HOUSTON — Josh Whitman glanced at his phone for a moment Saturday night amid all of the hugging, celebrating and reflecting on Illinois’ 71-59 win over Iowa in the Elite Eight.

The Illinois athletic director had 110 text messages in his inbox, everyone wanting to share their congratulations and excitement for the Illini’s first Final Four berth in 21 years.

Whitman, an Illinois alum, understands what that wait has been like as much as anyone. It has required patience and belief on his part and that of Illinois coach Brad Underwood, even as their tenure together didn’t immediately produce success.

“He and I have been through an awful lot together,” Whitman said. “We’ve had a lot of special moments. We’ve had a lot of hard moments. That’s the way these things work over a nine-year period of time. To see him reach this accomplishment and know we’ve been able to share this journey together was pretty powerful.”

Nine years ago, Whitman sat in Underwood’s living room in Stillwater, Okla., and talked with the longtime coach about their vision for what could be possible again for Illinois basketball.

The program, which had its most recent Final Four appearances in 1989 and 2005, had fallen on hard times, failing to make the NCAA Tournament for four straight seasons under coach John Groce.

Whitman said he saw in Underwood someone he could trust, who shared his values and had the right vision for the program. Underwood saw someone who could be a good partner, someone who could deliver on promises.

So the partnership began. Whitman has talked several times about the people who took chances on Illinois athletics as he was trying to rebuild its success after being hired as AD in February 2016. Underwood, after a head coaching career at Stephen F. Austin and Oklahoma State, was one of them.

“He’s somebody who believed in us at a moment when believing in us was not the most popular thing to do,” Whitman said. “He trusted me. He trusted this university. And to know he’s got almost 40 years in this profession and he’s finally able to check this box and experience this moment is incredible for him, for us.”

The program didn’t turn right away.

Underwood recalled Saturday night how recruits didn’t want to come to Illinois at first, how he and his staff missed out on a bunch until Chicago’s Ayo Dosunmu came on board.

The Illini lost 39 games, including 27 in the Big Ten, in the first two seasons.

“Times were different then. We didn’t have the portal. We didn’t have NIL where you could flip it quickly,” Underwood said. “The first two years were literally about establishing a culture. … I give Josh all the credit in the world because he stayed patient with me through that process. But nothing’s easy. Some things just take longer than others. This took nine years to do.”

Whitman said he understood that things don’t change overnight.

He spent a lot of time with the team, at practices, on trips to games. And he could see how Underwood and his staff ran things. He maintained his trust in the coach.

“It was hard. It was tough. It was gritty. But it was necessary,” Whitman said. “Although we weren’t seeing the results we wanted on the court, I knew what was happening away from the court that was ultimately going to put us in a position to be successful. I just never lost confidence in who he is and the leader that he could be.”

Illinois broke through to make its first NCAA Tournament appearance under Underwood in 2021 and has made the tournament every year since. The 2024 team, led by Terrence Shannon Jr., made the Elite Eight, and now the 2026 team has made the Final Four.

As times have changed in college sports — with the transfer portal, NIL and now revenue-sharing — the Illini’s success has grown again, thanks in part to the resources Whitman helps secure.

U.S. Department of Education records showed that Illinois had nearly $19 million in men’s basketball expenses for the 2023-24 school year, ranked eighth nationally, according to The Athletic.

That certainly helped the Illini build the current roster. Illinois devotes significant resources to recruiting overseas to bring in their large international contingent — including Croatian twin centers Tomislav and Zvonimir Ivišić and freshman forward David Mirković. This offseason, the Illini also needed to retain key talent, such as Kylan Boswell, and attract top transfer targets such as Andrej Stojaković.

“There are a lot of programs that talk about reaching a Final Four, that talk about competing for a national championship,” Whitman said. “In reality, I think there’s a much, much smaller number of programs that truly have that chance to do that. As the athletic director, the administrators, our job is to be the bulldozer. Our job is to clear the path to give our coaches a chance to run fast without being bothered by the obstacles in the way.”

Whitman has received some spotlight recently for Illinois’ successes in its biggest sports. The athletic department social media accounts have promoted this fact: Illinois is the only school in the nation to win bowl games in football and NCAA Tournament games in men’s and women’s basketball in each of the last two seasons.

Now, the men’s basketball team has made it to the biggest stage this week in Indianapolis, where it will play UConn in a national semifinal Saturday.

“We’ve got an athletic director who believes in what we’re doing,” Underwood said. “Josh Whitman understands winning, and it’s very hard to do at the highest levels. Sometimes you’re not going to win. There’s a tremendous patience with him that I respect. Because I don’t have much patience. And it just takes a whole group. I’ve got administrative support, and I’ve got a staff that just keeps helping make me better and look good.”

Underwood and Illinois players spoke after Saturday’s game about the belief they had all season to get to this point.

Whitman isn’t out evaluating talent, but he listened to the coaches enough to know they weren’t just blowing smoke about their excitement. He heard about how freshman Keaton Wagler was the best player in the gym, a surprising development for the underrecruited guard. He heard about the team’s length, leadership, skill and ability to shoot from all positions.

And so he started to get excited, too.

He credited Underwood’s philosophy of scheduling some of the best teams in the nation in nonconference play — and the NCAA’s system that allows such games to not seriously damage tournament resumes — for helping the team to get the experience it needed to succeed in the tournament, knocking off Penn, VCU, Houston and Iowa to reach the final weekend.

Underwood and Whitman both said the best part of the lengthy Illinois celebration on Saturday night was hugging their families — their wives and children, now older, who put up with their long days and nights away for many years.

But Whitman said the hug he shared with Underwood was also up there.

“To be able to get to Brad quickly and share that moment for a second with him,” Whitman said. “He and I have been on this journey for a long time together, stood in a lot of tunnels and had a lot of high moments and some hard ones, and this is right at the top of the list.”

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