To build a Final Four contender, Illinois basketball looked 5,000 miles east — to the Balkans

CHAMPAIGN — The back of the Illinois team bus is a Balkan party after most road wins. Tomislav Ivisic is banging the ceiling on drums. His twin brother, Zvonimir Ivisic, is on his feet and pumping his fist to the beat. David Mirkovic is on vocals … or at least the loudest one.

A year ago, Tomislav Ivisic, a Croatian, was the lone player from the Balkan region of Southeast Europe on Illinois’ roster. Then this offseason, Illinois coach Brad Underwood added his twin brother, Zvonimir; their former teammate Mirkovic, from Montenegro; and point guard Mihailo Petrovic, from Serbia. The Illini also hit the transfer portal for Andrej Stojakovic, who, while raised most of his life in America, is originally from Greece and the son of Peja Stojakovic, one of the best Serbian basketball players of all time.

Michigan had the Fab Five; Illinois has the Balkan Five Four-and-a-half.

“That’s perfect,” Mirkovic says, laughing. “Four and a half!”

It’s been a healthy takeover. A year ago, Tomislav tried to play his music and his teammates wouldn’t allow it, but “now we’re the majority,” he said.

“Every day you walk in the gym,” assistant coach Orlando Antigua said recently, when he arrived at practice to the sound of a Serbian tune on the loudspeaker, “and there’s music playing from all over the world.”

They are the soundtrack to one of the best teams in college basketball. In a year when the borders opened for some of the world’s best young international prospects — the name, image and likeness era allowing American colleges to pay more than professional clubs overseas — no major-conference team has leaned in harder than No. 9 Illinois.

The “Balkan Bloc” includes four of the Illini’s six leading scorers and half the rotation for a team that projects to be a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament next week.

It wasn’t by design that they all hail from the same region, but it accelerated the team bonding.

“Every team talks about family. Everybody tries to shoot for that goal,” Antigua said. “But it’s easier when there’s a commonality that galvanizes everybody together.”

They teach their American teammates their curse words. They’ve made plans to travel the world together. And the multicultural family in orange is so cohesive that they’ve become the best offensive team of the modern era.

How the Illini got here involves a Harlem Globetrotter, a Lithuanian student manager and the graduation of a 7-foot Jamaican center.

Antigua and fellow assistant Geoff Alexander’s passports are full of stamps. Antigua has visited 59 countries; Alexander 26.

Illinois has embraced recruiting overseas because Illinois has a large international enrollment — 21.8% of enrolled students in the fall this school year — but mostly it’s because of the two assistants.

Antigua was the first Hispanic player to ever join the Harlem Globetrotters, and he traveled the world with them from 1995 to 2002. When he became a college assistant in 2006 at Pittsburgh and later a head coach at South Florida in 2014, his recruiting territory was vast. In three seasons at South Florida, he had five players on his team born outside of the United States.

“People that I’ve played against, people that I’ve played alongside with, coaches that I played for, all began making recommendations,” Antigua said. “The majority of the kids from overseas don’t know what a blue blood is and so what they’re looking for is just an opportunity.”

Alexander’s introduction to international hoops came by way of Marius Tamolis, a Lithuanian who wasn’t good enough to play college basketball but enrolled at Jacksonville (Texas) Junior College to be a student assistant in 2002, the same year Alexander started his coaching career. Alexander played for Underwood for two seasons at Western Illinois, where Underwood was an assistant, and after a year at Jacksonville, Alexander moved to Daytona State College to work for Underwood. Tamolis followed. In 2006 Alexander made his first trip to Lithuania with Tamolis.

“I’ve just been kind of turning the wheels from there,” Alexander said.

That means time spent overseas. Every summer, the assistants make their way across the pond, and Underwood even sent Antigua and Alexander on a trip midseason this year. From Dec. 14 to Dec. 22, between a home loss to Nebraska and the Braggin’ Rights win over Missouri, the pair visited Spain, Serbia and Lithuania, checking in on five prospects the Illini are pursuing.

“I don’t know if anybody else did what we do. We get a chance to work for a boss that allows us to go do those things,” Antigua said. “That goes a long way in terms of the relationship building and people seeing you in their country.”

In Antigua’s first stint with Illinois, from 2017 through 2021, the Illini signed nine international players, most notably Kofi Cockburn from Kingston, Jamaica.

Cockburn was the anchor for Underwood’s only team to earn a No. 1 seed, in 2021. The next year, Cockburn’s final season, Underwood built a roster around him with shooting.

“We got away with playing, to be very honest, small,” Underwood said. “Kofi was a cheat code at 310 pounds and a wall.”

When Cockburn left following his junior year, Underwood wanted to switch his roster-building strategy to chase shooting and positional size. It started with finding a floor-spacing center. The next two seasons, the Illini moved Coleman Hawkins from power forward to center. In 2023-24, it worked well, when Hawkins was surrounded by four big wings in the starting lineup and the Illini made an Elite Eight run. But the defense wasn’t at a championship level without a true center.

