As Illinois worked its offseason recruiting magic and brought in eight new players for the 2024-25 season, Louisville transfer Tre White was not one of the headline acquisitions.
The 6-foot-7 junior wasn’t a five-star freshman like Will Riley. He wasn’t a much-coveted international standout like likely lottery pick Kasparas Jakucionis or Tomislav Ivisic. He wasn’t the local hero returning home like Kylan Boswell. He wasn’t even sure to be a starter.
But as No. 13 Illinois (11-3, 3-1 Big Ten) enters Wednesday’s Big Ten game against Penn State (12-3, 2-2) in Champaign, Ill., the 6-foot-7 White has been living up to his billing as a top-40 recruit in the Class of 2022. All of his metrics are up from his freshman year at Southern California and last year at Louisville.
During Illinois’ Pacific Northwest sweep last week at Oregon and Washington, White piled up a team-high 37 points and 18 rebounds. He also did the little things. With Illinois clinging to a two-point lead in the final 20 seconds Sunday at Washington, White swatted the ball out of DJ Davis’ hands, then leaped to dive on the loose ball to force a jump that became Illinois’ clinching possession.
To put White’s recent excellence into perspective, he averaged 7.1 points in 17.4 minutes per game while attempting 14 free throws in Illinois’ first eight games. In the last six games, he has delivered 15.5 points in 27.5 minutes per game while getting to the line 32 times.
“Tre’s really good,” said Illinois coach Brad Underwood. “We’ve got to make sure we understand that Tre’s a really good player. He’s doing it driving the basketball. Defensively, he’s locked in. He’s guarding really good players every single night. He’s learning to compete to win. Not just play hard, but to compete. Those are different. And I’m really proud of him. He has been exceptional.”
Illinois needs White and the rest of its players to maintain that competitiveness level because that has been Penn State’s calling card during the Nittany Lions’ rise to the Top 40 of the KenPom rankings and Top 50 of the NET.
That competitiveness is what coach Mike Rhoades felt was lacking for much of Sunday’s 77-71 loss to Indiana. The Nittany Lions trailed by 16 with 10 minutes to play before getting within two with the ball.
“When we trust what we do and we have this urgency, we’re a downhill team,” Rhoades said. “We have multiple guys that can get downhill and make plays for themselves and each other.”
Ace Baldwin Jr. continues to lead the way offensively and defensively — he ranks fourth nationally in assists (8.4 per game) and fifth in free-throw shooting (94.5 percent) while adding 2.1 steals per game — but Penn State also needs shooter Zach Hicks to be on target.
Since drilling 6 of 10 3-pointers Dec. 10 against Rutgers, which propelled him to 50.8 percent on 3-pointers for the year, Hicks has canned just 7 of 27 attempts over the last five games.
“He’s got to continue to keep moving and hunting shots,” Rhoades said. “We’ve got to find him more. We’ve got to find a way to loosen him up more.”
