Terrence Shannon Jr. comps to LeBron James aside, the emerging key for Illinois is big man Dain Dainja

OMAHA, Neb. — Illinois has Terrence Shannon Jr., who has averaged more points per game this season (23.1) than any player in the NCAA Tournament aside from Purdue’s Zach Edey. No one on the planet is hotter than Shannon, who was born in Chicago and played at Lincoln Park. He has averaged 30.6 over his last five games, dominating the Big Ten tournament as well as Morehead State in the opening round of the Big Dance. Despite missing six games in late December and early January while suspended, Shannon even managed to break the school’s 58-year-old single-season scoring record.

So, you know, top that.

Uh-oh — maybe Duquesne, the Illini’s second-round opponent at 7:40 p.m. Saturday, can. The 11th-seeded Dukes (25-11) have none other than LeBron James on their side. James played high school ball for Dukes coach Keith Dambrot at St. Vincent-St. Mary in Akron, Ohio, and has equipped Dambrot’s squad with gear and is cheering for them on social media.

Advantage, whom?

“Well, it would be better if [James] was on our team,” Dambrot said. “Then we might have a little bit of an advantage, right? He would be hard to deal with.”

At 6-6, 225, Shannon, a relentless left-handed driver and finisher, is so powerful that he might be the closest thing in this tournament to James himself. No, we’re not talking very close at all here, people — come on — but it’s all relative.

“He’s a big challenge,” Dambrot said. “He reminds me of LeBron in the open court. Thankfully not quite as good as LeBron, but pretty good.”

Dambrot, now 65 — and retiring at season’s end — isn’t the type to lavish opposing players and teams with outsize praise in the Lou Holtz-ian way that many coaches do. That’s why his analysis of third-seeded Illinois (27-8) is enlightening. If the offensively supercharged Illini were playing lately in the manner they did for most of the season, with Coleman Hawkins as a pick-and-pop five and true post man Dain Dainja rooted to the bench, Dambrot wouldn’t regard them as a national-championship contender. But with Dainja blowing up in March, it’s a different deal.

“You have to have somebody dominating that can score the ball inside at times,” Dambrot said.

Illini coach Brad Underwood might not agree — “We posed a lot of people problems with a pick-and-pop five, so I don’t know,” he said — but he has leaned heavily on the 6-9, 269-pound Dainja in three of the last four games and almost certainly will again on Saturday. Dainja has averaged a meager 10.5 minutes this season, about half what Luke Goode and Justin Harmon average off the bench and half what Dainja himself averaged last season, when he started 21 games. But he was in the 20s when he kick-started the Illini’s Big Ten run with 18 points against Ohio State and again against Morehead State, which he pounded for 21.

“I know I can play,” Dainja said.

Dainja, too, was born in Chicago, though he grew up in the Twin Cities — his father played at Minnesota — where he blossomed into a four-star recruit and signed with Baylor. He was an 18-year-old redshirt when the Bears, one of the oldest teams in the country — and by far the toughest — blew down the doors to a national title in 2021. Surviving practices with that team, which out-everythinged an outstanding Illini squad in an 82-69 early-season game, was an adventure in itself.

“Those guys were winners,” Dainja said. “They brought it every day. The way they practiced, the way we practiced — all the time — everybody knew we were a championship team.”

That stacked team had an absolutely stellar bench that included former Illini Matthew Mayer and Houston’s current leading scorer, L.J. Cryer. Dainja, now 21 and a redshirt junior, is similarly impressed by the quality on the Illini bench, of which he might well be the biggest part.

“We’ve got guys who come off the bench who easily could go somewhere else and play and be a starter,” he said. “But this is a big depth team, and I feel like we can make a run because of it.”

It’s clear Underwood has questioned Dainja’s fit this season. Perhaps the coach still does. But he can’t turn away from Dainja now.

“Dain has handled his situation as well as anybody I’ve ever seen in terms of just being a prepared teammate, continuing to work hard,” Underwood said.

In practice, nobody on the Illini can tangle with Dainja successfully on the inside.

“Nope,” starting forward Quincy Guerrier said. “He’s just too strong.”

Now, it’s happening in games. It could be the key to Illinois’ postseason.