Tate | Living and dying by the three-pointer

If we reverted to 1980, when there was no three-point arc, would Brad Underwood’s current team — 9-7 in the Big Ten — be a title contender?

On a weird Saturday when some college basketball results made no sense, when Kentucky and Kansas lost to unranked foes, when all four Big Ten hosts tumbled, when Illinois jumped ahead of Michigan State by 16 and, much later, held a 65-64 lead before missing their last 19 shots in a 79-65 loss.

Of 19 straight misses in the final 8:29 — reminding of UConn’s 30-0 run in last year’s Elite Eight — a baker’s dozen were three-pointers. Yep, 13 of the 19.

Let ‘em fly. And the nation’s top rebounding team got outboarded while chasing down 13 of their 39 misses.

Before going back to the Southern Cal game on Jan. 11, when reality began to sink in, let’s agree: If you take a lot of threes (30 per game), and you convert less than 25 percent, the extra point computes to 37.5 percent shooting, which is a “losing number.”

It’s all about the percentages. Nationally, Bradley leads at 40.7 percent, and Illinois comes at No. 308 of 364 teams with a 31.1 season average.

Crunching the numbers

Illinois shot 21.9 percent from the arc against USC and lost 82-72. From there, the Illini shot 34.4 percent in routing Indiana, and then dropped four of

six conference games with consecutive three-point shooting of 20.8, 21.4, 28.1, 23.8, 20.0 and 21.4 percent … before breaking out with 40.0 and 39.3 accuracy in recent wins against Minnesota and UCLA.

So, yes, the Illini are likely to win when they convert three-pointers at 35 percent or better. But as we see, they’ve shot under 29 percent in seven of the last nine games, including 21.2 percent Saturday night. Just think, they beat a weak Washington team, 81-77, while shooting 19.2 percent on threes, and lost a 66-64 thriller to Tennessee while cashing treys at a 17.4 percent rate.

So Illinois launches more bombs than any conference member — 787 overall and stalking 1,000 — and somewhere along the line, we begin to get the feeling that they’re not very good at making them (28.8 percent in league play).

They’ll burst out again, of course. But consistency is unlikely with this season-long approach … particularly since they have dribble-penetration skills and two centers with scoring ability.

This and that

➜ With forward Julius Randle and shooting guard Donte DiVincenzo unable to play, Terrence Shannon Jr. received an opportunity to play for the Minnesota Timberwolves, and he responded with 11 and 13 points, respectively, against Milwaukee and Oklahoma City.

➜ The return of Kofi Cockburn and Shannon raised the old questions: Is Cockburn, a two-time All-American, the greatest center in Illinois history, even though — like Deon Thomas, Skip Thoren, Efrem Winters, James Augustine and Bill Burwell — he did not make it in the NBA? Only Red Kerr (12,480 NBA points) did for any extended period. Another question: Has any Illini had a better season than Shannon did last year?

➜ Kasparas Jakucionis continues to rank high in the NBA mock drafts, with the current projection indicating the Brooklyn Nets might take him at No. 6. That would assure a salary of $7.5 million in the first year of a three-year contract. The pros like his “flashy creativity” and his shot-making while seemingly overlooking his issues with ball security. Like KJ, nearly all the top draftees are current freshmen.

Tate’s tidbits

➜ It appears the Department of Education has rescinded the Title IX guidance as it relates to sharing the $20.5 million that most major schools will “pay” their athletes as revenue sharing in the 2025-26 school year. Dropping Title IX means football were absorb the lion’s share of the money.

➜ In learning that established Southeastern Conference schools received media distributions of $52.5 million while Atlantic Coast Conference schools received $44.8, those payouts seem too close for Florida State to waste millions in attorney fees and make such a fool of itself in striving to leave the conference.

➜ Illini assistant Trent Harris, who has worked with Bret Bielema previously, becomes the fourth outside linebackers coach since 2022, replacing Colorado State-bound Clint Sintim. Bielema noted that his veteran star at that position, Gabe Jacas, turned down multiple financial offers even though he never entered the transfer portal.

Loren Tate writes for The News-Gazette. He can be reached at [email protected].