How Tre White Helped Illinois Basketball Send Purdue Packing

It's safe to say Tre White is on a heater.

Thankfully for Illinois, he has also turned into a cooler.

White, a 6-foot-7 junior swingman for the Illini, is averaging 17.3 points on a ridiculous 24-for-36 shooting from the field (66.7 percent) over his past four games. In part due to illness (a lingering, team-wide flu bug that hit him hard than most), White has arguably had more trouble finding his niche on a talented, multi-tooled but young Illinois squad (20-11, 12-8 Big Ten).

White's response since coming back healthy has seemingly been to take on all the roles. In addition to scoring at all three levels, he is filling in the rebounding gap with Morez Johnson Jr. (broken wrist) still on the mend and was a difference-making defender in the Illini's signature, regular-season closing win over Purdue.

According to coach Brad Underwood, White's defense on Boilermakers guard Braden Smith – and specifically White's length – was the change-up the Illini needed (in addition to several recent schematic tweaks) to finally begin slowing Purdue's dynamic offense.

"I consider Braden, and I consider [Purdue] very much like the old Utah Jazz team – John Stockton, Karl Malone, Jeff Hornacek," Underwood said. "You pick your poison, but you can't let him get comfortable, and so you put size on it. Tre made a great defensive play at the end of the half. You can't just have Kylan [Boswell] in that, so we mixed up our coverages from drop to quick hedge. We had a blitz package that we didn't go to. But, yeah, it was part of the plan coming in."

Even with Will Riley blossoming and Kasparas Jakucionis, Tomislav Ivisic and Boswell playing fairly well-defined roles, White's offensive contributions will be more than welcome in the days ahead. But with a variety of potential matchups on tap and Johnson expected to be limited (if available at all), it will likely be White's defense that is as important as anything else he brings to the table for Illinois.

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