One of the most-discussed topics around Illinois basketball over the past six months or so – aside from the team’s roster turnover and brilliant first-year talent – has been the schedule. Coach Brad Underwood knew that his 2024-25 Illini would have a chance to be very good – but likely with a small window in which to do it. He knew he needed to test them early.

Two more things: First, he knew Tennessee coach Rick Barnes. who led his teams to 17 consecutive NCAA Tournaments across stints at Clemson and Texas, and for whom Underwood had a front-row seat while serving on the Kansas State staff from to 2007-2012. And the other thing?

Underwood knew that iron sharpens iron.

So when he got together with Barnes to schedule the Volunteers for Saturday’s game at Champaign’s State Farm Center (4:30 p.m. CT, on FOX), Underwood had no idea they would be lining up a marquee weekend-afternoon matchup with the No. 1 team in the country. Many of the pieces just fell into place. What the Illini coach knew was that the Vols gave him a chance to line up his guys against some of the toughest mugs he knew in a Pizza Hut parking lot throwdown.

“To be really honest, when Rick and I set the this up, I jumped at it,” Underwood said after Illinois’ Tuesday home win over Wisconsin. “I couldn’t wait, because I have I’ve known Rick for a long time, knowing when he was at Texas and in the [Big 12] and had [Kevin] Durant and that whole crew, and I know how hard he gets his teams to play. I know how demanding he is as a coach. He’s won so many games. He’s won at every stop. So what better way to prepare my team?”

If somehow that had slipped below Underwood’s radar previously, he got a reminder last season, when his then-20th-ranked Illini visited Knoxville and took their lumps against the then-No. 17 Vols, who outrebounded Illinois and held it to 35.4 percent shooting from the floor to win 86-79.

“It was a hard fought game. They won. And, you know, he’s always going to have a good team,” Underwood said of Barnes, whose 815 career wins ranks him No. 13 on the all-time list. “He’s got resources. He’s got guys back. What better way to help us? And it just so happens now that they’re No. 1. You know, they were always going to probably be top 10.

“But that’s the tremendous respect I have for Rick and the job he’s done. And I think it’s a great opportunity for our basketball team to play against a great team, who just happens to be No. 1.”

Knocking off the NCAA’s top-ranked team – which Illinois has pulled off only three other times in its history – would be fun for the fans and a hell of an attention-grabbed for recruits and the NCAA Tournament committee. Underwood knows, among other things, the importance of those factors.

“But they’re also a team that can be in that national championship conversation,” he said.

And as he has become so fond of saying, that’s the new standard in Champaign. If the Illini want to be part of that conversation, here and now is where and when they prove it.

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