Illinois Year in Review | Male Athlete of the Year Terrence Shannon Jr.

Jul. 6—CHAMPAIGN — Brad Underwood has to take a minute and think about his favorite Terrence Shannon Jr. moment from the 2023-24 season.

It’s not an unreasonable pause by the Illinois men’s basketball coach. Not with Shannon having put together arguably the best single season in program history.

Underwood ultimately came up with three.

First was Shannon’s 33-point game at Madison Square Garden — “an electric night” made better because of the stage and the fact Marcus Domask also scored 33 points in the Illini’s Jimmy V Classic 98-89 win against Florida Atlantic last December in New York.

Shannon’s 40-point game against Nebraska this past March during the Big Ten tournament at the Target Center in Minneapolis was next.

And not only because he set a new Big Ten tournament record during the Illini’s come-from-behind 98-87 win in the semifinals. Holding the Cornhuskers’ Keisei Tominaga to 18 points on 18 shots a month after he dropped 31 in Champaign earlier this past season at State Farm Center was worth a mention, too.

But Underwood’s favorite Shannon moment? It had nothing to do with a scoring outburst or a dagger three-pointer.

It was Shannon diving on the floor multiple times to secure a loose ball in the first round of the NCAA tournament against Morehead State when the Illini needed it the most.

A hustle play early in the second half that changed the tenor and tone of that game at CHI Health Center in Omaha, Neb., helping the Illini turn a close lead into an eventual 85-69 win.

“That’s your first-round draft pick,” Underwood told The News-Gazette this week. “That’s your 27th player taken in the NBA draft. That’s your best player in the history of Illinois basketball in a single season, doing that for a group of guys that weren’t all on the court, but on the bench, so they could win.”

Illinois did a lot of winning in the 2023-24 season and wouldn’t have done so — at least not to the level accomplished — without Shannon. The 6-foot-6, 225-pound guard was a dominant…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/illinois-review-male-athlete-terrence-144900902.html

Author : The News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.

Publish date : 2024-07-06 14:49:00

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