Oct. 23—CHAMPAIGN — Stefan Vaaks and Jason Jakstys made their way from the Illinois men's basketball team's bench to the scorer's table just 2 1/2 minutes into last Saturday's exhibition game against Cincinnati at Fifth Third Arena in Cincinnati.
Just 37 seconds of game action later, Brad Underwood sent Lincoln Williams and Zavier Zens into the game as his next round of substitutions. Next into the game for the Illini were Zvonimir Ivisic, Lucas Morillo and Landon Davis.
Underwood said several times before his team made the trip to play Cincinnati in its exhibition opener he intended to treat it like an NBA preseason game. His early substitution patterns backed up that assertion, as he got 12 players into the game in the first 6 1/2 minutes.
Underwood's strategy for Friday night's exhibition game against Baylor — a 7 p.m. tip-off at State Farm Center in Champaign — won't stray far from his approach in Cincinnati. He still intends to get his full roster involved, but the freewheeling substitutions will likely give way to more strategic moves to evaluate specific lineup combinations.
"I expect us to be a team that plays a lot of guys throughout the season, but especially in these exhibitions," Underwood said on Thursday inside the Ubben Basketball Complex. "I won't expect too much difference than we'll look at more combinations than we did in the first game. I know what certain guys can do. Now, it's about growing some combinations."
The matchup with Cincinnati prompted Underwood to look at more lineup combinations with just one big man on the court. David Mirkovic's absence cut down on some of those two-big lineups, but the way the Bearcats lined up presented the opportunity for the Illinois staff to evaluate some guard-heavy options during the Illini's 105-96 victory.
Underwood wanted to see how those four-guard lineups handled communication and defensive switches.
"It creates some different looks for us," the Illinois coach said. "Even though it's not double big, we're still pretty good sized out there. It was important to see how it looked offensively, as well. I liked what I saw. It's not something I'll be afraid to go to if we have to."
The game plan for Friday's exhibition against Baylor is to play more double-big lineups. Mirkovic remains unavailable as he continues his return from offseason foot surgery, but Underwood can tinker with lineups featuring some combination of size. Whether that's 7-foot-1 center Tomislav Ivisic, 7-2 Zvonimir Ivisic, the 6-10 Jakstys and 6-9 forward Landon Davis.
Illinois played the Ivisic twins together for just 102 total minutes during the 2025-26 season, per CBB Analytics. That frontcourt pairing was in the 100th percentile in terms of offensive rating, checking in at 135.1 points per 100 possessions, but just 67th percentile with a defensive rating of 108.2.
"We'll see what it looks like with some double bigs," Underwood said. "We'll see what guards work well together with that lineup, and we'll go from there."
The other difference in Illinois' second exhibition game comes in how the team will prepare. Underwood chose not to put together a detailed scouting report before playing Cincinnati. Baylor gets a more structured approach in the wake of its 82-76 overtime victory against now officially No. 1-ranked Florida last Sunday in Jacksonville, Fla.
"We'll pay a little more attention to (the scouting report) and see if we can get dialed in," Underwood said. "There's some tape out there on them. We get a little better look at what tendencies are, and we'll see if we can adjust and make those strategic-type decisions during the game once we see it.
"Making a mental adjustment. Making the adjustment in style of play in terms of what Baylor brings. That's one of the byproducts of being able to schedule exhibition games is you get different styles. This is a very, very good guard backcourt. They can shoot it. They drive it. How we defend it will be a little more focused on the scouting report."