CHAMPAIGN — The language, unsurprisingly, has been one of the most difficult adjustments for David Mirković in his three months at Illinois.
The 6-foot-9 freshman from Montenegro has spoken English since he was 6 years old. He’s fluent enough to argue calls with officials — a habit coaches are trying to erase from the edgy forward’s game. He speaks it so well conversationally that Croatian teammate Tomislav Ivišić, with his dry sense of humor, said at Illinois basketball media day that he’s skeptical it’s even difficult at all for Mirković.
“He speaks perfect English,” Ivišić said. “If he says he doesn’t, he’s lying. He just wants to get rid of you guys.”
But it’s on the court, when Mirković is tired, when he’s focused on passing or shooting or being in the right spot, that the language becomes a challenge. His teammates told him he just needs to practice saying anything in English in those instances to improve, and he has gotten “much, much better” at doing that, he said.
Still, it was fairly common in the practices leading up to No. 17 Illinois’ season opener Monday against Jackson State to hear a string of Montenegrin, Croatian or Serbian come off the court from Mirković or one of the other members of what has become known unofficially as “The Balkan Five.”
“They may be challenging each other in flowery words in Serbian,” Illinois associate head coach Orlando Antigua said of the languages that are mutually intelligible.
College basketball teams these days have new looks every year thanks to the transfer portal. But the Illini also have a new sound — including an updated musical playlist — thanks to an influx of international talent from the Balkan countries.
Ivišić, a 7-1 center, returns for his second season at Illinois and is joined by his twin brother, Zvonimir, a 7-2 junior transfer from Arkansas. The NCAA recently cleared Serbian point guard Mihailo Petrović to play his first season of college basketball alongside Mirković.
And rounding out the group is California transfer guard Andrej Stojaković, who is the son of Serbian former NBA All-Star Peja Stojaković. Andrej was born in Greece and played high school ball in California.
They are far from Illinois’ first international players under coach Brad Underwood. Last season the Illini started Ivišić, Lithuanian guard Kasparas Jakučionis and Canadian forward Will Riley on the team that lost to Kentucky in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
But this year’s crop, which joins key American returnees Kylan Boswell and Ben Humrichous, is a unique group. And it shows how much effort Underwood and his staff have put in as they try to be at the forefront of international recruiting — a major trend in college basketball.
“If you look back even from last year to this year, the amount (of international players) that are going to be in Division I, it’s going to be a huge number of growth,” Antigua said. “I just think it improves the game. The game has become global. The NBA game is global. Now it only makes sense that the collegiate game will continue to grow and develop that way.”
Recruiting foundation
Illinois assistant coach Orlando Antigua raises a piece of the net after the Illini beat Ohio State 91-88 in the Big Ten Tournament championship game March 14, 2021, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
When Underwood spoke of his recent international recruiting successes, he first credited Antigua and assistant coach/recruiting coordinator Geoff Alexander.
Antigua, who was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in the Bronx, has been comfortable with international travel and the overseas basketball scene for a long time. After his playing career at Pittsburgh, he toured the world with the Harlem Globetrotters for seven years. He also coached the Dominican men’s national team from 2013-15.
Now, at 52, he’s at the age where many of the people he played against are coaches, general managers and agents.
“One of the things with recruiting is you try to go where your relationships are,” he said.
Antigua is in his second stint at Illinois in a career that includes two stints as John Calipari’s assistant at Kentucky and 2½ years as South Florida’s head coach. He called international recruiting a “staple” of his background, though he said it was more difficult earlier in his career before the loosening of NCAA amateurism rules and the financial draw of name, image and likeness compensation.
Illinois under Underwood has long recruited international players, including some, such as Jamaican center Kofi Cockburn, who first played U.S. high school ball. But Alexander thinks the Illini have been at the forefront of such recruiting in recent years, given how much time they spend abroad.
Antigua and Alexander each spent 30 days overseas this summer. At Illinois basketball media day in early October, Alexander had just gotten back from a nine-day trip to Berlin; Madrid; Lyon, France; Belgrade, Serbia; and Lithuania.
Their focus isn’t just on the Balkan countries. Antigua said they want to go anywhere known for great basketball — France, Spain, the Baltic states. They’ve spent time in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico and brought in Riley from Canada last year. They’re interested in whether players from Australia and some African countries might fit their style of play.
