MILWAUKEE — Kasparas Jakučionis never watched NCAA basketball when he was growing up.
The time difference in his home country of Lithuania was inconvenient, and he usually focused on European basketball instead. But a few years ago, he latched onto March Madness and he understood its appeal.
“You can see how every win, every detail in the game matters,” Jakučionis said. “Every possession matters, and you win or you go home. And that’s the beauty of basketball.”
The Illinois freshman guard will get his first in-person taste of the NCAA Tournament on Friday when the No. 6 seed Illini face 11th-seeded Xavier at 8:45 p.m. at Fiserv Forum. Illinois’ Tournament run, however long it lasts, also very well could be the last for Jakučionis, the team leader with 15 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game.
The latest ESPN NBA mock draft ahead of the NCAA Tournament has the Brooklyn Nets taking the 6-foot-6 Jakučionis at No. 6 and the Miami Heat selecting Illinois freshman forward Will Riley at No. 22.
After their Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal loss to Maryland last week, the Illini talked about the need to understand the urgency of this time of year in college basketball. Junior guard Kylan Boswell said the potential near future without some of their best teammates “definitely” increases the urgency even more.
“(Will) and KJ are gone, for sure. There’s not even a question about that,” Boswell said. “We know this could be the last time we play with each other. We’ve had a great year, but we don’t want it to end this early.”
If his time at Illinois is just a blink in a long basketball career for Jakučionis, he is determined to savor the moment — and not focus on the NBA attention he’s getting.
“I don’t think about that now,” Jakučionis said from the Illinois locker room in Milwaukee before Thursday’s practice. “We’re in March Madness now. The only focus is tomorrow’s game against Xavier, and that’s it.”
For a moment in the Big Ten Tournament second-round victory against Iowa, Boswell was going to take the four foul shots stemming from then-Hawkeyes coach Fran McCaffery’s two technical fouls. But Boswell knew Jakučionis was struggling to get his offensive game going, so he offered the shots to the freshman, who made all four.
“He decided to trust me and give those free throws for me,” Jakučionis said. “He said, ‘Go make a few easy buckets, then you will feel the ball, and the game will be easier.’ And it really did. I think it helped me a lot, and I really appreciate it. He’s that kind of guy. He’s that kind of leader, and that’s what leaders do.”
Listen to coach Brad Underwood and his players talk about what has impressed them most over a season with Jakučionis, a third-team All-Big Ten and All-Freshman player, and they’ll give you a number of qualities.
Underwood has talked multiple times about the maturity Jakučionis and the Illini’s other international recruits have brought to his program, and he more than once has said the guard is “one of the smartest people I’ve ever been around.”
Riley pointed to how humble Jakučionis is, how he doesn’t talk about himself and instead tries to lift others up. Guard Tre White said he admires how Jakučionis is fearless, relentless and committed to winning.
Boswell zeroed in on something else — how his friend has handled the good and the bad of this season.
“How his perseverance has been throughout the year,” Boswell said. “He always takes things so hard on himself, and he always comes to me and leans on me. I love how much he cares about the game, he cares about what he does for his team in helping us win.
“The bad games, he’s in the gym right after, 5 a.m. and stuff like that. So it’s making sure he has the right mentality that it’s not on any individual.”
Underwood on Thursday praised the relationship between Jakučionis and Boswell, saying the freshman has had a “tremendous response” to Boswell’s advice.
“KJ’s respect for Kylan is tremendous, and vice versa,” he said. “All KJ wants to do is be great, and Kylan knows how good a player he is.”
It hasn’t all been easy in Jakučionis’ first season playing outside Europe, and he had highs and lows over the last month.
In a loss at Wisconsin, he scored just six points and had seven turnovers. A couple of weeks after that, he had 17 points and four assists in an upset of Michigan and then hit the go-ahead 3-pointer in the final minute in the home finale against Purdue, a moment that prompted Underwood to say, “He’s not afraid of that moment. He’s not afraid to fail.”
In two Big Ten Tournament games, Jakučionis totaled 25 points, 13 rebounds and four assists, but he also had 12 turnovers.
“I didn’t do a very good job to be honest,” Jakučionis said when asked about his play over the last month. “The shots maybe weren’t falling. I still tried to execute on the defensive end, on offensive rebounds, and just help the team however I can help the team. My teammates did a very good job of just being themselves, playing like they can, to show who they are.”
After Maryland blew out Illinois in the conference tournament, Underwood acknowledged the mixed results from his star.
“There’s been some great moments. There’s been some — I don’t want to say bad play — but there have been some challenges,” Underwood said after the game. “He’s at the top of the scouting report. I know how good he is. We’ve all seen that. He’s hit big shot after big shot all year long.
“I’m more about getting him dialed in defensively so he doesn’t worry about offense. And tonight, defensively, he wasn’t very good. The offense stuff will take care of itself when he starts worrying about the other end.”
Despite some of the struggles, Underwood also believes in Jakučionis’ present and future.
The pressure of the end
Jakučionis was plenty familiar with playing in rowdy atmospheres before he arrived at Illinois. After beginning his career in Lithuania, he moved to play for FC Barcelona.
“In Barcelona, there were less fans, but they were very passionate,” Jakučionis said. “The atmosphere is pretty similar to be honest. In Europe, it’s like crazy fans too. Here, I expected less fans and less attention, but now I can see they’re very passionate too.”
Illinois enters its game against a veteran Xavier group as a young team, with Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn as the only holdover from the group that advanced to the Elite Eight last season. But transfers Boswell and White bring some postseason experience.
And the experience Jakučionis and 7-foot-1 Croatian center Tomislav Ivišić had playing in Europe gives Underwood the confidence they can rise to the occasion in the biggest games of their college careers.
“The good thing for those guys, they’ve been in a lot of big games,” Underwood said. “They’ve got kind of a worldly knowledge and understanding.
“This stage is different. It’s unmatched. There’s nothing like the NCAA Tournament. But it’s still basketball, and you’ve got to go out and play the game and you’ve got to compete.”
Underwood has preached the “urgency of the end” to his players when it comes to this time of year, and he has publicly been transparent about what the end of the season might mean for Jakučionis. On the Jim Rome Show this week, he acknowledged the possibility of Jakučionis moving on from the Illini, saying that there’s no question that Jakučionis has NBA lottery-pick potential.
“He’s so instinctive. His feel is great. He’s a great teammate,” Underwood said. “At 6-5, 6-6, he’s a guy that shoots it extremely well off the dribble, which you have to do in the NBA. But he has the ability and the physical size. He’s 210-215 pounds already. And then he’s just 18, so his best days won’t be at the University of Illinois. They’ll be at the Association.”
Still, the Illini hope there are some more good games for Jakučionis with them too.
Another big performance certainly would help their chances as they look to the Musketeers and beyond. Jakučionis was asked Thursday how he handles the responsibility of shouldering the Illini’s Tournament hopes. He went back to the lesson Boswell tried to impart on him.
“To win and to win in especially these games, we need everybody,” Jakučionis said. “We need everyone to be involved, every possession. Everyone needs to do their job on the defensive end and the offensive end. I think one player cannot do everything in this type of competition.”
And if everyone does their jobs, he said, his NCAA experience might go on a while longer.
“I think the ceiling is very high,” Jakučionis said. “And if we just do our job, we are a very good team and we can go far.”
