CHAMPAIGN — Illinois men’s basketball played just four games during the final 20 days of January.
Both Nebraska and Michigan State having to postpone games because of COVID-19 issues in their programs meant the Illini were on a one-game-a-week trend the final three weeks of the month. Not your typical college basketball schedule. Of course, playing in an ongoing pandemic has made for an unusual college basketball season.
Last Friday night’s win against Iowa, which followed a 10-day break between games, set No. 12 Illinois (12-5, 8-3 Big Ten) back on a more typical rhythm of practice, preparation and playing. Saturday’s 1:30 p.m. tip against No. 19 Wisconsin (14-5, 8-4) at State Farm Center is the Illini’s third in nine days.
It’s a rhythm, though, that might not last.
Multiple reports out of Michigan have alluded to Illinois’ game at Michigan next Thursday not happening. The Wolverines will emerge from their athletic department-wide COVID-19 pause on Sunday.
The Athletic’s Brendan Quinn was the latest Michigan reporter with an update on the situation Friday, reporting, per sources, that the Illinois-Michigan game was “highly, highly unlikely to be played.”
No official announcement about the status of the Illinois-Michigan game has been made. Until then?
“Right now, it’s Wisconsin and Michigan next until somebody else in the league says anything differently,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood said Friday. “That’s the plan. We have heard nothing to the contrary. We’re planning on playing until somebody tells us differently. It’s one game at a time. It’s COVID, so a lot of things happen day to day.”
Also happening on a day-to-day basis is Illinois’ schedule for the week. The nine-day gap between wins against Penn State and Iowa was unsettled because the Illini weren’t sure, in the moment, if the Big Ten would shift the conference schedule or if they would find a nonconference opponent to fill the hole left when the Dec. 5 game against UT Martin was canceled.
That unpredictable nature is a far cry from how Illinois built its schedule — practice, off days, etc. — in a season not happening in a pandemic.
“When things were normal, we would turn in a semester’s worth of our practice days and our off days,” Underwood said. “We had to do that per NCAA rule. We had to have that all lined up a semester in advance. You had to give 24 hours notice if something changes. All that is just ripped up and out the window.
“The unpredictability, the unknown, those are all things we have to take into account. When you get in a nice routine, you know what your schedule is and you can plan accordingly. You know how to rest guys, know how to take days off and know how to plan and prepare. There’s the advantage.”
Giorgi Bezhanishvili said operating on the fly this season took some adjustment. At least for the Illinois veterans. Bezhanishvili, a junior forward, got used to knowing his schedule for an entire semester. Got used to having a game, then maybe an off day, two days of practice and another game.
“You kind of get that flow into a season and how things go,” Bezhanishvili said. “All of a sudden, you have a (nine)-day break, which you’re not used to. … That gap was definitely something new, but I think we handled it really well.
“We had very, very good practices and stayed in great, great shape. We cleaned things up on our side and worked on ourselves. During that break we just worked on ourselves, watched a lot of film on us and cleaned up little details. I think that worked in our favor.”
Bezhanishvili said he’s used to the less rigid schedule structure by this point. It’s how Illinois has had to operate since the team returned to campus in the summer.
Friday included a final full morning practice in preparation to play Wisconsin. Film and dinner were set for the evening. Then it’s a normal gameday schedule Saturday. After that?
“After that you don’t really know what could happen,” Bezhanishvili said. “Everything could flip and change in a matter of a day.”
Illinois won’t know its schedule for next week until the Michigan situation is resolved. If that game is postponed, which would be a fifth for the Wolverines and third for the Illini despite no COVID-19 issues of their own, Underwood and Co. would face another nine-day gap before hosting Northwestern on Feb. 16.
“It’s really hard to do a contingency because we could set something, and the Big Ten might flip it and say, ‘OK, we’re going to move a game here,’” Underwood said. “That impacts if we did a non-league game. I’m pretty much to the point now where I won’t do a non-league game. We’re too close to the end to risk anybody else’s testing protocols other than our own.
“I should never say never, but more than likely I would not, and most people don’t want to play, to be honest, at this time of year. I can’t risk our student-athletes, players, coaches getting it right now, if it would come from a non-league opponent who’s not in our testing.”
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