CHAMPAIGN — When No. 17 Illinois men’s basketball coach Brad Underwood considered how “bullish” he is on his team Sunday at State Farm Center, he didn’t play down his expectations.
“I’m not afraid to say it — we can be Final Four good,” Underwood said. “But we need to be whole to do that. And we played half a conference season without guys.”
The Illini were not whole Sunday in their rematch with Northwestern, playing their second straight game without 7-foot-1 center Tomislav Ivišić, who has mononucleosis. And yet they jumped on the Wildcats early, led by 22 points at halftime and went out with an 83-74 win, thanks in part to the play of freshman forward Morez Johnson Jr.
Johnson, the 2024 Illinois Mr. Basketball from Thornton, received his second career start in place of Ivišić and finished with 15 points, nine rebounds and three blocks. Underwood didn’t think Johnson played great in his first start in Illinois’ 21-point loss to Maryland — when the Illini sorely missed Ivišić — and the coach said he enjoyed challenging him in the last week.
“He’s super competitive and he’s got a fire that burns,” Underwood said. “It was just getting it out of him, and it’s great to see.”
Underwood opened the game by having the 6-foot-9 Johnson defend Wildcats forward Nick Martinelli, who entered Sunday averaging 19.9 points per game. The Illini planned to give Martinelli room to shoot 3s but wanted to limit him inside. The plan worked. Martinelli had six first-half points on 2-for-11 shooting. He finished with 17 points.
“Mo can really move his feet,” Underwood said. “He’s 255 pounds. He jumps to touch the top of the backboard. But he’s got great lateral quickness, and one on one, I don’t know if there’s many guys in our gym that want to see him in front of them. I mean, he can really, really guard.
“So it’s always been there. It’s just learning the energy, the controlling it. It’s what makes him really special is his ability to go do that, and then he can go bang with a five-man if he needs to. And then he’s got a real knack when he’s guarding perimeter guys to go chase rebounds from the perimeter.”
Underwood said he also thought guard Kylan Boswell played “terrific” early defense on guard Brooks Barnhizer, who had three points while playing through some injury issues. And Underwood said Kasparas Jakucionis “won the battle of the ball screen, especially in the first half, with (Jalen) Leach, making his opportunities very tough.”
The Wildcats (12-8, 3-6 Big Ten) had pulled off a 70-66 overtime victory over the Illini in Evanston on Dec. 6. But they shot just 26% from the field in the first half and fell behind 43-21 at halftime.
The Illini led by as many as 23 points with five minutes to play before the Wildcats took advantage of a late lapse in focus to cut it to eight points with 30 seconds to play.
“We knew coming into this building today we were going to get everything they had,” Wildcats coach Chris Collins said. “And that’s what they did, in every facet of the game to start that game — physicality wise, effort wise, 50-50 balls, on the glass. I just thought they were the tougher team. They were the hungrier team.
“We didn’t respond to it well, the initial punch that they hit us with early, and I’m disappointed in that because for the most part that’s not who we have been. But that’s who we were today.”
Meanwhile, Johnson was one of five Illini players in double figures, led by Boswell’s 17 points. Ben Humrichous had 14 points, while Jakucionis and Jake Davis each had 11.
The dominant performance helped Illinois (14-6, 6-4 Big Ten) break out of a slump that included three losses in their last four games, including a two-point loss to Michigan State and the home loss to Maryland.
Johnson said Underwood set the tone in practice leading up to Sunday’s game, and the freshman tried to show it from the beginning when he dived for a loose ball.
“That was a statement, letting them know we were playing hard from the jump,” Johnson said. “It’s not going to be easy to come here and get a win.”
The Illini went on a 15-0 run over a five-minute period midway through the first half. Humrichous punctuated the spurt with three straight 3-pointers to give the Illini a 20-5 lead. The Illini made 6 of 16 3-pointers in the first half and also outrebounded the Wildcats 28-13.
They finished the game outrebounding the Wildcats 50-27, a focus in practice during the week after it was an issue in the December game. Jakucionis had 10 rebounds and added seven assists, a block and a steal.
“Against Maryland, we started the game with little energy, quite soft,” Jakucionis said. “But we practiced hard these few days before this game, and I think we got more motivation to win. Now we just have to continue on this track and be more aggressive.”
The Illini played two games without Jakucionis earlier this season because of a forearm injury, and he missed much of the Michigan State loss because of foul trouble. Underwood said he doesn’t have a timeline for Ivišić’s return, noting the uncertain recovery times for mononucleosis.
He looks forward to the day when he has his roster at full strength, but for Sunday, Underwood said was pleased with how the Illini performed without a key piece.
“We had two pretty spirited days of practice, and that’s all we really can control, and that’s what I challenged the team with after the game,” Underwood said. “It’s your job to show up and play hard every day.”