CHAMPAGNE — Tony BennettHis sudden retirement less than a month before the start of the 2024-25 college basketball season has prompted much dialogue about the current state of the sport.
The 55-year-old national title winner is gone Virginiawhile expressing his concern and frustration with the new landscape that has minimal guardrails when it comes to NIL and the transfer portal. It’s pretty much the ‘Wild West’ as many have described it in recent years, and now Bennett is joining in Jay Wright like a champion trainer who jumped from the saddle with years left in him.
“The game and college athletics is not in a healthy place. It’s not. And there has to be a change. And it’s not coming back,” Bennett said during his retirement news conference. “I think I was equipped to do the job the old way…
“There’s got to be changes. It’s going to be closer to a professional model. I think it is. Where there’s got to be collective bargaining. There’s got to be a cap on the salary pool that teams can spend. There’s got to be a transfer. There’s got to be some restrictions on hiring agents with these young guys. There are good agents and bad agents that drive some of the things we’re in. student-athletes as all of those things go down.”
Every coach in America probably agrees with a number of points Bennett made. That said, some have done a far better job than others of being able to adapt—dealing with the challenges and maximizing the opportunities that came with this new world.
247Sports Isaac Trotter had an interesting article earlier this week describing it ‘new school vs old guard’ through the profession of a college basketball coach. Of course, there are success stories from both sides, but questions remain as to whether digging into the old school side is sustainable at a high enough level.
Trotter had the Illini’s main man Brad Underwood in the new school category, and certainly his roster, his schemes and willingness to adjust, and his love of analytics pretty clearly pave that path. However, he also brings old school coaching tactics with his fiery side and incorporating the treadmill as a teaching tool.
After all, the path he chose worked with great success. And as things have changed, Illinois was able to rise under his guidance. In the summer of 2021, the NCAA announced that student-athletes could profit from their name, image and likeness (NIL) and still be eligible. This, of course, led to the NIL collective and arms race, as well as the involvement of agents.
In that same time period, the transfer portal exploded and was taken to another level, and the NCAA lost its understanding of who could become immediately eligible after transferring. After the NCAA was defeated in court (again), there is no limit to how many times a player can transfer and still be eligible to play immediately.
Through it all, the Illini have found the new way to benefit them far more than it has bitten them. With that in mind, the Illini Inquirer asked Underwood for his take on the Bennett situation, discussing the current state of college basketball and why he’s been able to make it work so well for him and his program.
“I think everybody is different. I completely understand where Tony is and where he’s been. I haven’t talked to Tony. I think there are challenges. I think we’re in a unique time where we don’t have rules, we don’t have any guidelines,” Underwood said in Thursday. “We’re between the potential revenue split that’s going to happen in April for the NIL and what that looks like. Throw in the transfer portal, which is one of the big challenges for me. We don’t know from year to year if we’re going to have one guy back or eight guys. We’re dealing with a calendar that’s very different from level to level and we don’t know our roster until June so I think there’s so much going on.
“I think we have brilliant leadership. I think Tony’s doing an incredible job of charting a new path for all of college sports and what that’s going to look like. I think there’s a go-with-the-flow attitude, but my mentality is to always be the best at what we do. So, if change is now the norm, let me figure out how to do it with a lot of guidance – Josh Whitmanall of our staff — let’s figure out how to do it the best we can. We have incredible transparency in our department, so Josh gives us a guideline and a parameter to work with, and then we just attack it. I’ve never been afraid to make changes in the field, and I’ve tried to adapt – whether you like it or not – without complaining and just being as creative as we can and keep climbing the mountain until we get to the top. Let’s be the best at it if we’re going to do it. Whatever it looks like.
“We don’t have guidelines. We don’t have rules. But we know we’re doing a lot of things the best we can, and that’s attacking the portal, that’s recruiting high schoolers. We’re trying to be as honest as we can and as aggressive as we can with all of that.”
The results speak for themselves so far. Since that significant rule change regarding NIL compensation in 2021, Underwood has gone 72-32 overall with a 40-20 record in Big Ten play. It won the Big Ten regular season title in 2022, the Big Ten Tournament title in 2024, and last season advanced the program to the Elite Eight for the first time since 2005.
Meanwhile, the Illini just picked their first player in the first round of the NBA draft since Meyers Leonard in 2012 Terrence Shannon Jr.transfer from Texas Techranked 27th overall after averaging 23 points per game. Now, Illinois has a freshman guard Kasparas Jakucioniswho is widely projected to be the first pick of the program’s one-and-done draft. Shannon wouldn’t be at Illinois without the transfer portal, and Jakucionis, as his chief recruiter Geoff Alexander bluntly said of the wave of high-level international players coming into college basketball, “wouldn’t be here without the NIL.”
Sam Vecenie of The Athletic currently has Jakucionis ranked No. 6 overall his latest mock draft. On top of that, a five-star Canadian wing Will Riley — the highest-rated Illini signee since Dee Brown in the class of 2002 — projected as the No. 1 player by ESPN. Arizona transfer Kylan Boswell and Evansville transfer Ben Humrichous are also included ESPN’s NBA Draft Big Board.
With all that talent and more, Illinois was picked to finish fourth in the Big Ten in the preseason media poll this fall despite returning just two starters from last year’s team. Underwood has led the Illini to a top-five finish in the Big Ten in four of the last five seasons.
“I will say this: Brad Underwood is the best coach as far as coaches go,” Alexander said at Illini Basketball Media Day. “I’m not being biased. When you look at the Xs & Os, when you look at the recruiting article, when you look at the way he’s moved through the portal — he’s a thinker. Everything he does, he’s kind of on We’re going back to the international stage and preparing for this generation of guys which is special, special, we were ready He is a forward thinker and that allows him to adjust before the game.