Illinois seeks Final Four berth against Iowa

HOUSTON — Given the success Illinois coach Brad Underwood has had with recruits from Eastern Europe, he plans to keep adding such players to his team and is sure that many others will follow suit. "It's a great marriage and a great fit," Underwood said Friday. "So, we'll continue it. I would think others will continue to migrate over there and keep trying to recruit those guys." Underwood's third-seeded Illini meet Big Ten foe and No. 9 seed Iowa Thursday night in the NCAA Tournament's South Region final with a trip to the Final Four on the line. Led by first-year coach Ben McCollum, who won four Division II national titles at Northwest Missouri State, Iowa is in the Elite Eight for the first time since 1987. Illinois is aiming for its sixth trip to the Final Four and first since 2005, while Iowa looks to return to the national semifinals for the first time since 1980 and fourth overall. Neither school has won a national title. The Illini will try to end Iowa's charmed March run with a roster that includes four players from Eastern Europe and Andrej Stojakovic, who was born in Greece, but whose father is Serbian three-time NBA All-Star Peja Stojakovic. The Eastern Europeans on the team are Croatian twins Zvonimir and Tomislav Ivisic, Montenegrin forward David Mirkovic and Serbian guard Mihailo Petrovic. "It means a lot to represent our countries on this big stage," Zvonimir Ivisic said. "Being here together, going through this whole process and experiencing it together, making memories for life, it really means everything." For Mirkovic, a freshman who led the team with 14 points and 10 rebounds in Thursday's win over No. 2 seed Houston, having so many Eastern Europeans on the team made his transition to the United States much easier. "When you move to the other side of the world having someone that speaks your native language and that's already had the college experience means a lot," he said. "It's much, much easier. You feel like home." Underwood's recruiting of Eastern Europeans was made possible by the advent of the name, image and likeness era, which allowed him to entice players who could otherwise make money playing professionally as they pursue the path to the NBA followed by the likes of Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic. Iowa star Bennett Stirtz said he expects to see more players from the Balkan region playing for U.S. colleges in the years to come. "It's a new era now," he said. "Lots more college teams doing that and obviously it's working for them." For Underwood, getting European players to Champaign has been a long process that has paid huge dividends. Mirkovic leads the team in rebounding at 8.0 per game and is second in scoring at 13.7 points. Tomislav is averaging 10.2 points and 5.7 rebounds, and his brother averages 6.7 points and 4.7 rebounds. "It's taken years," Underwood said. "NIL has obviously helped enhance our abilities to attract some of the best players in Europe. But they're a great fit for us. It's not for everybody. I enjoy coaching them. They fit our university. We're a diverse university with a lot of international students, so it's a perfect fit for them." Although Stojakovic wasn't raised in Serbia, he is proud of his heritage and revels in the spotlight this team is putting on the region. "It's always nice to see guys coming from where I come from, where my family comes from to have success at this level," he said. "Obviously everybody talks about the players in the NBA, but you've got guys all over college slowly starting to make a name for themselves... so it's something that you want to be proud of." Iowa forward Alvaro Folgueiras is from Spain and didn't speak English very well when he first moved to the U.S. in high school. He said that led to a tense exchange with a coach one day in practice. "I wasn't playing really good on practice, and one of the coaches came to me saying: 'Wake up... you're not doing good,'" Folgueiras said. "He was kind of hard on me. And I put a face like he thought I was challenging him, but the truth is that ... my face was because I wasn't understanding him." His English is a lot better now and he said basketball helped him communicate until he became fluent in the language."You come here to learn the universal language called basketball," he said. "So, I guess on that part, I learned even more than just a couple words in English." Freshman guard Keaton Wagler led Illinois with 12 rebounds against Houston. He said grabbing rebounds as a guard requires different tactics than the big guys use. "Bigs, it's more of a physical battle for them," he said. "As for guards, it's tracking down the ball, getting the longer rebounds. That's what it was yesterday for me. Our bigs did a great job blocking out their bigs, and I just came in there and cleaned up the boards that way."