The Illinois Fighting Illini waited 21 minutes, 24 seconds to get their first lead of an Elite Eight battle Saturday with Iowa.
But now No. 3 seed Illinois is headed to the NCAA Tournament Final Four after a wait of 21 years, rallying to a 71-59 victory over No. 9 seed Iowa in the South Region finale at Toyota Center in Houston.
“We beat a really good Iowa team … our resilience was unbelievable,” Illinois head coach Brad Underwood said in a post-game interview on the court. “Guys just kept throwing body blows, we just kept hanging in there. Here I am, an old JUCO ball coach from Kansas going to the Final Four with a group of guys that I love. Couldn’t be more proud.
“You’re only as good as the people around you. I’m blessed at home, I’ve been fortunate to be around great mentors, great coaches … I just bided my time, found a group that’s magical. We’re living the dream.”
Illinois big man David Mirkovic grabbed an offensive rebound under the basket, put it back in and-1, and delivered the team its first lead of the game, 33-32, with 18:36 left in the second half.
The Illini big men wore down Iowa on the boards and in the offensive paint after that, at one point holding 15 offensive rebounds to Iowa’s 12 defensive boards.
Illinois broke it open with a 6-0 run to a 56-51 lead that forced an Iowa timeout with 5:41 left.
Tomislav Ivisic capped that run with consecutive baskets, the big one a short left-handed turnaround hook in the paint.
Coming off that timeout, Keaton Wagler stole the ball and put in a 13-foot floating jumper for 58-51 with 4:33 left.
It expanded to a 10-1 run and a 60-52 lead with 4:12 left.
Wagler finished with a game-high 25 points for Illinois, while Bennett Stirtz had 24 for Iowa.
“It’s been crazy,” Wagler said. “My teammates trust me, my coaches trust me … I just go out there and make plays.”
How Illinois got behind
Iowa charged out to a 9-0 and 12-2 start, punching the Illini square in the mouth by forcing a pair of turnovers and cashing in on a pass by Bennett Stirtz for a dunk and later a pull-up 3 from the former Missouri Valley Conference star.
The 12-2 deficit was the largest of the 2026 March Madness tournament absorbed by the Fighting Illini. They nearly erased it all, rallying to 12-11 and 27-26, the latter with 3:36 left in the first half.
Illinois missed eight straight shots in a stretch that ran down to 41 seconds left in the first half. Then Stirtz set up a lob at the rim for Cam Manyawu for a 32-28 with :29 left.
But that rebounding metric was a concern for Iowa at halftime: Illinois out-rebounded Iowa by a ton, 18-9. With few second chances, Iowa survived on its shooting, a hard-to-maintain pace at 57% from the field and 50% from 3.
“They are destroying us on the glass and we got to fix it,” Stirtz said in a halftime interview.
Around the horn at Elite Eight
The game took a weird delay with Iowa up 22-20 and 7:43 left in the first half when the arena scoreboard horn was stuck and blared for several minutes. Players came onto the floor to shoot warmup shots while the horn sounded.
Eventually, officials unplugged the horn and used hand-held air horns to operate breaks in the game.
About the Illinois and Iowa rosters
The No. 3 seed Illinois roster got over half of its scoring this season from players outside the U.S.
No. 9 seed Iowa’s roster, meanwhile, gets 65% of its scoring comes from players who arrived via the transfer portal.
Dave Eminian is the senior writer and Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men’s basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Illinois defeats Iowa and advances to Final Four for first time since 2005
Reporting by Dave Eminian, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
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