Brad Underwood has put Illinois in the national-title conversation before. He just hasn’t had the Illini entering a season with this kind of buzz around them.
That changes in 2026-27. The usual warning still applies - the season is more than a month from tipping off, and the NCAA Tournament is half a year away - but right now Illinois sits with a small group of teams viewed as legitimate title contenders. And the case for putting the Illini at the top starts with what they can throw at opponents in the frontcourt.
David Mirkovic is shaping up as a likely preseason All-American. Tomislav Ivisic brings the kind of inside-out game and two-way impact that would make him the centerpiece for most high-major teams.
Zvonimir Ivisic adds elite rim protection, real lob danger, a deep-ball shot and, by the numbers, one of the most effective returning players in Division I. That trio is dangerous on its own.
The real problem for opponents is the flexibility it gives Illinois, especially because Mirkovic can mix and match with either of the Ivisic twins to create matchup headaches that most frontcourts simply aren’t built to solve.
Illinois already showed last season that it can win ugly in one area and still overwhelm teams in another. The Flyin’ Illini were barely flying in transition, finishing 2025-26 ranked No. 353 out of 361 in fastbreak points at 5.7 per game.
The staff adjusted around its personnel, especially Keaton Wagler, and leaned into a half-court approach. The strange part?
It still produced a historic offense.
For most of the season, Illinois had the No. 1 offense in the country and broke the KenPom record for efficiency more than once before Purdue finally nudged past it by the end. That happened even while the Illini largely passed on easy transition chances. In other words, they were already operating at an absurd level without one of the simplest sources of offense.
The 2026-27 version might be even more explosive. Stefan Vaaks and Quentin Coleman give Illinois a backcourt pairing that can both score, and Underwood said projected backup guard Ethan Brown has the tools to do the same.
Big Z’s size, mobility and vertical pop make him a natural run-out threat. Andrej Stojakovic was the key tempo-pushing piece a season ago.
And Mirkovic, even if his transition reps were a little awkward at times last year, has the skills to grow into that role too. If Illinois finds the right blend of pushing when the floor is open and settling in when it isn’t, the offense has a chance to be even better than it was a year ago.
The other side of the ball has plenty of reasons to believe, too. When Kylan Boswell went out for a stretch last season, the first instinct was that Illinois’ defense would take a hit.
It didn’t. Boswell was a defensive-team selection, but he’s also 6-foot-2, and the players Illinois leaned on in his absence were much bigger.
Wagler and Jake Davis both checked in at 6-foot-6, and the overall size across the lineup made life miserable for opposing guards while keeping wings and bigs from finding mismatches.
That size advantage is only getting larger. Even with Boswell in the mix, Illinois was the tallest team in the country last season.
This year, it’s taller still. However the rotation settles, the shortest player will be 6-foot-4.
That should make the Illini even more athletic, and the expectation is that the defense rises with it.
There are still individual matchups to sort through. Coleman will have to prove he can handle on-ball defense, and Vaaks, after a rough freshman year on that end at Providence, needs to make progress.
But the help defense already looks like a strength. Illinois showed that at its ceiling during the NCAA Tournament, and communication was a huge reason why.
That has to be the baseline from the start in 2026-27.
And then there’s the glass. Underwood teams have long been excellent rebounders, and making the biggest team in the country even bigger only strengthens that edge.
In Other News...
Illinois Already Has Two Problems It Must Fix Fast
Illinois went into its non-conference meeting with Duke hoping to keep building momentum and reach the kind of 3-0 start it wanted before the Ohio State game loomed on the schedule, but instead it came away with a loss that exposed a couple of early concerns. The Illini had trouble with tackling and never found enough consistency on offense, particularly after halftime, when the scoring dipped and the game slipped away.
Bret Bielema now has a short window to sort through what went wrong before Illinois turns to Southern Illinois. The issues are not subtle, and the staff will be looking for answers quickly, because the next stretch will ask whether this was a one-game stumble or the start of problems that need immediate fixing. [Read more 🡒]
Illinois Is Chasing A Wing Prospect Who Could Change Its Future
Illinois has positioned itself early with AJ Williams, a top-five recruit in the class of 2027 whose rise has already made him one of the more intriguing long-term targets on the board. The Georgia wing, who plays for Eagles Landing Christian Academy, included Illinois in his top 10 after the Illini first offered him in July, following his showing with Team CP3. For a program always looking to keep its pipeline of national-caliber talent flowing, getting in this early matters.
Williams is the kind of prospect who can force a staff to picture how he would fit before the rest of the roster even settles into place. Illinois has been weighing its wing rotation and broader roster balance, and a player with his blend of upside and versatility would only add to that conversation. The competition is already real, though, and the next steps in his recruitment should tell a lot about how serious Illinois can be about turning an early offer into a future win. [Read more 🡒]
Illinois Is Making An Early Push For A Frontcourt Priority
Illinois has already built a strong early footprint in its 2027 recruiting class with a pair of committed shooting guards, but the staff is clearly working to balance that out with size. The latest sign comes from Darius Wabbington, the five-star center from the 2027 class, whose recruitment is starting to pick up across the country as his official visits take shape.
Wabbington, a 6-foot-11 frontcourt priority ranked No. 12 nationally, has moved his trip to Champaign up from Oct. 23 to Sept. 18. That places Illinois in an important early window as he also lines up visits to Indiana, Arizona, North Carolina and Texas, giving the Illini a chance to make their case before the rest of the schedule unfolds. [Read more 🡒]