They watch a lot of FIBA games and hit multiple age groups within national teams. They begin to identify players, families, clubs and agents they want to work with.
“We treat it like a lot of people treat domestic recruiting,” Alexander said. “It’s just as important over there that you get in front of them like we do here. They want to see you over there. The effort, it starts with relationships that have been built for many years, agents, people that have hands on their guys over there that influence them.”
And when they’re not physically there, they are constantly communicating with their contacts, an area at which Antigua says they excel. That means sending photos and updates of their international players, making sure the players’ people have their game schedule.
Antigua expected media day photos — which included a quick shoot of the Balkan Five plus Underwood — to be sent out.
“Just to keep the Illinois brand on their minds,” Antigua said.
Underwood has said often that he likes the level of development, experience, maturity and passion that many of his international recruits bring. And he believes the Illini have selling points that benefit the players, starting with the university itself and its diverse student population. He strongly believes in the facilities and development staff he has built.
He also thinks some international players may be drawn to what the Illini did with Jakučionis, Riley and Ivišić last season. Jakučionis and Riley were picked 20th and 21st in the NBA draft this summer.
“Now I think we can sell our system, our style of play,” Underwood said. “Kasparas was one of the top point guards in ball screens in the country. And to see two guys who truly weren’t projected as one-and-dones come here and have that kind of success, to see Tomi grow and have the success he did, sure that helps. There’s no doubt that helps.
“But it’s our facilities, it’s our strength and conditioning, it’s our player development. All of that is playing a huge factor in our ability to attract people from abroad.”
A potential pipeline
The key to keeping the international recruiting pipeline going, Alexander believes, is that the fit is right on both ends.
“If it goes right, they keep coming,” Alexander said. “We’re very, very skeptical. It’s got to be right on the front end, as it does with every guy. We want every guy (to fit), but those guys, so far away from home, they get over here and the fulfillment is not what the expectations were up front, that’s when you get in trouble.”
It helped in the vetting and recruiting process, then, that the current group had so many connections.
Beyond most of them being represented by Serbian agent Miško Ražnatović, whose NBA clients include Nikola Jokić, the Balkan players share a history.
Mirković played for the same club team — SC Derby in Montenegro — as the Ivišić twins. Petrović, who played for multiple teams in the Adriatic and Serbian leagues, remembers playing against the three in a tournament when he was younger.
Illinois coaches asked the Ivišić twins about Mirković, and they called him a great kid, a hard worker and a good fit for the program.
“That makes it a lot easier,” Antigua said. “For us to be able to go and sell the Illinois brand to someone who has relationships with kids who have already gone through what he’s going to go through.”
Mirković said Tomislav Ivišić is the biggest reason he arrived at Illinois. They had a great relationship on and off the court when they played together, and Mirković watched the Illini a lot last season because of him.
When Mirković’s agent called to tell him about the Illinois offer, he said yes and didn’t seek out any other offers. Tomislav Ivišić had told him he would be surrounded by great people and have a great role on the team.
“I was telling him how it is, that the coaches are really devoted here, that they want everybody to be the best versions of themselves,” Tomislav Ivišić said. “He just liked how we played last year. Knowing that I’m here, that I stayed another year, means that I trust these guys, what they’re doing with this program this year, and he trusted them too. And he’s in the right spot.”
Zvonimir Ivišić, who spent his first two seasons at Kentucky and Arkansas under Calipari, also was drawn to playing with his brother.
The twins talked every day while they were apart, and Tomislav often would send Zvonimir photos of life as an Illinois basketball player. Even more than that, Zvonimir — who averaged 8.5 points and 4.3 rebounds at Arkansas — said he could see how Illinois had benefited his brother.
“I saw how much he improved — physically, mentally,” Zvonimir said. “He gained his confidence back and got a lot stronger. He really didn’t have to say much. I saw everything. From the last time we played together and now, it’s a huge difference.”
Petrović watched Jakučionis last season at Illinois and liked what he saw in the point guard’s and the Illini’s style of play. With Jakučionis gone to the Miami Heat this summer, Petrović believed he was the right fit for the Illini’s puzzle.
“It was an easy decision for me to choose Illinois because I like their basketball play,” he said.
