(670 The Score) Last March, the Illinois men's basketball team won five of its last six regular-season games and was clicking heading into tournament play. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and the shutdown of the college basketball season.
It left a bitter taste in the mouth of Illinois coach Brad Underwood, who believed his team was poised for a big run. Now, the Fighting Illini are surging once again, winning four in a row to improve to 13-5 and climbing to No. 6 in the nation. Underwood is hoping Illinois can make the kind of run he envisioned last March.
"It's pleasing because it was so disappointing last year," Underwood said on the Mully & Haugh Show on Wednesday morning. "We were playing so well at the end of the season. It's one of those things last year that when you're guarding, you're rebounding, you have guards that can make plays -- that's a good formula for postseason play.
"We were denied that with COVID. Who would've thought a year later, we're still dealing with it. But we're playing basketball. This team has gone through some things that no other basketball team will ever go through in terms of all the restrictions and everything else.
"It's just a unique season, and I couldn't be prouder of our guys and the way they handled all the COVID, the testing, the isolation and so on. It's nice to see."
While the strong play of guard Ayo Dosunmu and center Kofi Cockburn is the driving force in the Fighting Illini's success, Underwood believes the team chemistry has also been pivotal, and he thinks it has grown in part because Illinois isn't holding in-person classes.
"We're really close," Underwood said. "Our team is very well-connected. They bond together. They spent literally all of their time together. Our freshmen, they've never been to a class on campus. They don't know anybody else, other than their teammates.
"It's pretty awesome to think what this group has done."