{"id":7731,"date":"2026-02-28T20:24:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T20:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=7731"},"modified":"2026-02-28T20:24:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T20:24:23","slug":"illinois-coach-brad-underwood-michigan-took-belt-off-beat-our-behind-with-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=7731","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Coach Brad Underwood: Michigan &#8216;Took Belt Off, Beat Our Behind With It&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-v-d04fc069=\"\"><!--[--><\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\">No. 3 <a class=\"entity\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/college-basketball\/michigan-wolverines-team\">Michigan<\/a> went into Champaign on Friday night and had its way with No. 10 <a class=\"entity\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/college-basketball\/illinois-fighting-illini-team\">Illinois<\/a>, and Fighting Illini head coach Brad Underwood knows it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\">&#8220;Demand it in practice. This group wants to win. They care a lot, and, so, that&#8217;s not going to be a problem. But the lesson was learned. They [Michigan] took the belt off and beat our behinds [Illinois] with it,&#8221; Underwood said about Illinois&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/college-basketball\/michigan-wolverines-vs-illinois-fighting-illini-feb-27-2026-game-boxscore-262662\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">84-70<\/a> loss to Michigan in his postgame press conference on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\">&#8220;If you like that too much, then you should probably go to the rec center and play.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\">Michigan out-scored Illinois by seven points in both the first and second half, while leading by as many as 21 points with 6:50 remaining in the game. The Wolverines out-rebounded the Fighting Illini, 30-24. Sophomore forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/college-basketball\/morez-johnson-player\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Morez Johnson Jr.<\/a>, who transferred to Michigan last year after spending his freshman season at Illinois, finished with 19 points and a team-high 11 rebounds for the Wolverines.<\/p>\n<div class=\"delta-video-container article-content mg-b-25\" playerscreenurl=\"\/dailydigest\/fmc-02u7teci7ksh0mxh_VX-15690570--559189\/hls\/v1_0\/index.m3u8\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\" data-v-8432653a=\"\">\n<h3 class=\"video-title\" data-v-8432653a=\"\">&#8216;They took the belt off and beat our behind&#8217; \ud83d\ude33<\/h3>\n<div class=\"video-player-container playinline\" data-v-8432653a=\"\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/watch\/\" class=\"pointer video\" data-v-8432653a=\"\">  <picture class=\"thumbnail\" data-v-8432653a=\"\"><source srcset=\"https:\/\/a57.foxsports.com\/static-media.fox.com\/fmc\/prod\/sports\/VX-15690570\/1600\/900\/bshxqbtxtw25gqof.jpg?ve=1&amp;tl=1\" width=\"80\" height=\"80\" media=\"(max-width: 767px)\" data-v-8432653a=\"\"><source srcset=\"https:\/\/a57.foxsports.com\/static-media.fox.com\/fmc\/prod\/sports\/VX-15690570\/1600\/900\/bshxqbtxtw25gqof.jpg?ve=1&amp;tl=1\" width=\"110\" height=\"110\" media=\"(min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1023px)\" data-v-8432653a=\"\"><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n<p> <!----> <!----><\/div>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\">The Friday night defeat was the Fighting Illini&#8217;s second consecutive loss, the prior one being a loss on the road to <a class=\"entity\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/college-basketball\/ucla-bruins-team\">UCLA<\/a> on Feb. 21, which saw Illinois blow a 33-10 first-half lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\">Illinois is now 22-7 overall and 13-5 in <a class=\"entity\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/college-basketball\/big-ten\">Big Ten<\/a> play, while Michigan is 27-2 overall and 17-1 in conference play. Michigan stands first in the Big Ten, while Illinois is fourth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\">The Wolverines (89.0 points per game) and Fighting Illini (84.6 points per game) are first and second in the Big Ten in scoring in that order. FOX Sports bracket forecaster <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/stories\/college-basketball\/2026-ncaa-tournament-projections\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mike DeCourcy\u2019s latest NCAA Tournament projections<\/a> have Michigan as a No. 1 seed and Illinois as a No. 3 seed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-d04fc069=\"\">Illinois has two games remaining in the regular season, those being a home matchup against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/college-basketball\/oregon-ducks-team\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Oregon<\/a> on March 3 and a road matchup against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/college-basketball\/maryland-terrapins-team\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Maryland<\/a> on March 8 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/college-basketball\/illinois-fighting-illini-vs-maryland-terrapins-mar-08-2026-game-boxscore-262687\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">3 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><!--]--><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/stories\/college-basketball\/illinois-coach-brad-underwood-michigan-took-belt-off-beat-our-behind-it\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No. 3 Michigan went into Champaign on Friday night and had its way with No. 10 Illinois, and Fighting Illini head coach Brad Underwood knows it.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}