Ayo Dosunmu had to keep his emotions in check. He didn’t want to dirty his black, long-sleeve Givenchy sweater with any tears as a crowd of nearly 13,000 people romanced over the career of one of the most impactful Illinois basketball players ever on Thursday night.
Dosunmu, now a rookie with the Chicago Bulls, returned to Champaign and State Farm Center to unveil his No. 11 jersey before being raised to the rafters to be honored forever next to 33 other former Illinois players.
“To know that no matter what, my cousins, friends, whoever comes to Illinois, my son or my daughter, my kids’ kids’ kids, whenever they look up there they’re going to see my name up there, that’s crazy,” Dosunmu said minutes after he untied the string that kept his jersey rolled neatly, hidden from those inside the area until the Chicago native pulled the string.
When Dosunmu marched out from behind a wall in the Jordan Brand store in October 2017 with a white Illinois collared shirt on, the trajectory of Brad Underwood’s program changed. Dosunmu was the first highly touted, blue-chip recruit to commit to Underwood – and being from the Windy City only added to the significance of the commitment.
“I did it for the program,” Dosunmu said. “I did it for the oversight view of the program. I wasn’t just looking at it for myself. If that was the case, I would have left my freshman or sophomore year, but that’s what I wanted to do – build a legacy.”
The legacy Dosunmu leaves at Illinois is one that will forever leave him remembered as the player most responsible for changing the route that Illinois basketball was on. It didn’t happen overnight. In fact, Dosunmu’s freshman season was a program-worst 21 losses.
But by the end of his sophomore season, Illinois was in the top-25 and as a junior Dosunmu was the king of Champaign as the Illini earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and won their first Big Ten Tournament Championship since 2005 with Dosunmu being named a consensus first-team All-American and taking home the Bob Cousy Award, given to the top point guard in the country.
“Building a legacy takes patience, takes a lot of long nights, mental toughness, you have to be locked in mentally,” he said.
That’s what Dosunmu was thinking about as he stood under the spotlight in the middle of the bright orange Block I – the same spot he kissed his last time in State Farm Center for a game – watching the video board as former teammates and coaches spoke their praises of Dosunmu and what he meant to them, the Illinois program and about how he deserved the moment. For Dosunmu, though, it wasn’t about the jersey. It was about the relationships he had with those people that made his time at Illinois so special.
“It was very thoughtful, emotional,” he said. “I was excited, I mean, I was very speechless because a lot of memories came back being here for three years with hard battles, long nights, early mornings and just thinking about that, it came back to me.
“It was crazy just knowing that legacy and the mark that I left here – not just on the court – but building the relationships with the guys and the coaching staff, players, that’s what it’s all about. Building bonds, relationships that can never be taken away, that last forever. I thought I did that here with the guys at Illinois.”
The bond Dosunmu has with his former coaches, former teammates were on display after the Illini’s 76-64 victory over Maryland. After going through the handshake line with the visiting Terrapins, each member of the Illinois coaching staff and every player came over to see Dosunmu for a hug and a short conversation, and after that Dosunmu proceeded to the Illinois locker room to spend more precious moments with his former teammates.
“To me, this is what makes Illinois basketball so damn good and so powerful,” Illinois head coach Brad Underwood, who regularly sends text messages with Dosunmu said after the game. “I use that. Here’s a guy that chose to come to us when we weren’t winning. We stunk. We were a bad basketball team.
“He’s the definition of everything we want our program to be about. It’s no surprise he’s having a great NBA career, and he’ll have a long one.”
The new superstar of Illinois basketball is 7-foot center Kofi Cockburn who led the Illini with 23 points and 18 rebounds in the victory. But at halftime, a thought went through his head as Illinois walked to the locker room trailing 34-30 after the first 20 minutes.
“Going into the second half, it ran into my mind, Ayo’s hanging this banner tonight, I can’t let him do that in a loss,” Cockburn said. “That was running through my mind, I have to do this for Ayo.”
Cockburn’s No. 21 jersey will hang in the rafters at the State Farm Center one day too, in fact, he’s next in line to see his jersey hung sky high for all to see. But Dosunmu reminds Cockburn – the sidekick to his superhero – to enjoy the time he has in an Illinois uniform. He encourages him to try to win the things that even, he, himself wasn’t able to do.
“Try to make your legacy as big as it can be,” Dosunmu said. “Try to win everything, every game, every award, every championship because then when you look back, it’s going to be worth it.”
The Chicago native has plenty to look back on in his time with Illinois. He has a handful of back-breaking shots against nearly every team in the Big Ten in the biggest moments. He has the memorable run of winning 14-of-15 before the NCAA Tournament as a junior, a win against No. 18 Iowa in 2020 as a sophomore and an upset win over No. 9 Michigan State as a freshman.
“I remember playing Iowa, that was the last time I played here, I believe, with fans,” Dosunmu said. “I just remember that game, that atmosphere. I remember, me and Tyler (Underwood) were roommates my last year. I remember winning the Big Ten, making it to the tournament, all of those dreams, aspirations that I had through the thick and the thin when we were bad record-wise to last year when we were good. They all just raced back, so many different memories, different guys.”
More than four years ago, Ayo Dosunmu made a pledge to leave a legacy at his home-state school. He wanted to be the hero that brought Illinois basketball back to the top of the Big Ten, a place that it hadn’t been in more than a decade before his arrival. On Thursday night, he saw his jersey rise up to the rafters of State Farm Center — a symbol that will forever say Dosunmu’s legacy saved Illinois basketball.
“I don’t think I could have drawn out in the beginning of my recruitment, but to look back at it, the Jordan Brand store, the commitment I gave this university and to now look at the success I had, it’s crazy,” Dosunmu said. “It wasn’t easy, it was hard. It took a lot of mental toughness, adversity to overcome. But to look back at it now, and not just me, but this whole program did it collectively to get this program back to where it needed to be.”
