Tate | Illini's potential may come down to its outside shooting - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette

It doesn’t take much to incentivize — that is, uplift, stimulate and in this case, awaken — the deep Illini basketball base.

But it resembled firecrackers invading a 2 a.m. slumber when national roundball analysts Andy Katz, Jon Rothstein and Jeff Goodman inserted Brad Underwood’s men into their preseason Top 10.

Is another snap-crackle-pop 2005 romp on the horizon?

Katz, who serves both the Big Ten Network and the NCAA, chronicled NBA turndowns by Ayo Dosunmu and Kofi Cockburn by installing Illinois at No. 4, right up there with perennials Gonzaga and Villanova, just ahead of Iowa and Wisconsin and well beyond Duke and Kentucky.

Katz went so far as to tab Dosunmu the No. 1 point guard in the country, and right behind Iowa center Luka Garza on his Player of the Year list.

These projections are, of course, well-reasoned guesswork in an uncertain time. COVID-19 outbreaks can change everything, as we’ve seen in football where Saturday’s LSU-Florida and Missouri-Vanderbilt postponements brought the number delayed or canceled to 32.

A single positive COVID-19 test in basketball requires (by Big Ten rule) that player to sit out 21 days. And an NCAA health and safety recommendation — not yet a rule, and seemingly too extreme — calls for an entire team to quarantine for 14 days if a single player tests positive.

Imperfect season aheadSo the season won’t come off without a hitch, Underwood acknowledging (without being specific): “We have already had hiccups ... guys out at various stages ... we know it won’t be perfect ... with officials flying in and other teams perhaps not testing the way we do. We’ve tried to create as much of a bubble as we can, but we know we won’t be unscathed.”

With that background, the Illini go about the on-court business of correcting their most basic concern: shooting the ball. This was the primary shortcoming of a 21-10 team last season.

Just as strikeouts and home runs have overtaken baseball, the three-point shot is the rage of basketball.

Alabama led the nation and was one of four teams launching 30-plus treys per game last season ... Notre Dame attempted 28 and Villanova 27.5.

Nebraska led the Big Ten with 24.9 and Illinois checked in at 18-plus attempts per game..

The Illini were more conservative because (1) Cockburn was a force on the block, (2) Donsunmu is most effective in transition and pick-and-roll and (3) UI accuracy from 22-plus feet wasn’t worth a hoot.

Statistically, 566 of 1,831 UI shots came from the arc, and the 30.9 shooting percentage on treys ranked No. 296 nationally, far behind BYU’s top mark of 42.3.

Seeking improvements

Looking back, Trent Frazier fell from 40.6 percent on treys as a sophomore to 30.9 (same as the team). In the last 10 games, Frazier misfired on 46 of 57 tries.

Dosunmu, who shot 54.4 percent on twos, checked in at 29.6 on threes, which is the chief reason the NBA didn’t deem him to be a first-rounder. Neither Giorgi Bezhanishvili (30.6) nor Da’Monte Williams (28.3) were dependable, and now-departed Andres Feliz came in at 27.4.

The UI’s best three-point shooter was Alan Griffin (41.6), and he now shoots them for Syracuse.

“It was just an off year,” Underwood said. “We have good shooters. I see it every day in practice. Frazier won’t have another year like that. And Ayo has shot a million balls since last year.”

Underwood emphasized shooting with his most recent acquisitions. Freshman lefty Adam Miller is rated one of the nation’s premier perimeter marksmen. He is in the thick of what Underwood calls “an unbelievable battle at the guards,” which includes elite playmaker Andre Curbelo, another recognized outside shooter.

Also, with Bezhanishvili spending most of his practice time at center, new power forwards Jacob Grandison (he shot 35.6 percent on treys at Holy Cross in 2018-19) and 6-10 freshman Coleman Hawkins are noted for their perimeter touch.

Behind the group due to lingering injuries this fall are redshirt Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk and transfer Austin Hutcherson.

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