The Big Question: Will Ty Rodgers Play for Illinois Basketball Again?

Initial thoughts: More than two full months after Rodgers' was hurt, I would hope he is "progressing." Also, the fact that the team hasn't made public the nature of the injury or provided a recovery timeline only seems to suggest that the injury is on the far end of the severity spectrum. Underwood's non-answer of an answer keeps pressure off a young athlete and hopefully prevents an overzealous rehab effort – but also allows a coach off the hook with the media.

Will Rodgers be back in 2025-26?

The Illini don't necessarily owe the public a full description of the injury or an explanation of his status, but Rodgers already was looking like a square peg trying to fit himself into a round hole for the second straight offseason before the signings of guards Andrej Stojakovic and Mihailo Petrovic. Where he would fit on Illinois' current roster if healthy would be anyone's guess. What if he misses the first month of the season? The first two months? At what point would another injury redshirt be considered?

Illinois' opener against Illinois State on Oct. 19 feels a million miles away – we're still days away from kicking off college football season in Champaign! – but that date is less than two months out. Even if Rodgers technically recovers from June's surgical procedure in time for the start of the season, when will he feel comfortable playing on the knee again? Get his wind back? Will he have any time to sharpen that long-range stroke in order to earn minutes in a rotation that seems to require one? There's no way to know any of those answers at the moment, but if we're still waiting on clarity in October, Rodgers will have to make a decision about pulling the ripcord on the season.

Will Rodgers play for Illinois again?

Truth is, no one knows – probably Underwood and Rodgers included. But this cursed injury gummed up the comeback of a player every Illini fan has been rooting for going on a year now, and after all that has gone on, you have to wonder whether Rodgers will see it all as a sign. No one in or around Champaign wants him to go. But would he make a better fit with another program? Maybe. Would he have a chance to earn more minutes and sink his teeth into a bigger on-court role elsewhere? Absolutely.

It may come down to an agonizing decision about what Rodgers values most at this stage of his life and career. A diminished or uncertain role with an excellent program, around a group of teammates and coaches with whom he has bonded, at a school and in a community that he seems to have embraced as much as they have him? Or an enhanced basketball experience on another campus?Nothing is assured Rodgers in either situation. But here's hoping he finds all he wants, whether it's in Urbana-Champaign or in another college town that would find it as impossible not to warm to him as Illini fans did. He deserves at least that much.