That next offseason, John Calipari left Kentucky for Arkansas, leading to Antigua’s return to Illinois. Antigua had just helped Kentucky land Zvonimir a year earlier. Ivisic’s amateur status was up in the air after playing multiple seasons in the Adriatic League, but once he got cleared in mid-January 2024, “that kind of opened up that part of the world to the college ranks,” Antigua said.

Illinois needed a center, and Antigua immediately narrowed in on Ivisic’s brother, Tomislav, who was playing professionally in Montenegro — and who he thought was perfect for Underwood and the Big Ten.

The Ivisics hail from a region with a long basketball tradition. The former Yugoslavia emerged as one of the best basketball countries in the 1970s, winning gold in the 1980 Olympics and three FIBA World Cups. In the 1990s, some of its best players — Drazen Petrovic, Toni Kukoc and Vlade Divac — joined the NBA. Today, Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic (Serbia) and Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Dončić (Slovenia), two of the best players in the world, are from the region.

The brothers were both represented by Misko Raznatovic, who also represents Jokić and has become the most well-known international agent. Antigua worked with Raznatovic to help get both Ivisic brothers to college basketball, and last April at the Final Four in San Antonio, he introduced Underwood to Raznatovic. They hit it off immediately.

Both straight shooters, Antigua said. “You know where you stand. There’s no BS, and there’s a lot of mutual respect for the way each of them handle themselves.”

That meeting opened the floodgates. The Illini needed a big man — freshman Morez Johnson Jr. had hit the portal a week before the Final Four — and Zvonimir was available as a transfer from Arkansas. With Tomislav’s blessing, Underwood decided to pursue. On April 6 — the Sunday of the Final Four — Zvonimir committed.

“I saw how much my brother improved,” Zvonimir said. “I know how he was before he came to Illinois, and then you see him a year later — 10 times stronger, 10 times faster than he was, 10 times more confident than he ever was.”

Mirkovic had been keeping tabs on Tomislav, his former teammate with SC Derby in Montenegro, and asked him questions about what it was like at Illinois. Tomislav was also giving his coaches the scouting report on his former teammate.

“Maybe exaggerated a little bit,” he said, “because I really wanted him to come here.”

At the end of March, Raznatovic called Mirkovic and his parents and told him he was set to go to the Illini.

“I didn’t ask for any other offers or anything else,” Mirkovic said. “I said, ‘Yeah, I’m ready,’ and that’s it.”

On the Monday of the national championship game, Mirkovic committed. On April 22, 22-year-old point guard Mihailo Petrovic, another one of Raznatovic’s clients, also committed.

All Underwood needed was a wing with positional size who could put pressure on the rim when the Ivisics were stretched out to the 3-point line. Underwood also wanted someone with experience. He found the answer in Stojakovic, who had two years of college experience at Stanford and Cal and was fluent in Serbian. Six days after Petrovic’s commitment, Stojakovic — not a Raznatovic client — was in.

Underwood and Mirkovic are face-to-face, and Underwood is giving his young power forward the business for not giving satisfactory effort on the boards. He spent a majority of a film session that morning focused on rebounding, because it hadn’t been good enough in a win at Penn State in early January, even though the Illini won the rebounding battle by 11. But one way to get to that elite level is continuously harping on it.

So this is the continuous harping.

Mirkovic stares back intently, a serious look on his face. Then he breaks. The corner of his lips rises.

“One of a kind,” Illini senior Kylan Boswell said. “Nothing bothers that kid. He takes things serious, but nothing bothers him.”

“You can call him the worst things, he’ll think it’s a joke,” Stojakovic said. “And I think that’s kind of rubbed off on us when it comes to Underwood coaching us. He can say the worst thing to us and it won’t affect us mentally because everybody else on the team is like: ‘You’re good. He’s just trying to motivate you.’”

It’s also what they’re used to. Even desire.

Stojakovic didn’t get serious about basketball until during the pandemic, when he was home regularly and sought the tutelage of his famous father, Peja, who would train him on their backyard hoop.

“Basketball wasn’t forced on me,” he said, “but as soon as I decided to pursue it, it was hell.”

Not only would Peja — a three-time All-Star with the Sacramento Kings — put him through challenging workouts, but also he was his worst critic.

“I never thought I had a good game in my dad’s eyes,” he said.

When Stojakovic started to see improvement, he realized his dad had been hard on him for a reason. And when he got to college and the coaching was much less critical at Stanford and Cal, he wanted to find a coach who would push him.

“To what extent he would push me, I didn’t know, but I wanted that,” Stojakovic said. “I would say the only person in my life that’s ever been more harsh on me than Underwood is my dad. Taking it from somebody else in that aspect was something I needed and I wanted for myself.”

Mirkovic had a similar experience, just at a younger age. His mom won two European championships playing for the Yugoslavian national team and also played professionally. When Mirkovic was young, his mom would rent a gym to train him. And what she cared about more than anything else was that he didn’t play soft.

