Brad Underwood put in his time — 26 years at mostly small programs — before landing his 1st college head coaching job. Now he has Illinois poised for a long NCAA Tournament run.

“He’ll do things just for the challenge,” said Geoff Alexander, an Illinois assistant who played for Underwood at Western Illinois and was his lone assistant in Daytona. “He went to a new region, an area he hadn’t been in, recruited it and recruited it well. He’s as competitive a person as I’ve been around — in golf, on the court, in life.”