Kansas basketball’s exhibition game Oct. 29 against Illinois is important, first and foremost, because it’s a charity event.
The proceeds will be donated to the Hawai’i Community Foundation Maui Strong Fund. That helps provide financial resources that will, in the short and long term, support those affected by the wildfires that occurred there. While the two teams could have played a closed scrimmage, they chose to step up and help.
But the game will also provide some intrigue to the collegiate athletics landscape given the fact it’s being played in Champaign, Illinois — serving as a return of sorts for Jayhawks head coach Bill Self. Prior to taking over at Kansas ahead of the 2003-04 campaign, Self served as the head coach for the Fighting Illini for three seasons.
Fans can tune in to the Big Ten Network at 5 p.m. that day to watch it all unfold.
“I think it’s going to be a lot of fun for me, personally, to go back to a place that to be quite honest I’ve avoided going to for many years,” said Self, who reiterated they’re doing this for the people of Maui. “And I don’t know that that’s the right thing to do, but whenever I got the NCAA tournament every year, bracket, first team I would look at — where’s Illinois? We only faced them one time, but now I feel like that that’s been removed. And so, I’m actually looking forward to doing that.”
Self explained the history he had at Illinois would probably be the biggest reason he avoided returning for so long. He compared it to how he doesn’t think Roy Williams felt totally comfortable coming back to Kansas for years. Williams left his head coaching job with the Jayhawks to take over at North Carolina. As it was an emotional situation for Williams, Self noted his own situation was emotional, too.
Regardless of how well the exhibition goes, Self described it as something that could help his team improve. The game will put Kansas up against a Big Ten Conference contender, as it prepares to compete for another Big 12 Conference title. The game will allow the Jayhawks to test themselves amid a “juiced” atmosphere, as Self called it, that could be as good as any road environment they play in all season.
Illinois head coach Brad Underwood said he and Self have spoken briefly about what the exhibition will look like, according to 247Sports reporter Derek Piper. The two teams will play a full game, instead of splitting the 40 minutes up into different segments — leaving the possibility open to stop at times to coach different situations.
It’ll be an effort to see how they look against another opponent.
“We’re not trying to throw curveballs out there and a box-and-1, a triangle-and-2 or something stupid just to win an exhibition game,” Underwood said. “Neither of us are about that. So, it’ll be great opportunities. We’ll all play a lot of guys. And yet, you’re trying to figure things out against a top-flight opponent and that’s the — the takeaway from that is, yeah, you’re doing it in front of fans. We’re raising a ton of money. But from the team side of things, it’ll be pretty much who they are every day and who we are every day.”
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Jordan Guskey covers the University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.