It’s been said for a few years now, but gone are the days when players are expected to stay at one school for four years. What has Brad Underwood done to keep up with the times? Find NBA-hopeful, NBA-ready prospects and push them into lottery conversations.
He’s done just that with two of his most prized offseason acquisitions in Lithuanian guard Kasparas Jakucionis and Canadian forward Will Riley, who are the Illini’s first and third-best scorers respectively this season.
Here’s a look at this year’s top potentially NBA-bound Illinois players. Don’t get too attached to them, they’ll be gone faster than you can say...
Kasparas Jakucionis ten times
TCR // Jack Jungmann
Whether it be the flashy step-back three-pointers or the crafty passes, Kasparas Jakucionis is always finding a way to shine on the court. The quarterback of the Illinois offense has looked (dare we say) Mahomes-esque at moments, from the Hail Mary-like, high-arcing deep balls or the improvisation skills of a to-be Hall of Fame QB in a collapsing pocket.
While preseason projections saw ‘KJ’ as a mid-first-round pick, as the weeks pass and the eye-catching performances pile up, he’s approaching Deron Williams and Kendall Gill territory. The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie seems convinced he’s a top-five guy:
Kasparas Jakucionis has figured out CBB. And done it quite quickly. Think he’s pretty clearly a top-5 guy for me right now. Had him ranked there on the big board even before these last couple games. Had him No. 6 in preseason. Real chance I end up too low.
— Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) December 11, 2024
“He’s listed as a freshman, but he’s not,” Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard said after Illinois’ Tuesday victory over the Badgers. “He’s got a lot more experience than most freshmen.”
Gard praised Jakucionis’s court vision, maturity and development — all things that Underwood has said are his best qualities.
“The beauty of what KJ does is he delivers at the right time, where guys can really just kind of catch it and shoot it,” Underwood said earlier in the season. “There’s very little waste of motion. He puts it in the pocket, he delivers it.”
Illinois as a team has emphasized making the extra pass to find a better shot, something that the Jakucionis has been at the center of. On top of a team-leading 15.4 points per game, he’s also pacing his squad with 6.0 assists per game. If that second number is maintained through the rest of the season, it’d be the highest average assists for an Illinois player since Deron Williams averaged 6.77 in 2005.
“We always try to get a great shot, not a good shot,” Jakucionis said on the team’s extra pass mentality. “We’re looking at extra passes or kicking out and driving one more time to have a better shot than we could have before.”
“Playing with someone like KJ is amazing,” sophomore Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn said. “He’s like the perfect point guard teammate that you would want to have on your team. He’s always looking for you before himself.”
ESPN’s Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo ranked Jakucionis as their eighth-best prospect in their latest 2025 NBA Draft Big Board, up from the 15th-place he held earlier this year. Bleacher Report’s latest mock draft projects him to go sixth overall to the Toronto Raptors, with a pro comparison of Chauncey Billups.
KJ’s impressive start to the season has also landed him in some exclusive company — that of three-time NBA All-Star Trae Young:
In last 10 seasons, two Division I freshmen have had a 4-game span with:
80+ points
25+ rebounds
20+ assists
15+ threes made
One was Trae Young from January 3-13, 2018.
The other is Kasparas Jakucionis over his last 4 games. pic.twitter.com/Ul90kEflHu
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) December 11, 2024
“He’s absolutely dominating every game,” starting guard Kylan Boswell said of his backcourt running mate. “It’s insane. I love what he’s doing right now. So happy for him.”
The junior Boswell, who himself is a bit of a black sheep at 19 after classifying up out of high school, is no stranger to very young stars. Look no further than...
Will Riley — he should be in athletic study hall right now!
TCR // Jack Jungmann
Whether it be the flashy and-one three-pointers or the alley-oop high-rise dunks, Will Riley has been a star on the court for Illinois. Through nine games, the freshman is the team’s third-leading scorer, averaging 13.9 points per game
There are moments throughout games that you wonder if he really is 18 years old. He’s got the same acne that we had when we were 18, he should be taking physics or AP geography right now but instead, he’s lighting up stat sheets and impressing NBA scouts.
