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Yeah, it's good.
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So, I'm glad to see it's bothering you, too. Yeah.
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Hey, what's going on, everybody?
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From First We Feast, I'm Sean Evans, and you're watching Hot Ones.
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It's the show with hot questions and even hotter wings.
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And today, we return to my alma mater, the University of Illinois, for a Hot Ones special with the Illini basketball coach, Brad Underwood.
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He's the man we're crediting and trusting with returning Illinois to its former glory, coming off a season that included 16 conference wins, a Big Ten Tournament championship.
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My coach, Brad Underwood, welcome to the show. Sean, welcome back.
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It's great to have you back on campus.
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It's great to be here, and you know, this is the first time that we've ever done anything like that, and it's because the team last year, I, like many Illini fans, we fell in love with that team, and that's what led to this homecoming of sorts.
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But, enough sort of a puffy small talk.
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Let's let's break it down to brass tacks.
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How are you around the spicy stuff? Good. I I I like hot.
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I like you know, it's it's I I don't know what my tipping point is yet, but uh I I got a feeling we're going to find that out.
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But, uh I I tend to migrate to hot, and uh we'll go from there. Okay. Fair. Fair. I like it.
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I'm going to lick my fingers.
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Really just marinating that one. Mhm. Mhm.
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So, an important part of your coaching journey is the wild maze that it took for you to get here, working as an assistant coach for 26 years before getting your first head head coaching job.
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From math tutor to travel agent, what are some of the more bizarre duties as assigned things you had to do outside of your job description working as an assistant coach?
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You know, really my first my first coaching job was as the head women's cross country coach.
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Now, if you know anything about me, I hate distance running. I wasn't any good at it. I never did it.
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And uh yet here I am uh as a graduate assistant coaching basketball, but I'm a head division one cross country coach.
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And when you're a junior college coach, everything from doing the laundry, sweeping the floor every day before practice, I was literally uh kind of a jack-of-all-trades, uh handing out $5 to go to McDonald's for your happy meal after the game. We did it all.
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So, it's it's it's all part of the journey.
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And then I'm sure that they all had their role, but reflecting on that time when you're working at junior colleges and mid-majors, is there one stop on that six-state nine-university trek that you think disproportionately impacted or shaped the the coach that you are today?
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Yeah, I I you know, I think at Western Illinois. I spent 10 years there.
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Um it it's why I sit here today because I realized how good a job the Illinois job was while I was at Western, but uh we didn't have a ton of staff.
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Uh I was at and and and then we hired one other coach along with and then and and along with our head coach.
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So, uh you learned everything.
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Uh I traveled a great deal.
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I learned to recruit, uh scout, and and you know, I I cut my teeth uh really in the profession there.
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You can smell the difference. Definitely a um step up. Right.
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Typically we'll do the 10-wing gauntlet, but but today, you know, it's a a steep ramp up for the special with coach Underwood, you know.
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I've got a feeling we're uh by the the looks at it, I got a feeling we're getting hotter quicker, no doubt. That's what's happening.
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So, I want to take this wing to get granular about the X's and O's, and full disclosure, I got a little help coming up with these questions from one of my best friends, Coach C, who heads up the girls varsity program at Glenbrook North.
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You need a bucket at the end of the half.
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What is your internal calculus, generally the things that you're thinking about when writing up a perfect sideline play?
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Yeah, I think first of all, time and score, who's the matchups, who does the other team have in, who do they have guarding the guy that I would like to get going, you know, so we've practiced that.
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We know, hey, we're going to run this, this, and that, and we're going to run it to that guy, and it it all really happens about that quick.
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Do you have a guiding philosophy when it comes to working the refs, or is that kind of communication just pure visceral instinct and emotion?
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Uh we see our officials a lot.
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So, we know how they call a game.
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Uh you know, I think that there's certain guys that we say, oh, no, we've got them on the road, we're in trouble, you know, they're homers.
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You know, you're fighting, you're grinding, and so emotion can be a part of it.
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We know who the officials are, we study them a little bit, but we we we try to give them the the benefit of the doubt on most nights.
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And then, I know that you have to rifle through decades of experience and games, but is there a trick play that's maybe the most memorable, or one that you're most proud of, that you pulled off in a meaningful game?
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I don't know if it was a meaningful game.
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I I That would be cuz it was not, but we did the we did the doc the barking dog trick.
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We lined up on a baseline out of bounds play, three guys across in front of the ball, and a guy standing right behind them, and all three guys drop down on their knees, start barking like a dog, everybody looks down, we throw the ball to the guy, and we lay it in.
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So, unfortunately, in the Big Ten play, we don't get a lot of The barking dog might not work at Yeah, it's probably not going to if it'll I don't I don't think he is is going to let that one fly at in East Lansing or Matt in in West Lafayette, but you know, I think the one thing we try to do is is is be as creative as we can.
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We've got a full court baseline out of bounds which got a lot of attention last year cuz we stood everybody out of bounds as they're pressing us and just stepped in and caught the ball.
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And you know, so we try to do a little you know, try to be a little creative on that side of things as well.
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Then finally, what is it that you find sacred about the spread offense?
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To me, it's the ultimate team-based offense.
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It gets everybody involved.
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You know, in a perfect world you want five six guys averaging double figures.
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That's that's easy to do in that offense because everybody gets involved.
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You can take an average player on the offensive side and he becomes a threat because he can cut and make a layup. It's a team game.
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We've led the country in assists running it.
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That part of it's pretty special. Little kick in that one.
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We're progressing at a nice rate. Yep. Accelerating quickly.
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Now, I'd get that one in a I'd get that in a restaurant. That's good. Wow. I like that. Yeah.
