Illinois Basketball: Brad Underwood Weighs in on Questionable Officiating

Illinois Basketball suffered a tough loss in East Lansing, falling 80-78 to 12th-ranked Michigan State. The Spartans extended their impressive win streak to 11 games, despite a strong showing from Illinois’ supporting cast.

Michigan State forced Illinois’ top shooters into serious foul trouble—an undoubtedly challenging scenario for any team, which forced the Illini to get creative on the offensive end. Most notably, the absence of Kasparas Jakucionis proved to be crucial for the Illini. The star forward was limited to very few minutes against Tom Izzo’s surging squad, leaving Illinois without one of their key contributors during crunch time.

Following the tough defeat, coach Underwood shared his thoughts on how Jakucionis’ lack of playing time further impacted Illinois Basketball in their loss to MSU.

Underwood on the Impact of Kasparas’s Absence

“I thought we handled a lot of tough situations today pretty well. The best player in the game played 8 minutes,” said Underwood. Of course, the Illini head coach is referencing KJ, who saw little play time in East Lansing due to questionable foul troubles. “We saw just a little bit of what we can do when he’s in. He just controlled the whole game with the pick and roll and passed, and unfortunately, today, he didn’t get to play.”

When asked how Michigan State was able to force Jakucionis into the fouls in question, Underwood stated, “Well, they did nothing defensively (to KJ). He diced them up to start the game. If anybody thinks that he was guarded very well, there hasn’t been any one player in the country, or one team in the country, guard him with any success. He’s a maestro, he is completely different from anybody else. You saw the little three-minute stretch he went on, that he did play, every bucket was easy, he got a layup. He’s that dude now. Don’t make any mistake, if he is not the best point guard in the country, he is very close. And, he’s 18 years old.”

We know how good we are when we have him. Bam was tremendous, I thought our bench was tremendous, did a lot of good things. He (KJ) elevates everybody at a rate that’s really hard to define. I’m not trying to blow smoke up him, he knows how good he is, he doesn’t need to be told. He is just different. You look, and two of our losses, he hasn’t been a very active participant.”

KJ’s 4th and 5th Foul

“Well… I’m not gonna go there with that one. Especially until we watch the film.” the Illinois Basketball coach said, referencing Jakucionis’s critical 5th and final foul.

“The fourth one was awful, I’ll say that. He got shoved in the back and pushed into a guy, and I mean, that one was just gross… gross. I mean, he doesn’t make it to the first media (break). So, from that point on, it was just trying to keep him a little bit fresh, a little bit engaged.”

He concluded, “He had a pretty impressive stretch there where he dominated the game and got us right back in it. But, obviously, the 5th (foul) happened.”

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