Following Illinois has a way of adding a few more teams to your basketball life. You start with one team in Champaign. A few years later, you’re wearing a Timberwolves hoodie checking box scores and learning the difference between the EuroLeague and EuroCup, and wondering what time it is in Hiroshima.
We remember the shots, the tournament runs, the defensive possessions that got a building going. Then their careers move somewhere else, and there’s another reason to keep watching.
The 2026–27 season gives us plenty of those reasons. Ayo Dosunmu and Terrence Shannon Jr. share a locker room. Kasparas Jakučionis has changed teams and moved a little closer to “home” (aka Champaign). Keaton Wagler is starting the first season of his hopefully long and prolific NBA career. Some familiar faces overseas have already moved beyond preseason and into games that count.
Here are eleven former Illini worth following, with the backstory, the latest through October 7, and a few things to watch as their seasons unfold.
NBA
Ayo Dosunmu
Minnesota Timberwolves
Ayo helped change what an Illinois season could feel like. By 2021, the Illini had a Big Ten Tournament championship and a No. 1 NCAA seed, with a consensus first-team All-American running the show. His 20.1 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game tell part of it. The expectation that he might rescue a close game tells the rest.
The hometown Bulls drafted him in 2021, and Minnesota acquired him this past February. Then came a pretty persuasive playoff breakthrough in a Wolves uniform: 43 points off the bench against Denver on April 25. Forty-three. The guy we used to trust with the end of an Illinois game had a much bigger audience watching him take over.
He re-signed with Minnesota in July and opened another chapter back home, too, joining the Illinois Athletics Hall of Fame in September. On October 7 at Indiana, he supplied 10 points and three assists in 17 minutes in Minnesota’s 123–112 preseason loss.
With LaMelo Ball joining the backcourt, there will be new combinations to sort out. Ayo’s appeal is that he can help without needing every possession built around him. How he balances that supporting work with the scoring he showed in April is worth watching. He has already given Minnesota a very good reason to trust him.
Terrence Shannon Jr.
Minnesota Timberwolves
There were stretches of March 2024 when the safest Illinois plan was to get Terrence Shannon Jr. moving toward the basket and see who wanted to get in the way. He scored 40 against Nebraska in the Big Ten semifinal, 34 in the championship game and 29 against Iowa State in the Sweet Sixteen. Illinois reached its first Elite Eight since 2005.
His next step in Minnesota comes with another number change. He wore 00 as a rookie, 1 last season and now 4, with newcomer LaMelo Ball wearing 1. Three NBA seasons, three jersey numbers, all with the same team. Keeping the wardrobe current is becoming a project.
There is more than a new number to follow. Shannon scored 24 in his first playoff start against Denver on April 30, helping Minnesota close the series. That is useful evidence of what he can do when the opportunity grows. On October 7, he had nine points and two assists in 17 minutes against Indiana.
The challenge now is making those contributions dependable enough to earn a regular place in the rotation. His pace and ability to attack are familiar. The next question is how consistently he can put them to work alongside Minnesota’s other creators. Illinois fans know how quickly he can change an evening. A regular rotation role would give him more chances to show it.
Kasparas Jakučionis
Milwaukee Bucks
Kasparas gave Illinois fans plenty to remember in one season. The NCAA Tournament win over Xavier is a good place to start: 16 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds. One rebound short of a triple-double, and an Illinois freshman record for assists in an NCAA Tournament game. There was a lot happening when he had the ball.
The route had already taken him from Lithuania through Barcelona’s academy to Champaign. Miami selected him twentieth in the 2025 draft, one pick before Will Riley. Now, after a July trade, he is starting his second NBA season in Milwaukee. That is a lot of new basketball to learn in a short time.
October 7 supplied an encouraging entry in the new notebook: 10 points, four rebounds and four assists in Milwaukee’s 128–126 preseason win at Oklahoma City. He made two threes in just under eighteen minutes.
The passing is the obvious attraction, but his next step also depends on how often he can turn a good read into a useful possession against NBA defenders. The shooting matters because it changes how those defenders treat him.
