Status of Illinois star guard Kasparas Jakucionis unclear heading into matchup with IU basketball

IU basketball heads into Tuesday’s matchup against No. 19 Illinois unclear if Illini star guard Kasparas Jakucionis will be on the floor or not.

Jakucionis, Illinois’ freshman guard, has missed the last two games with a forearm injury and Illinois head coach Brad Underwood had no real indication whether or not he would be on the floor on Tuesday.

“I don’t know,” Underwood told reporters on Monday.

Jakucionis is averaging a team-high 16.4 points per game for Illinois, in addition to 5.6 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game. He ranks fourth in the Big Ten in assists per game. Jakucionis is also shooting 41.1 percent from three on 2.1 made 3s a game.

Illinois is 1-1 in the past two games without Jakucionis, including a 10-point loss to USC.

“We’ve got a lottery pick who didn’t play … their role becomes a little bit different and that can’t happen,” Underwood said about the USC loss. ” … We were fine in the Penn State game. A lot of times you can handle that initial one (game) OK and the second one is sure not going to be that easy. I thought we had guys do some things uncharacteristically and we were just flat. You put it all together and you get the USC game. Whether KJ is in the lineup or not, we’ve got to get back to elevating each other on the offensive side and playing much, much harder and more aggressively on the defensive side.”

Jakucionis has scored 20+ points six different games this season and has eight games with at least two made 3s.

While he’s fourth in the Big Ten in assists per game — including six games of at least six assists — he also fourth in the league in turnovers, averaging 3.6 a game.

Illinois still brings in five other players who average 9.5 points or more.

“We’ve got a guy who is a primary handler for us and initiates everything we do,” Underwood said. “What we have put in place is largely in part to having multiple ball handlers and KJ being the head of the snake, so to speak, at that position. Not only that, he’s one of our better perimeter defenders. You lose 6-5 and size and length on the perimeter defensively and a guy who has the ball in his hands a very high amount of time, that’s taken away. That’s shifted everybody and put a tremendous responsibility not just on Kylan (Boswell) but everybody else … Things get out of kilter a little bit when you lose a guy who is a lottery pick. We’ve always had guys who can step up, and we’re making those adjustments.”

IU basketball and Illinois tip at 7:00 pm ET on Tuesday night.

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