“When I play like that,” he said, “she always tell me that in a really bad way.”

Mirkovic said coaches back home are brutal and will scream the worst things at you.

“They come at you like they want to fight you,” he said, “like fist fight you.”

Underwood is a “cake walk in the park,” he said, comparatively. And he also called him the best coach he’s ever had.

“He doesn’t give a second of relaxation on the court,” Tomislav said. “He never allows your mind to be at ease, like, OK, we won a game, we’re good now. He never allows that. We can always be better.”

Underwood coaches his guys hard but also likes to mix in some humor. Before a November game against UConn, he leaned into the bit that Illinois is the Balkan Bloc, wearing an orange jumpsuit and scally cap to mimic an AI-generated image of him that surfaced last spring after the commitments. Tomislav said all he was missing was the cigarette.

“I don’t want them to think I’m (a jerk),” Underwood said of his wardrobe choice that day.

It’s been hard to maintain a tough exterior this year. One, he’s having a blast coaching a team that plays so unselfishly. Then Mirkovic has a way of disarming him with his grin and his wit.

Earlier this season, after picking up a third foul that he didn’t agree with, Mirkovic came to the bench and informed everyone: “I swear to God on my mother’s life, I have never had three calls like that bad. Never. On my mother’s life.”

When coaches tried to calm him down, Mirkovic shot back, “Whenever I see somebody with a whistle, they just agitate me.”

Fortunately, Mirkovic can usually voice his displeasure in another language. He has talked to friends on other college teams who say the language barrier has been difficult, but the Balkan Bloc has each other.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m home,” Tomislav said. “I always have guys to talk to. Honestly, I like it so much that I already forgot how it was before they came. I just feel like it’s natural to me.”

The Balkan boys miss the food and the warm weather back home, but they’ve made several trips to Chicago for Serbian food. As for the basketball side of things, life in Champaign is pretty good.

“There were some things that surprised me,” Mirkovic said. “You have 30 managers that can rebound the ball for you. That’s really crazy. All the conditions, you have saunas, weight room, hyperbaric chambers, ice baths and all that. I’ve never seen that before.”

Underwood has addressed any language barriers by adjusting how the coaches deliver information. No matter the first language, all the players have played “NBA 2K,” so coaches use 2K-inspired badges in their scouting reports. A great shooter, for instance, would get a triple-A badge — better stay with him “anytime, anyplace, anywhere.” Cannot guard? He’s a beard with the silhouette of James Harden’s face.

“It’s forced us to simplify,” Underwood said. “It’s forced us to try to explain why, not just do this, but here’s why we’re doing this.

“The last thing I wanna do is make it challenging because they don’t understand our terminology, our English, what’s important, and yet try to mold the team around it. And that part’s been really, really fun. Because they all compete at a very high level. They’re all passionate about basketball, which is so refreshing. They all work at a really high level, which is very refreshing.”

It’s been an easy transition, especially this year, with an American point guard in Keaton Wagler who also has a high basketball IQ. Overseas, skill development is important, but everything is built around “the team.” But because the international players are so well-schooled once they arrive, it’s allowed Underwood to give them freedom.

The trust has produced the most efficient offense in the modern era. The Illini have an adjusted efficiency of 133.0, which is the highest ever at KenPom.com, which has tracked efficiency numbers since 1997.

“Playing against a lot of players and teammates from the former Yugoslavian country, whether it’s Serbia or Croatia or Montenegro, those guys are all so fundamental,” said Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg, who played 10 seasons in the NBA. “The hard part about Illinois is they’ve always got five guys on the floor that can pass, shoot and dribble.”

At the end of last summer, Stojakovic visited Greece with his family and invited Boswell to join. He was excited to show Boswell how he grew up and the different pace of life in Greece.

“It’s very on your own timing,” he said.

Every morning they worked out, hung by the beach with his family the rest of the day, then returned to the gym at night. They had so much fun that they plan to go to Greece together once a year for the rest of their lives.

The rest of the team has made plans this summer to go on a world tour as well. The plan is to try to hit as many hometowns as possible. From Tipton and McCordsville in Indiana (home of Ben Humrichous and Jake Davis) to San Juan, Puerto Rico (home of Brandon Lee), to Greece, and then the Balkans.

“Everybody is just so excited to see where everyone’s from,” Stojakovic said. “Everybody wants to meet everybody’s parents.

“We all live in the same building. We all storm into each other’s rooms like we’ve known each other for years. I’ve been on teams where certain guys hung out with certain guys and kind of split up. This team is different, like when that idea was brought up that we want to go see each other’s homes, everybody was like, ‘Yeah, I’m all for it.’”

Stojakovic is excited but also not in a hurry for it to get here. He’s on his third school in three years, and he knows it’s no certainty where everyone will be in a year. “This is one of those teams where we really have to cherish the season,” he said.

And enjoy the wins.

So they let the music play.