Illinois Basketball: 3 reasons why Illini are pretenders in 2019-20

3. Underwood is no longer the Underdog

Throughout his Division-1 coaching career, Brad Underwood has undoubtedly performed best when his team is the underdog.

Case in point: In Underwood’s three NCAA Tournament appearances with Stephen F. Austin, the Lumberjacks pulled off first-round upsets in two of them.

Now, Underwood finds himself in a position where his squad actually has a set level of expectations. Considering that Underwood has never been in this situation, there is no telling how he will perform as a coach.

However, one piece of evidence that might cause some to believe that Underwood’s team is not capable of living up to expectations are their youth. The Illini are led by two sophomores and a freshman, none of which have (obviously) appeared in an NCAA Tournament game.

With this year’s field shaping up to be one of the most balanced and upset-healthy in the history of the Big Dance, the Illini are looking like a good pick to fall victim to the parody in college basketball.

Where things stand right now, the Illini are likely to be a five seed. This would match them up with a team such as ETSU, NMSU, and SFA. All three teams have the shooting and star-power to down a young, upset-prone team like Illinois.