Illinois retooling offense this summer

Jul. 10—CHAMPAIGN — Illinois finished the 2023-24 men’s college basketball season with one of the most efficient offenses in the country.

What worked last season, though, won’t necessarily be the way forward in the 2024-25 season when it tips off in November.

Mostly because what worked was a lot of “booty ball” from Marcus Domask and a lot of Terrence Shannon Jr. bulldozing his way to the basket both in transition and in the halfcourt. Both will make their NBA Summer League debuts later this week, Shannon for the Timberwolves and Domask with the Bulls.

So the Illini will have to retool their offense to fit a new-look team with just two returning players in Ty Rodgers and Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn (neither player was an offensive focal point last season) and 10 newcomers. That process started to take shape in the first four weeks of Illinois’ summer workouts, with individual work in small groups and structured pick-up games.

The latter is where Illinois has started to try and leverage its depth of talent. After finishing last season ranked just inside the top 70 nationally in terms of adjusted tempo, Brad Underwood wants the 2024-25 team to play faster. So the Illini coach has tweaked some of the pick-up structure.

“We started out playing pick-up with a 24-second shot clock,” Underwood said. “It was 20 one week. Then it was 18 seconds one week. Guys get in great shape doing that because they’ve got to run. They have to learn to make decisions quickly.

“It just keeps guys thinking and keeps them competitive. There’s days we play two-minutes games with a 14-second shot clock. We mix it up. It’s never the same, but it’s a lot of five-on-five.”

Illinois’ pick-up games have also included shot selection-based scoring. Dunks and layups are valued. Catch-and-shoot three-pointers are worth more than off-the-dribble threes. Paint touches that lead to shots are rewarded. Long twos that come in possessions without a paint touch yield just a single point.

“It’s a way for us to get them to figure out the shots that we want them to take,” Illinois assistant coach Tyler Underwood said. “It’s a way for them to figure out what we want them to do offensively without us having to harp on it and coach it early.”

Three-point shooting was a point of emphasis in the first four weeks of summer workouts. It will remain a point of emphasis with the second four-week stint of workouts that began Sunday after a break for the Fourth of July holiday. Then remain a priority throughout the 2024-25 season.

Illinois shot 34.9 percent from three-point range last season. A marked improvement from the season prior given shooting 30.8 percent during the 2022-23 wound up one of the least efficient seasons in program history.

The goal for the 2024-25 season? More.

Three-pointers went up on 38.5 percent of Illinois’ total field-goal attempts last season. Brad Underwood would like that percentage to at least hit 40 percent this season. Maybe higher.

How the current roster came together was reflective of that goal.

Evansville transfer Ben Humrichous shot 41.4 percent from three-point range last season. Arizona transfer Kylan Boswell is a 38.2 percent career three-point shooter. Jake Davis knocked down 38.7 percent of his threes as a freshman at Mercer last season. Even the European imports are shot-makers, with Kasparas Jakucionis shooting 37.7 percent for Barcelona‘s U18 team and 7-foot-1 center Tomislav Ivisic making 42.7 percent of his threes for SC Derby.

“We want to shoot more threes next year,” Brad Underwood said. “We need to shoot more threes next year for us to be good. We recruited this team to be able to go do that and open that paint up. It’s going to be a priority.”