“Will’s a straight-out scorer,” fellow Illinois freshman Morez Johnson said after the team’s November victory over Maryland Eastern Shore. “He knows how to get to the rim and get his. He’s got a great touch and stuff like that. He’s a great basketball player.”
Underwood praised the resiliency of Riley in that 87-40 win over the Hawks. The freshman was held scoreless in the first half but finished with 19 in a dominant second frame.
“Those are what lottery picks look like,” Underwood said of Riley. “He just plays. Nothing phases him. He plays in the moment. He’s got a gift to not be worried about what I say, not be worried about a missed shot, a bad half, he just plays in the moment, takes what the game gives him and there’s tremendous maturity in that.”
On a handful of occasions this season, Underwood has compared Riley to 11-year NBA veteran Michael Beasley, who he coached while an assistant at Kansas State.
“I wouldn’t say that there’s a specific player that I compare my game off, but I like that comparison for sure,” Riley said of the comp with ‘B-Easy’.
While it’s still a small sample size through nine games, he’s also shooting the ball well: just over 45 percent from the field and 40.9 percent from deep.
ESPN has Riley as their 12th-best prospect, up from 22, while Bleacher Report has him mocked to go 22nd overall to the Thunder (via the Clippers).
If either Jakucionis or Riley are picked in the lottery, they’ll be the first Illini lottery picks since Meyers Leonard in 2012. If drafted at all, they’ll be the first one-and-done players in program history.
Keep an eye on...
TCR // Jack Jungmann
Sharpshooter Ben Humrichous raised eyebrows at the start of the season when ESPN placed him top-60 in one of their earliest draft boards. Recent form aside, it’s clear to see that a high-level three-point shooter is going to be sought-after at the next level. Humrichous is still hovering around that range, but the now 100-man big board has grown to include two other Illini.
Tomislav Ivisic, who ranks two spots above 44th-ranked twin brother Zvonimir, has caught the attention of NBA scouts after an impressive performance against him. In one of the most-watched regular-season college basketball games of the past few years, Ivisic put up 21 points and 10 rebounds on 7-of-14 shooting, which included an eye-opening 6-of-9 from three-point land.
Kylan Boswell also entered the big board 88. While his Illinois career has taken a while to get airborne, he’s slowly starting to heat up. In four games against high-major opponents this season, he’s averaged 15.0 points. While his three-point percentage is still taking some time to average out to the 37.9 percent that it was last year at Arizona, one constant has been his defense.
Boswell has emerged as the team’s best on-ball defender, a role that now-Minnesota Timberwolves guard Terrence Shannon Jr. embraced last year.
“There’s a mentality that’s different. We got Terrence to that point last year where it was ‘Give me that guy, give me that guy,’” Underwood said on Tuesday. “Defensively, [Boswell] has just been sensational.”
While maybe not a lock for the 2025 draft, one name that Underwood is convinced will end up on the big board at the Barclays Center will be that of Morez Johnson Jr. He’s been in a limited role this season due to the dominance of the aforementioned Ivisic, but has been efficient in his outings so far.
Averaging 13.6 minutes a game, he’s putting up 4.9 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.2 blocks. While stats will fill the eyes in the short term, Underwood says that it’s something about Johnson’s on-court, between-the-lines game that has him on NBA scouts’ radars.
“He got one of the best compliments from an NBA guy who had him on their board just because he thought he was the best communicator in the United States,” Underwood said. “That’s a big deal. People have no idea how important communication is. Every play that Morez is involved in his guy is probably setting a ball screen, so he’s got to talk. He’s got to do it early. He’s got to recognize it early. It’s a great attribute to have and just makes everybody’s life easy when you do it.”
“I just say what I see,” Johnson said of his on-court communication. “If nobody’s seeing the ball screen or anything, I’m just talking. I’m just talking, letting them know I’m supporting the right side or the left side, just making sure they hear me on the court.”
Just a few falls and springs ago, it felt like Illinois basketball had lost its sense of direction. Now, one TSJ later,