Story lines abound for K-State men’s basketball against Brad Underwood and Illinois
It’s rare for the consolation game of a college basketball tournament to generate more excitement than its championship matchup, but that might be the case when Kansas State plays Illinois for third place at the Hall of Fame Classic on Tuesday inside T-Mobile Center.
There will be no shortage of story lines between those teams.
Let’s start with the coaches.
Bruce Weber used to be the head man at Illinois and guided the Illini to a Final Four in 2005. He loved his time in Champaign and still talks about Dee Brown, Luther Head and Deron Williams as if he coached them to 37 victories in a season like it happened yesterday. But things ended poorly for him at Illinois when he was fired in 2012, which led him to K-State.
Brad Underwood is now in charge of the Illinois men’s basketball program, and you will never guess where he attended college and used to serve as an assistant coach. That’s right. He has long ties with the Wildcats as both a former player under Jack Hartman and as a former coach under Frank Martin. Underwood played an integral coaching role with the K-State team that advanced to the Elite Eight in 2010 and remains so popular in Manhattan that more than a few fans wish he was still coaching there instead of Weber.
Both coaches will go head to head for the first time since 2017, when Underwood was at Oklahoma State, at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.
But wait. There’s more.
Illinois assistant Chester Frazier used to coach under Weber at K-State. And two current members of Weber’s staff, Curtis Kelly and Shane Southwell, used to play under Underwood when he was with the Wildcats.
Senior guard Mark Smith also started his college career at Illinois before transferring to Missouri and then K-State.
The only thing that could make the game juicier was if both teams were coming off wins. Unfortunately, Illinois was no match for Cincinnati during a 71-51 loss on Monday and K-State was unable to complete a comeback attempt against Arkansas and lost 72-64.
“It’s been a long, long time away,” Underwood said. “It was good last night to catch up with Curtis Kelly and Shane Southwell and, obviously, I have known Bruce for many years. But we will forget about all those things when the game starts. We’ve got to compete, and I know they’re extremely well coached and playing well.”
Weber has also tried to down play the emotional ties that could go along with this game. He too says the matchup won’t feel weird once the game begins. But there is a reason he hasn’t intentionally scheduled a game against his former employer over the years.
He used to wear orange suits for big games. Now he wears purple windbreakers on the sideline. He’s not sure he could handle coaching a road game against Illinois. There would be too many memories at State Farm Center.
K-State was the first team to sign up for this edition of the CBE Hall of Fame Classic. When Weber learned that Illinois would also be in the field he requested that they be placed on opposite sides of the bracket. If they had to play each other, he wanted it to be for a trophy.
Things didn’t play out that way.
Still, Weber is happy that he won’t have much time to think about anything other than the matchup on a short turnaround.
“The players don’t know or care,” Weber said. “They just know that right now they’re right in the top 20, and it’s a challenge. They have got a really good big guy. We have got to go back to that hotel, get something to eat, get hydrated, get some rest and then see what we can do tomorrow.”
“The mental part of it now comes down to toughness. They got their butts kicked. You know they’re going to come ready to play. We had a hard fought game against a very good team. Now can we come back and play with that same intensity and be a little better with a little better execution?”
This story was originally published November 23, 2021 at 12:17 AM with the headline "Story lines abound for K-State men’s basketball against Brad Underwood and Illinois."