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Sunday, April 5, 2026
Words cannot express the sadness and disappointment of yesterday's loss to Connecticut during the Final Four. It is going to take a few days to process this defeat and even rewatch the game, which I tried to do early this morning before stopping with UCONN leading 3-1 as Kylan Boswell attempted a second free throw. Yesterday's game feels like such a missed opportunity as Illinois was the better team in my opinion, Connecticut was a beatable opponent, and the game was absolutely winnable. It just wasn't our day for various reasons that can be discussed later.
With that said, this has been an incredibly fun and entertaining season of Illinois basketball. At the beginning of this season, I had no major expectations for this Illini squad, which joined the 1989 Flyin' Illini and 2004-05 team as Final Four participants. The last five months have been a great ride, worthy of many thank yous.
Thank you to:
While I have been dreading the end of this season for weeks, I will always hold a special place in my basketball fandom for this Illinois team, which played with such great chemistry and enthusiasm, and capitalized on its talent to make an unexpected Final Four run. The memories of these past three weeks, these last five months will forever remain with me.
Go Illini!
Words cannot express the sadness and disappointment of yesterday's loss to Connecticut during the Final Four. It is going to take a few days to process this defeat and even rewatch the game, which I tried to do early this morning before stopping with UCONN leading 3-1 as Kylan Boswell attempted a second free throw. Yesterday's game feels like such a missed opportunity as Illinois was the better team in my opinion, Connecticut was a beatable opponent, and the game was absolutely winnable. It just wasn't our day for various reasons that can be discussed later.
With that said, this has been an incredibly fun and entertaining season of Illinois basketball. At the beginning of this season, I had no major expectations for this Illini squad, which joined the 1989 Flyin' Illini and 2004-05 team as Final Four participants. The last five months have been a great ride, worthy of many thank yous.
Thank you to:
- Keaton Wagler for having a freshman season like no other, for playing the game the right way at all times.
- David Mirkovic for entertaining with your well-rounded game, next-play attitude, and goofball personality.
- Andrej Stojakovic for providing instant offense and much-needed defense during the tourney, for accepting a sixth-man role and displaying incredible mental focus these past three weeks.
- Tomislav Ivicic for sacrificing your role this season, for salvaging a difficult regular season with five great games during the NCAA Tournament.
- Kylan Boswell for refocusing the team after the Big Ten tourney, for playing through a difficult hand injury.
- Jake Davis for being the ultimate glue guy all season long.
- Ben Humrichous for bouncing back after last season's struggles, for modeling leadership and selflessness.
- Zvonimir Ivisic for injecting great activity off the bench, for adding even more personality to this team.
- Brandon Lee, Mihailo Petrovic, AJ Redd, Blake Fagbemi and Jason Jaktys for being engaged teammates on the bench.
- Ty Rodgers for sticking around, for being a spiritual leader despite not playing the past two seasons.
- The coaching staff for making necessary offensive and defensive adjustments during tourney halftimes.
- Head Coach Brad Underwood for returning Illinois to the Promised Land, the Final Four.
- Athletic Director Josh Whitman for investing in this program.
While I have been dreading the end of this season for weeks, I will always hold a special place in my basketball fandom for this Illinois team, which played with such great chemistry and enthusiasm, and capitalized on its talent to make an unexpected Final Four run. The memories of these past three weeks, these last five months will forever remain with me.
Go Illini!
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