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And that's a that's a powerful sauce right there.
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Yeah, that's pretty good.
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Coach Underwood, I'm impressed.
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I got to I got to remember the name of that.
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I didn't know that was a pepper to be honest.
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I have a I have a friend Chili Klaus.
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I got to I got to introduce you guys.
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He'll he'll teach you everything you need to know. That's good.
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My my I got a little I got a little after aftertaste with that. Yeah.
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Yeah, it grows a little bit.
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So, one of my all-time favorite Illini players, Georgi Bezhanishvili, he described the rebuild as a beautiful struggle.
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What sorts of things do sports talk radio hosts or die-hard fans, what are the things that they maybe don't fully understand or appreciate watching their team through a redefining through a rebuild?
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That's so hard because we live in a microwave society.
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Everybody wants to win right now and there's no shortcuts to success and to winning.
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And and the one thing we've tried to do here is lay an unbelievable foundation, uh great character in our program, great guys.
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But along that way, there's going to be some speed bumps.
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You have to not be afraid to handle them and uh try to never divert from where you want to go.
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There's no substitute for success, and I believe that's laying a great foundation and working really hard.
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Maybe I'm fishing for a game or a moment here, but at what point in the rebuild did it start to bear fruit?
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Like at what point did it become fun again in the locker room?
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Yeah, Michigan State game here, year two.
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We had nine new guys, Sean.
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We were we were a young team.
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We'd had a really tough start to the season.
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Ayo Dosunmu hits a shot from the top of the key.
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Didn't have anything to do with coaching.
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It was kind of a broken play.
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And he just jumps up and makes it. All the stands empty.
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There's people on the floor.
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So they got to have fun winning.
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They got to enjoy that moment and see all the hard work paid off, and there was a reward for it at the end.
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That that was the one moment that that that changed this thing. That's no joke.
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That one definitely gets your attention.
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We'll have a sweat going here in just a minute.
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It's what the people came to see. Mhm.
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We're cleaning that wing. Oh.
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Don't know if I would eat a second one of those. Yeah.
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Yeah, maybe this is it's good for today, but wow. Woo.
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We'll take the bottle back with us.
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Yeah, that's that's a good good idea. Ho ho.
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What do you see as the biggest difference in the selling points that would persuade a recruit in the '80s and '90s versus today. Woof.
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Not to eat that hot that Um no, I I think the one thing is, you know, what in '86, we had no three-point line.
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We had We had no shot clock. Woof.
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Take another little sip of milk on that one. You and me both.
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You know, back in the day there was four corners offense, Dean Smith.
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There were certain ways to win.
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A lot of teams played more zone.
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Great aftertaste on that one. Woah. It doesn't stop.
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And then we live in the age of analytics.
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Can you give me a metric that when you first started redefining the program here, something that stood out to you?
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And then how did you go about reversing the trend? Woof.
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Um yeah, I think there I think there's a couple points.
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Um you know, when I first came to to Illinois, you know, we played a pressure style defense and and it was it was very, very aggressive.
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And the one thing that happened was um we fouled a lot.
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We were 333rd my first year in fouls committed.
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We changed and the next year we were 13th in the country in that stat.
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So, I you know, I think we're always evaluating how we how we play, what we do, and is there a better way to do it?
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So, it's a it's just a great tool to use.
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All right, Coach Underwood. Oh boy.
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You don't have to if you don't want to.
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Well, I'm not going to let you do it and and be and be called soft, so.
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I had a feeling that was coming.
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A dab or Yeah, I kind of went a little crazy, but don't don't do what I did, but that looks good. Let's go. Let's go. Mhm. Mhm. Woah. Yeah, it's good.
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So, I'm glad to see it's bothering you, too.
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Yeah, listen, we're both going through it together.
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We're sharing this experience, but thankfully, Coach Underwood, we've reached the end of our spicy meal together.
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It's the homecoming that I always thought it would be, the homecoming that I always dreamed it would be.
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So, with that in mind, Steven, drop the curtain. Awesome. Awesome. That's awesome.
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What does it mean after almost 2 years of an empty arena from a coach's perspective, from a player's perspective, to once again fill this place up again?
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Yeah, that was the worst thing about last year.
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It was our fans and their passionate 15,500 in here.
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And and they didn't get to experience that team and and and see that personality and how much fun they had together.
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Um that we can never get back.
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But, we've got the best fans.
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We're sitting here at half court in an arena that is uh is special when it's full.
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It's going to be full every night this year.
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Uh and you're going to see guys with like Kofi, guys like Andre Curbelo and Trent Frazier, Demonte Williams, guys that have a lot of sweat equity.
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And they play for these colors, the orange and blue seats.
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And and that's that's fun and and our fans understand that. They're educated fans.
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Uh and after being gone for a year, it's so nice to to know they're coming back. Coach, I L L? I N I. Thank you. Thank you. You crushed it. There we go. There you go. Nothing to it. Nothing to it. Woo!
13:28
Hey, what's going on, Hot Ones fans?
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This is Sean Evans checking in with a very exciting announcement.
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You know, after 16 seasons, I'd like to think that we perfected the hot sauce symphony and now I got to hand it to us.
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We perfected the packaging.
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It's the custom-made Hot Ones official 10-pack briefcase now available at heatness. com. Take a look inside.
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It's so pretty and the perfect gift for the spice lord in your life.
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Just get some friends, make some wings, bring some ice cream and be careful around the eyes. heatness. com, heatness. com, heatness.
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com to get your hands on the custom-made Hot Ones official 10-pack briefcase. I know I love it. Mwah.