Illinois coach Brad Underwood said he loved the location of his team’s NCAA Tournament draw Sunday evening. The Illini earned the No. 6 seed in the Midwest Region and will play their first-round game Friday in Milwaukee. That means Illini fans can drive to the team’s fifth straight NCAA Tourname nt appearance in a matter of a few hours from Champaign — and less from Chicago. Underwood said he’s excited to play in “Big Ten country” in Wisconsin. Illinois’ opponent, however, will take a little more research. The Illini drew the winner of the First Four game between No. 11 seeds Texas (19-15) and Xavier (21-11). That game will be played Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio. “A little different scenario this year that I wasn’t handed a folder to dive into,” Underwood told reporters at a news conference in Champaign after the selection show. “We’ve obviously got two opponents to start looking at a little bit. I don’t know much about Xavier and/or Texas other than they’ve been historically very good programs and obviously had success enough to make this year’s tournament. “We’ll have a little quicker scout with them playing sometime on Wednesday early evening or Wednesday night.” Underwood said Illinois practiced Sunday and will go again Monday before a lighter day Tuesday. He expects the coaches and players to watch film on both teams and then take that knowledge into practice. Illinois’ game time Friday will be announced later Sunday. The Illini enter the NCAA Tournament at 21-12 after losing in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals to Maryland 88-65 on Friday. That was among their worst losses of the season, next to a 110-67 beating by Duke on Feb. 22 at Madison Square Garden. Between those losses, Illinois won four straight games in promising fashion: two against Iowa, at then-No. 13 Michigan and against then-No. 18 Purdue. Now, with a few days to prepare, the Illini will look to regain some of the swagger they found during the winning streak. Illinois guard Kylan Boswell (4) drives against Iowa guard Drew Thelwell during the second round of the Big Ten Tournament on March 13, 2025, in Indianapolis. (Michael Conroy/AP) Guard Kylan Boswell said he’s confident the Illini can regroup, but they need to better monitor their intensity to match the win-or-end-the-season stakes. “When the ball is not going in, our energy can drop and wave,” Boswell said Friday night. “That comes also with being mature. But we can’t let that happen in March. Watching this film will be huge, and then Coach getting on our (butts) will be big for us. “They’re going to feel me for sure. If I feel like the energy is dropping, I’m not going to go out like that. I don’t think we have those issues consistently. It’s just at times our group energy can die down. You can’t let that happen in March.” Texas enters its First Four game coming off an 83-72 loss to Tennessee in an SEC Tournament quarterfinal Friday. The No. 13 seed in the conference tournament, the Longhorns upset Vanderbilt and Texas A&M to get to the quarterfinals. Texas is one of a record 14 SEC teams to make the NCAA Tournament this year. The Longhorns are led by freshman guard Tre Johnson, who is averaging 19.8 points, three rebounds and 2.8 assists. Xavier ended its regular season on a seven-game winning streak but lost in the Big East quarterfinals to Marquette 89-87. Musketeers forward Zach Freemantle, a 6-foot-9 grad student, is averaging 17.3 points and 7.1 rebounds. Related Articles College Sports | Column: Big Ten sends 8 teams to the NCAA men’s tournament, but can any snap the league’s 24-year title drought? College Sports | Michigan rallies late again to beat Wisconsin 59-53 for its 1st Big Ten Tournament title since 2018 College Sports | Fantastic finishes in Big Ten Tournament semifinals deliver March Madness feel heading into championship game College Sports | All 62 men’s and women’s teams that automatically qualified for the NCAA Tournament — including SIU Edwardsville’s 1st bid College Sports | NCAA Tournament bubble watch: Colorado State snags Mountain West automatic bid. Who might that knock out? Last season Illinois advanced to the Elite Eight for the first time since 2005 before losing to eventual champion Connecticut and finishing 29-9. But that was an almost entirely different team, except for reserve guard Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn. This Illini team is led by first-year international recruits Kasparas Jakučionis, Tomislav Ivišić and Will Riley, transfers Boswell, Tre White and Ben Humrichous and Chicago-native freshman Morez Johnson Jr. They are a young group except for a few, including Boswell, a junior guard who played at Arizona, and White, a junior guard who played at Louisville. On Friday, Underwood blamed that youth for their poor energy and showing against Maryland — and some of their extreme highs and lows this season. Underwood took responsibility for not having the team ready for its second game in two days in the conference tournament. He promised to address some of the issues this week, including a poor start against the Terrapins, to have the Illini ready for the national stage. “When we’ve gotten off to good starts, we’ve been pretty good,” Underwood said Friday. “Tonight, we got rocked. It’s about getting off to a good start. “We’re not tough enough yet. We’re not disciplined enough yet. We’re not gritty enough, nasty enough to fight through a poor start. We’ve got to be better than that, and that’s what we’ll spend a lot of time talking about in the next couple of days.” Jakučionis is the Illinois star, a potential high first-round NBA draft pick from Croatia who is averaging 15 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.6 assists. But the Illini have four other players averaging double-digit scoring: Ivišić, Riley, Boswell and White. ...read more read less