When Jake Davis came to Champaign on the heels of a 9.0-points-per-game freshman year on a sub-.500 Mercer team, some observers – including some of us at Illinois on SI – were scratching their heads.
Davis is a spectacular shooter. He is a deadeye sniper off the catch. That was pretty clear almost right away. Still, he was missing certain typical physical characteristics of impact Division I players. He seemed destined for an Illini career characterized by time spent on the pine.
Two years later, though, Davis was a starter in a Final Four game. He is now considered a critical thread in the fabric of Illinois basketball and its winning dynamic. We could carry on about those nuances and how Davis has carved out a unique niche in Champaign, but it’s better that we leave it to Illini coach Brad Underwood to explain:
Brad Underwood on 'championship-level role player' Jake Davis
“He’s a championship-level role player,” Underwood said of Davis on Thursday at Big Ten media day. “He’s invaluable to our team. He’s an incredible leader. He’s capable of scoring 20 [points] in a half, because he does everything we ask him to do – but he doesn’t need the ball. And yet he creates great space with his shooting.
“He’s very cerebral, very, very smart. And stays, sometimes, for lack of better terms, stays out of great players’ way. And there’s an art to that. And yet, if you help and support off him, he’s going to make it. He’s invaluable to our team. His leadership. His work ethic. He’s a keeper of our culture, which is really important. Of huge value to our group.”
Let’s take a look at Davis’ 2025-26 stat line: 5.4 points (40.6 percent from deep) and 2.2 rebounds in 19.6 minutes. He started 22 games. Those aren’t the gaudiest numbers.
But consider again Underwood's words. Nothing the coach mentioned is precisely quantifiable. Davis’ impact can't be calculated adding up numbers. This is by no means a knock on the advanced analytics, but EvanMiya rated Davis the No. 482 player in the country in 2025-26 (and dead last among eligible Illini).
Davis was not the 482nd-best player in the nation a year ago. He may be fairly one-dimensional – mostly a sharpshooter – from a traditional standpoint, but his impact on winning is colossal.
It is everything Underwood said: Davis’ shooting, his intelligence, his leadership, his work ethic – by all accounts, on and off the floor. But, above all else, it was this:
“For lack of better terms, stays out of great players’ way,” said Underwood. Nothing sums up an elite role player better than that quote. And that is by no means a knock on Davis. That is as complimentary as it gets.
That is winning basketball. A player understanding their role, embracing it and flourishing in it – that is what is required for teams to win national championships. Davis has done it before.
He has toed that incredibly fine line of existing in the shadows, but not disappearing. Never taking anything off anyone else’s plate, but making sure he eats – and sometimes comes back for seconds.
And Davis, who figures to be the most experienced and savvy seventh-man in the nation, is going to do it again in 2026-27. And while everyone will be singing the praises of David Mirkovic and Quentin Coleman and the rest of the star-studded cast, it’ll be Davis, the unsung hero, once again quietly pushing Illinois to its ceiling.
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