Dre Day Every Day: Illinois SF Andrej Stojakovic Poised To Build Off Final Four, NBA Combine Experience
Illinois small forward Andrej Stojakovic enjoyed a ton of success last season at both the individual and team level, but as Frank Sinatra put it, “The best is yet to come.”
“Dre” was second on the team in scoring (13.5 points per game) and field goal percentage (.500), helping lead the Illini to their first Final Four in 21 years. He did his best work during March Madness, raising his scoring average to nearly 14 points per game and his field goal percentage closer to 60%.
A “big-time scorer,” as Purdue coach Matt Painter called him at Big Ten Media Days, Stojakovic was named to the all-South Regional first team.
The senior wing tested the NBA draft waters this past offseason, and the feedback he collected will undoubtedly help augment his game. If he improves as much as the coaching staff believes he will, this season could be, as Dr. Dre put it, “Dre Day every day.”
Sky-High Expectations In Champaign
Illinois is No. 3 in ESPN’s preseason rankings, and expectations are as high as possible right now.
Asked about the hardest part of entering a season with national title expectations, Stojakovic gave a powerful, straightforward answer.
“The most difficult part about it is getting to the highest point of college basketball that weekend (2026 Final Four), and having to wait a full year to try and get back to that point,” he said.
“It’s going to take a lot of patience and maturity to get through the season without getting carried away at times.”
Back For One More Run
Stojakovic went through the NBA draft combine in Chicago this past May and, after receiving feedback from NBA scouts, decided that returning to school for his senior season was best. He projects as a late first-round or early second-round pick.
Illini coach Brad Underwood noted the strides his star swingman has made over the past year.
“He’s completely changed,” Underwood said. “He was a young man last year that was searching, and the really challenging thing for Dre last year, if you’ll remember, was he was hurt.
“So we didn’t have him at all as (preseason) practice started.
“Just a completely different young man this year — swagger, confident, all of the things that I like to think are really important.”
Inside The NBA Draft Combine
Andrej is the son of Peja Stojakovic, a three-time NBA All-Star, NBA champion and one of the greatest 3-point shooters in NBA history. Peja was fourth all-time in 3-pointers made when he retired in 2011.
Having an NBA dad no doubt helped him prepare for the combine process, which, to put it mildly, is extremely intense.
“As many people know, it’s a long week, a lot of meetings, a lot of interviews,” Andrej told Ratings.
“It really gets you thinking about how the NBA life is all about basketball. The downtime you get, you want to cherish, ’cause there’s not a lot of it. There’s no school to be occupied with; it’s all about the league.
“So, being in that environment for a week and being in all those meetings, and they can be long sometimes. You don’t quite understand the meaning behind them until it’s over. But obviously I’m grateful for the experience.”
A Winding Road To Illinois
Stojakovic transferred to Illinois after his sophomore season at California. He spent his first season, ironically, playing for Cal’s biggest rival, Stanford.
When he arrived at Illinois, he missed the first seven weeks of team activities due to a knee sprain.
Underwood held him out of the season opener as a precaution. Stojakovic also suffered a high ankle sprain midseason, but, much like his preseason injury, he came through it a better player. He emerged as the Illini’s top defender down the stretch.
Now he’s ready to potentially take another leap forward.
“Getting feedback was very helpful for my improvement,” he said of the combine.
“I think being able to compete against guys that I played against and are now living their dream of being in the NBA, it gave me a sense of belonging, and I think me coming back got me extra motivated, and I think that willingness and want to win is going to help both me individually and (with) the team’s success.”
Stojakovic was named preseason all-Big Ten last week, another plaudit to add to a collection that includes a spot on last season’s Julius Erving Award midseason top 10 list, plus McDonald’s All-American and Nike Hoop Summit selections as a high school senior.
He is a classic example of the old proverb “To whom much is given, much is expected.”
Underwood noted how Stojakovic developed both physically and mentally last year.
“That young man had just an incredible end of the season, NCAA Tournament run, and he’s just used that as a springboard in the offseason,” said Underwood, who ranks fourth in school history in coaching victories.
“He’s changed his body. He’s gotten stronger. His jump shot’s better. He’s more confident.
“Now, he’s been through it. He’s had a Final Four. He’s found winning. He knows what that feels like, and he’s a young man that just wants to go eat more.
“He wants more, and his leadership’s vital to our success.”
Fixing The 3-Point Shot
Irony is a term that a large share of the population misdefines. You can probably blame Alanis Morissette’s mid-1990s song “Ironic” for much of that, as it often confused irony with coincidence.
Stojakovic’s biggest flaw, however, perfectly defines the concept of irony. His weakest asset is the 3-point shot, the same facet of the game his father specialized in.
Given that Stojakovic shot under 25% from 3-point range last year and only 30% for his college career, we asked Underwood how they can fix that.
“I think shot selection will help him,” Underwood told Ratings. “Everybody’s knocked whether he’s a good shooter or not. He’s a good shooter. He took a lot of really hard shots last year.
“He took a lot of off-the-bounce threes that were contested. He probably took as many contested threes at the end of the shot clock (as anybody). We’ve got to get him taking the right shots.
“I think that’s the one thing that he’s worked really hard on. He’s been very coachable in that area, and I think you’ll see those (3-point percentage) numbers skyrocket as the season goes on.”
Bringing A Winning Mindset
Stojakovic hopes to elevate not just his own game but his teammates’ games as well this season. No doubt the combine experience will help with that.
“I’m just trying to bring that (winning) mindset to the new guys,” Stojakovic said at Media Days. “Maybe guys that haven’t been to the most winningest programs, and we’re just trying to carry that over (to them).”
Illinois opens the season Monday, Nov. 2, at home against Fairleigh Dickinson.