Stojaković, who averaged 17.9 points as a sophomore at Cal, rounded it out by picking the Illini because he thought the coaching staff could raise his game — and because he thought they were building a winner.
Adjusting together
The transition for Mirković and Petrović is still very new. Neither was in Champaign for all of summer training, and Petrović didn’t arrive until late August.
Getting international players onto NCAA teams can have complications, based on what’s going on in the United States and their home countries.
Alexander said changes in U.S. visa procedures this year were a big reason Petrović was delayed. The Trump administration paused student visa interviews in late May before making a series of changes to student visa rules in recent months.
“Obviously we would like to have everybody here at the beginning of the summer, but that was out of our hands this year,” Alexander said. “It was pretty much the first year that’s been the case, where it was more difficult and you didn’t have everybody here.”
On top of those hurdles, the Illini needed patience and persistence as they waited for the NCAA to clear Petrović while he practiced with the team. That decision finally came down last week: The NCAA ruled he is eligible to play, starting as a sophomore with three years of eligibility.
“There are going to be certain challenges because you’re taking one educational understanding and system in the NCAA and comparing it to a whole other country and how they do things,” Antigua said. “Trying to figure out, how does that translate? On any given year, depending on what’s happening in those countries, there’s turmoil and a lot of things that are out of the control of the students that can affect the timing of some of the academic stuff.
“How does it affect a kid in class if they’ve been picketing and boycotting for X amount of months and schools are shut down? There’s the global, real-life issues that people have to deal with that are not on the sports side.”
So it was natural that the newcomers still were adjusting to life at Illinois in the month leading up to the opener.
Petrović said he has improved his English on the court like Mirković and believes he will be fine because he knows the basketball terminology. But Boswell said the language barrier is “110%” part of the learning curve.
“Sometimes it’s a little frustrating because they speak so fast, so you don’t understand what they’re saying with their accent,” Boswell said. “And then they look like they’re lost in space. They have no idea sometimes what we say. But our locker-room talk is good because now they’re asking questions about certain lingo and stuff like that. We’re getting better trying to understand them, and they’re getting better trying to understand us.
“It’s hard. I mean, you speak a certain language for 22 years, and now you’ve got to basically switch that in a year — like, you’re not doing that. But good thing we have the other Balkans who are good at English and who can translate. So it’s perfect.”
The newcomers also have to get used to the college style of play, which they all said is faster and less controlled than in Europe.
The change especially comes into play for Petrović, a speedy player who said he’s excited to embrace a new style that will make him a better all-around player.
“(The European game) is controlled from the coaches’ standpoint,” Underwood said. “They run a lot of sets. Mihailo is terrific in ball screens … and his teams have put him in almost all of them, and sometimes he has a tendency to run to the ball all the time because he’s had it. He wants it.
“He knows that he’s really good in the ball screen. Teaching him to play in space is important. Teaching him to play with our pace.”
And then Underwood has to get all of the newcomers to jell, a task made more difficult because multiple players were recovering from health issues in October, including Stojaković (knee), Petrović (hamstring) and Tomislav Ivišić (tonsils).
The group has found bonds off the court. Mirković discovered he had a connection with Boswell and Stojaković when he walked into Boswell’s room and exclaimed: “You do Legos!? For real?”
“That’s really cool,” said Mirković, a Lego enthusiast whose favorite set is the Batcave. “Because my country, to be honest, no one does it. I was the weirdo there. Finding someone that does the same thing as me, I really like that.”
The Illini’s revamped playlist also has been a source of intrigue. The mixing of cultures has included new music from the Balkan crew that Humrichous described as “club music,” including one track that always gets Petrović to dance.
“The song gets played every day, and he has this little dance that he does to it and it’s fun for us,” Humrichous said. “Because it’s just something that’s common that brings us all together. We’ll play it in the weight room, and it brings us together and builds that bond.”
The transition for Mirković and Petrović has been helped by knowing people who went through the same experience. Mirković said he went on several video calls with Tomislav Ivišić before he arrived, so he was prepared for what was ahead.
“It’s probably hard for them still,” Zvonimir Ivišić said. “I know how it was for me when I first came here. It was really hard to adjust to everything, especially food and missing family, missing friends.
“But at least they’ve got us now here, so hopefully it makes it a little easier for them.”