older kids made him into the 2026 Big Ten Freshman of the Year selection and the “quiet killer” as he’s described by his Illini teammate Kylan Boswell, who is nearly two full years older than Wagler.

“Honestly, I’d never really thought about it but I think, no kidding, you’re onto something with this,” Logan Wagler said. “I mean, Keaton’s never been different throughout his whole life but yeah, he was always playing on teams with kids in an older age group and none of them were the friends he grew up with.”

By Brad Sturdy - IlliniGuys Insider/Analyst & Co-Host, IlliniGuys […]

By Larry Smith - IlliniGuys Co-Founder

April 1, 2026

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Brad Underwood doesn't take any of this for granted.

"We're going into April and we get to practice. Not many teams get to do that", the Illini head coach told reporters on Tuesday. 

After returning from Houston and taking a day to celebrate the program's first NCAA regional title and Final Four trip since 2005, Underwood says the team is now busy preparing for Saturday's opponent in the national semifinals. 

"We've got our hands full with a UConn team that obviously handled us in the Garden on Black Friday. I look back at that game and I don't recognize our team, but they're different as well."

By IlliniGuys Staff March 31, 2026 (Cover photo courtesy […]

By Kedric Prince - IlliniGuys Sr. Recruiting Analyst

March 30, 2026

(Cover photo courtesy LSU Athletics)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – As first reported by IlliniGuys, former five-star recruit Divine Bourrage appears set to move on from LSU after an up-and-down freshman season.

Bourrage, once ranked as the nation’s No. 4 overall prospect during her senior year by ESPN, was one of the most sought-after players in the country coming out of Davenport North. She was part of an LSU recruiting class that was ranked No. 1 in the country by the same service.

The 5-foot-10 guard held more than 29 Division I scholarship offers before committing to LSU. Prior to that decision, Bourrage told IlliniGuys that Illinois finished second on her list, behind South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, and Kansas, in that order.

Sources close to the family told IlliniGuys that Bourrage informed LSU head coach Kim Mulkey Sunday night of her decision to leave the program. The meeting appeared to catch Mulkey off guard.

By IlliniGuys Staff March 30, 2026 We'll let you […]

Kevin Kruger was “a spectator” for both times his dad cut down the nets at NCAA Tournament regional final. On Saturday in Houston, the first-year Illini assistant coach cut a portion down for himself.

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Staff Writer

March 29, 2026

HOUSTON — There is a moment where Kevin Kruger looked up at the ladder set up near the goal closest to the Illinois pep band trying to soak in the moment.

It’s for that quick second the first-year Illinois assistant coach realized he’d be doing a lot of firsts with that pair of scissors. Following the Illini’s 71-59 win over Iowa, Kruger would be cutting a piece of this basketball net for the first time instead of watching his dad because it would be the first as a staff member of the team that had accomplished a Final Four bid.

“I’ve done this twice before with him. I was there both times,” Kruger said. “Today is the first time I did it without him. It’s still so very special and I feel very fortunate to be a part of this season. But it’s different without dad.”

Brad Sturdy, IlliniGuys Insider

March 29, 2026

I was once sitting with Brad Underwood at an AAU event and he told me that guys that he hated losing more than he loved winning. It’s a common refrain for people that are highly competitive. So I asked him about that quote after the game. Did he hate losing more than he loved winning? 

By Kedric Prince - IlliniGuys Sr. Recruiting Analyst

March 29, 2026

(Cover photo courtesy player's X page)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Quentin Coleman, a four-star combo guard, will be on campus Monday for an official visit as Illinois continues to build momentum following its run to the Final Four.

Coleman, a 6-foot-4, 180-pound guard from The Principia School in St. Louis, is one of the top prospects in the 2026 class. According to ESPN, he is ranked as the nation’s No. 30 freshman in the country.

Illinois forward David Mirkovic continues his goofy behavior by ordering cowboy hat off Amazon to have in during a regional final celebration in Houston.

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Staff Writer

March 29, 2026

(Cover photo courtesy Matt Stevens/IlliniGuys)

HOUSTON — Hours before tipoff of a NCAA Tournament regional final game, a member of the Illinois men’s basketball training staff was carrying a giant rectangler box from the Toyota Center loading dock with a look of confusion on her face.

The package she was carrying in both hands had come from an Amazon delivery truck and the recipient on the tag was David Mirkovic. It’s safe to assume, the University of Illinois men’s basketball program had not ordered any equipment, devices, medication delivered overnight for their freshman forward to wear, use or take Saturday night against Iowa. There was a knee-jerk obvious safety concerns of a fan sending the 20-year-old from Montenegro something sinister in the mail.
However, the order was directly from an Amazon retailer and not a individual person. Finally, if it would seem unrealistic that Mirkovic, whose personality has been playfully described as anything from a kindergarten student to a 12-year-old by his own Illini teammates, would have a present for himself shipped directly to the downtown Houston arena, well, you just haven’t met David Mirkovic.

“I told her ‘oh yeah, that’s the cowboy hat I ordered’,” Mirkovic said.

The training staff employee was stunned exclaiming: “Your what?!

Long after the celebration on the playing court of the Illini’s 71-59 win over Iowa and what has become the traditional water fight in the post-game locker room, media were allowed to enter. And there was the 6-foot-8 forward sitting up in a chair in front of his locker still in full uniform with a new brown cowboy hat on his head.

Nine years ago, Illinois athletics director Josh Whitman got […]