Will Riley
Washington Wizards
Will Riley’s first Illinois game was a 31-point introduction against Eastern Illinois. His NCAA Tournament debut brought 22 against Xavier, an Illinois freshman tournament record. Those are pretty good bookends for a player who arrived a year earlier than originally planned after reclassifying.
Between them, he became the Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year and finished the season playing some of his best basketball. He scored in double figures in thirteen of his final fifteen games. The appeal was easy to see: a big wing with enough scoring variety to make defenders uncomfortable.
Washington acquired Riley’s draft rights after Utah selected him twenty-first in 2025. He averaged 10.3 points as a rookie, and his second preseason begins October 8 at New York. The Wizards’ wing competition makes shooting and defense important parts of the next step.
Riley has already shown he can put points on an NBA scoreboard. The more interesting second-year question is whether his good stretches become reliable enough that a coach keeps reaching for him when other options are available. Illinois got to watch his confidence grow over a few months. Washington gets a longer look at what comes after that.
Keaton Wagler
LA Clippers
Forty-six points at Purdue, with nine threes. Twenty-five against Iowa to send Illinois to the Final Four. Keaton Wagler put together the kind of freshman season that makes a one-year stay feel considerably longer in the memory.
He averaged 17.9 points, won the Jerry West Award and became a consensus second-team All-American. The Clippers selected him fifth overall, tying Kendall Gill for the second-highest draft position in Illinois history behind Deron Williams. Quite a climb for a player who had only two high-major scholarship offers.
His October 4 preseason debut was a useful reminder that the next level brings different problems. Wagler scored 15 against Golden State but shot 3-for-15. Ty Lue’s assessment in the Clippers’ camp notebook was simple: “He doesn’t get rattled.”
That composure is a good starting point. Now comes the work of finding better shots, making the next decision and contributing when the jumper is being difficult. A rookie can have a rough shooting night and still give you something worth watching. The Clippers play again October 10 at Toronto.
Kylan Boswell
Charlotte Hornets on a two-way contract
Kylan Boswell’s Illinois story was a homecoming. He was born in Champaign and grew up in the area before leaving after eighth grade. Two seasons at Arizona eventually brought him back to play in front of family. His grandfather, David Aina, had played on Illinois’ 1983 Big Ten championship football team. The connections ran deeper than a transfer announcement.
Boswell added his own memories, including an 18-point, 10-rebound, 10-assist triple-double against Chicago State in December 2024. The last assist went to walk-on Keaton Kutcher for his first career three. That is a pretty good detail to keep attached to a triple-double.
After earning Big Ten All-Defensive honors in his final Illinois season, Boswell signed a two-way contract with Charlotte in July. His immediate job is getting healthy. The October 5 NBA update still had him rehabbing his right knee.
Once he is cleared, his defense and decision-making offer a sensible starting point for earning professional opportunities. A two-way contract gives him a place to begin that work. The first milestone is being available to do it, and there’s no need to rush past that just because the season is here.
ABROAD
Trent Frazier
Virtus Bologna in Italy
Trent Frazier gave Illinois five seasons, 1,794 points and a whole lot of miserable possessions for opposing guards. He finished his college career with 310 made threes and earned Big Ten All-Defensive honors in each of his last two seasons. There was a scorer in there, too. Indiana got a 23-point reminder in February 2022.
His professional career has taken him through FMP in Serbia and Zenit in Russia. Now it’s Virtus Bologna, which signed him to a one-year deal in July. The club’s announcement pointed to his 13.8 points and 5.8 assists per game in the previous VTB League season. That passing number is worth keeping beside the familiar left-handed jumper.
He scored 16 in Bologna’s 98–89 win over Maxima Roma on October 4. With Italian league games and the EuroLeague on the schedule, he has a demanding new setting for that combination of scoring, playmaking and defense.
How much of the offense can he organize while still supplying the pressure that made him so valuable at Illinois? Trent learned to help a team in several ways in Champaign. Bologna gives him a new place to put them together.
Kofi Cockburn
Hiroshima Dragonflies in Japan
Kofi Cockburn changed the geometry of an Illinois game. Get him the ball near the basket, and everybody else had a decision to make. Leave him alone? Send help and open something up outside? Neither option was particularly relaxing.
