CHAMPAIGN — Hiring Camryn Crocker was more than going from a temporary Tim Anderson replacement in Kwa Jones to a permanent one in the former Colgate assistant and Stanford staffer.
Crocker’s arrival in Champaign allowed Illinois men’s basketball coach Brad Underwood to shuffle responsibilities for some of his staff. Crocker will slot into the role as de-facto defensive coordinator, while Zach Hamer transitions to a role focused on offensive and defensive analytics and organizing the Illini’s workouts.
The defensive change was paramount this offseason. Underwood is looking for more at that end of the court after the Illini ranked just inside the top 50, per Bart Torvik, in adjusted defensive efficiency during the 2024-25 season after finishing as one of the bottom five teams in the country in forcing turnovers and average in three-point defense.
“Some of it is maybe personnel-based, but we’d obviously like to find a way to create a few more turnovers,” Underwood said. “We’ve been so good offensively, yet we get no easy baskets. We haven’t been very handsy. We haven’t been in the passing lanes very much since early on in my career.”
Underwood brought a hyper-aggressive defense with him to Champaign in 2017. A scheme utilized to brutal effectiveness in his final season at Stephen F. Austin when the Lumberjacks ranked first nationally forcing their opponents into turnovers on a quarter of their possessions and 37th overall in adjusted defensive efficiency out of the Southland Conference.
That defense didn’t work particularly well in Underwood’s lone season at Oklahoma State, but had a fairly impressive counterpoint with Jawun Evans running the No. 1 offense in the country.
Illinois forced turnovers at a considerable rate in Underwood’s first two seasons at the helm, but fouled constantly and struggled to otherwise get stops.
Underwood shifted away from his on-the-line, up-the-line aggressive defensive style ahead of the 2019-20 season and has adapted to more of a pack-line approach to limit both fouls and dribble penetration.
A renewed emphasis on forcing turnovers could shift Illinois into a middle ground that incorporated both Underwood’s old style and more recent scheme for the 2025-26 season.
“We’ve been good; we haven’t been great,” Underwood said about his team’s defense the past handful of seasons. The 2020-21 Illini ranked 10th nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency en route to a No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament.
“I think we’d like, in a perfect world, to force a few more turnovers and get a few more easy baskets,” Underwood said. “Yet not give up, especially on the glass, some of the stuff we’ve been doing on the rebounding side.”
Crocker will lead those efforts. Underwood said his newest assistant is “very, very smart and has a very astute mind — especially on the defensive side” and brings some new ideas to the court. JC Keller, who just completed a stint as a graduate manager, will remain with the Illini on staff in a video role and help Crocker with the defense.
Illinois is counting on California transfer Andrej Stojakovic to make a difference on the defensive end in addition to being a top offensive option. The 6-foot-7 guard had one of the highest block percentages in the country for big wings last season with the Golden Bears.
Underwood said Stojakovic has “all the tools” to be a two-way threat.
“When you want to be a next-level guy, the easiest thing to do is understand you can get there defensively,” Underwood said. “You look at (Terrence Shannon Jr.) and understand TJ became an elite defender, and that helps keep him in (the NBA). (Stojakovic’s) plan moving forward is to continue to enhance that, and I think he can be an outstanding defender. I think he can be as good a defender as there is in our program, and I say that and we’ve got Kylan Boswell, who’s pretty doggone good.”
Stojakovic, of course, also projects as a top contender to lead Illinois in scoring this upcoming season. A breakout sophomore season where he averaged 17.9 points at Cal as a go-to wing scorer is exactly why Illinois pursued him in the transfer portal.
It’s why everyone on the Illinois roster wound up on the Illinois roster. Underwood and Co. look at offense first.
“We always look at offense to start and figure we’re going to get them to guard,” Underwood said. “The size, the shooting, those are things that are very, very hard for coaches to teach. … We’re always going to recruit to a certain pattern of positional size looking for shooting, looking for guys who can get downhill and looking for bigs who can spread the floor. That’s something we look at probably a little more than the defensive side of things, and know that we hope our scheme is good enough to be really good there.”
