Andrej Stojaković Powers Illinois to First Final Four Since 2005
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- Andrej Stojaković helped Illinois reach its first Final Four since 2005, where the No. 1-seeded Fighting Illini face No. 2 UConn on Saturday, and has scored 60 points off the bench across the team's four NCAA Tournament wins — including 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting against Iowa in the Elite Eight.
- The son of Peja Stojaković — one of only seven players in NBA history with 1,700+ made three-pointers while shooting above 40% — Andrej has carved out a completely opposite game, shooting 63% at the rim (1.14 points per possession per Synergy) and making just 20 total three-pointers this season.
- Andrej accepted a sixth-man role after suffering an ankle sprain in mid-February and is averaging 14.1 points per game off the bench over the last 11 games, more than he scored as a starter.
- A McDonald's All-American and top-20 recruit in the 247Sports rankings, Andrej played only one year of AAU basketball, instead training in Greece — where he was born in August 2004 during Peja's NBA peak — and starred at Jesuit High School in Carmichael, California, near Sacramento.
- Illinois has seven of its top eight rotational players who have made at least 25 three-pointers this season, and Andrej's rim-finishing role exploits the spacing that group creates, per CBS Sports.
- Peja Stojaković, a Sacramento Kings legend from the early-2000s heyday, has stayed out of the spotlight during his son's run, with family friend Drake U'u telling CBS Sports Peja 'wants this to be Andrej's show' — a stance Andrej said he appreciates.
Why it matters: Illinois is two wins from a first national title, and its Final Four run is being driven by a top-20 recruit who voluntarily took a bench role after injury and is thriving in it — producing 60 points across four tournament games despite making only 20 threes all year, the inverse of his Hall-of-Fame-father's identity. The stylistic contrast is also a roster-fit story: with seven of Illinois' top eight rotation players hitting 25+ threes, Andrej's 63% rim finishing is the counterpunch the spacing requires.