The college résumé still looks enormous: two consensus All-American seasons, 1,546 points, 861 rebounds and a school-record 45 double-doubles. Illinois raised his No. 21 banner in 2025. He earned a permanent spot in that building.
His current work is in Japan with the Hiroshima Dragonflies. The club’s October 4 update lists 22.5 points and 12 rebounds per game through four games, with 62.7 percent shooting. Last season’s line on the same page was 17.2 points and 9.7 rebounds. Four games won’t settle a season, but that is a pretty enjoyable opening set of numbers.
Can Hiroshima keep getting him productive touches and turn his rebounding advantage into wins? We know what a game can look like when Kofi controls the paint. There’s still plenty of reason to check how often it happens.
Andrés Feliz
Real Madrid in Spain
Andrés Feliz is a good reminder that a player’s most important work doesn’t always arrive in a twenty-point package. He averaged 11 points as an Illinois senior and shared the school’s 2020 Spirit Award. Brad Underwood described him as “the ultimate teammate.” That fits the player who helped Illinois get back into the national rankings before that season was cut short.
His climb continued through C. B. Prat and Joventut in Spain. By 2023–24, he was an All-ACB first-team selection at Joventut, averaging 15 points and 4.3 assists. Real Madrid paid his release clause and signed him for three seasons in July 2024. That’s a long way from arriving in Champaign as a junior-college transfer.
Now in his third Madrid season, Feliz has a EuroLeague date with Partizan on October 8. The thing to watch is how much trust he earns in the possessions that decide games: defending the ball, getting the offense into something useful and knowing when to go get a basket himself.
At a club with Madrid’s expectations, a guard who can steady a difficult stretch is worth having.
Kendrick Nunn
Panathinaikos in Greece
Kendrick Nunn’s career has covered an awful lot of basketball since his three seasons at Illinois. Oakland came next, followed by the G League and NBA stops in Miami, Los Angeles and Washington. He made the NBA All-Rookie First Team in 2020. Then he went to Athens and built another substantial chapter.
Nunn helped Panathinaikos win the EuroLeague title in 2024 and became the competition’s 2024–25 regular-season MVP. The club extended his contract through the summer of 2028. If you lost track of him after the NBA, there’s quite a bit to catch up on. He has been one of the main attractions on a very big European stage.
As of October 8, the immediate question is his return. In the club’s October 7 update, coach Željko Obradović said Nunn was not ready, ahead of the October 8 game against Fenerbahce. There’s no reason to invent a return date.
Once he is back, the expectation is understandably different from the one attached to a young player trying to find minutes. Panathinaikos will want the scoring and shot creation of a proven star. First comes getting him on the floor; then comes seeing how quickly that familiar offensive rhythm returns.
Malcolm Hill
U-BT Cluj-Napoca in Romania
Malcolm Hill finished his Illinois career with 29 points against UCF in the 2017 NIT, bringing his total to 1,846. He left third on the school’s scoring list. Even in the last game, he was giving Illinois another chance to hang around.
The years since have required a lot of moving. His professional stops have included the Philippines, Germany, Kazakhstan and Israel, followed by NBA and G League work. The ABA League’s announcement of his arrival in Cluj-Napoca noted 18.4 points per game in the G League last season. He arrives in Romania with considerably more experience than the player who left Champaign.
On October 7, Hill scored 10 in Cluj’s 98–92 EuroCup win over Venezia. Cluj trailed by ten at halftime and came back to win. A useful contribution in a real game, while most of our NBA attention was on preseason.
Cluj rebuilt much of its roster over the summer. Hill’s versatility should give him several ways to contribute while the group comes together. How much will the club lean on his scoring and experience? Malcolm has spent years finding the next opportunity. It’s good to have another team to pull for with him.
Eleven players, a lot of different circumstances, and more basketball than one television was built to handle. Some are trying to earn a larger role. Some are trying to get healthy. Others are carrying expectations they’ve earned over years as professionals.
That’s what makes following them worthwhile. The Illinois memories give us a starting point, and the games they’re playing now keep adding to the story.
If that sounds like your kind of basketball reading, welcome to The Dunker Spot. We spend time with Illinois hoops, the players who came through Champaign, and the games that still deserve another conversation.