There is a moment that tells you everything you need to know about Jake Davis. It was March 28, 2026. Illinois was playing Iowa in the Elite Eight in Houston, with a Final Four berth on the line. At the exact same time — in Indianapolis, Indiana — Davis's former school, Cathedral High School, was winning the Indiana Class 3A state basketball championship. Davis couldn't watch. He was in a locker room preparing to play the biggest game of his career. But when it was over, when Illinois had punched its ticket to the Final Four, Davis reached for his phone and texted Cathedral head coach Jason Delaney and some of the players to congratulate them on the title.
That is who Jake Davis is. A kid who wins state championships, then makes sure to call home when his old team wins one too.
Indiana Basketball Country — Born and Bred
McCordsville, Indiana sits northeast of Indianapolis, a suburb in Hancock County where Indiana basketball isn't just a sport — it's the way of life. Davis grew up in that environment, surrounded by a state that has produced more college basketball players per capita than almost anywhere in the country. In Indiana, if you can play, people find out. People talk. The gyms are packed on Friday nights and the best kids end up at schools like Cathedral, where the expectations are not just to make the playoffs but to compete for state titles.
Davis chose Cathedral. And Cathedral, as any Indiana sports fan will tell you, is not your average high school. It is a private Catholic institution on the east side of Indianapolis with more football state championship trophies than any school in Indiana history. The football program competes in Class 5A — two full classifications above its enrollment — because the IHSAA essentially had to move them up to give the other schools a fighting chance. The basketball program is equally decorated. The entire culture at Cathedral is built around winning at the highest level and preparing young men for what comes next.
🏆 Indianapolis Cathedral High School — A Championship Factory
Cathedral is one of the most decorated athletic programs in the state of Indiana. Their football team has more wins than any school in Indiana history. Their basketball program has produced state champions and Big Ten players for decades. Head coach Jason Delaney runs a program that Davis describes simply and perfectly:
5A State Champs
4A State Champs
3A State Champs
Championships Total
Two Sports. Two State Championships. One Kid.
Jake Davis is not just a basketball player. In the fall of 2020, Davis was a member of the Cathedral football team that won the IHSAA Class 5A State Championship. He was a freshman. A freshman. His first experience with high school athletics was standing in a state championship stadium with a trophy in his hands.
Then came basketball. Davis's junior year — the 2021-22 season — Cathedral won the Indiana Class 4A State Basketball Championship. Davis earned Underclassman All-State Honorable Mention that season and was a key part of a program that had the whole state watching. Two state title rings before his senior year of high school, across two different sports. That does not happen by accident. That happens when a kid has been raised the right way, chooses the right environment, and is willing to do the work every single day.
His senior year brought more honors — Academic All-State, Indianapolis Supreme 15 — though the team fell short of a third title, winning their sectional. A 4.21 weighted GPA alongside all of that. Indiana's best high school athletes are different, and Davis was among the best of them.
Mercer, the Transfer Portal, and Why Illinois Came Calling
Davis chose Mercer University for his freshman year — a solid mid-major program in Macon, Georgia where he could play immediately and develop. He delivered. Starting 25 of 33 games as a true freshman, averaging 9.0 points and 4.5 rebounds per game, and leading his team with 60 three-pointers on 38.7% shooting from deep. That kind of freshman production — consistent, efficient, starting-caliber — from an Indiana kid who could really shoot was exactly what Illinois assistant coach Tyler Underwood was looking for in the transfer portal.
Davis became the first recruit landed by Tyler Underwood after his hiring, with the full backing of head coach Brad Underwood. And Brad Underwood said something publicly about Davis that doesn't get said about just any player who walks through a door:
The Noah system measures shooting mechanics and release with scientific precision. The 99th percentile compared to NBA players is not hyperbole — that is an actual measurement of one of the purest shooting strokes in college basketball. Davis's quick release, his size as a 6-foot-6 wing, and his ability to get his shot off in catch-and-shoot situations from practically any angle makes him a weapon that defenses have to actively account for every second he is on the floor. Even when he is not scoring, he is making the game easier for everyone else around him.
What Davis Does for the Eastern European Core
This Illinois team is unlike any Illini team in recent memory in terms of its international composition. David Mirkovic and Andrej Stojakovic are Serbian. Tomislav Ivisic and Zvonimir Ivisic are Croatian brothers who grew up across the Adriatic from each other's hometowns. These are players who came to Champaign from countries where the culture, the language, the customs, and the rhythms of daily American life are genuinely foreign. The adjustment from Eastern Europe to the Big Ten — on and off the court — is real and significant.
The Chemistry Bridge
Jake Davis is one of the only true American-born wing players in Illinois's rotation. His role goes far beyond what shows up in a box score. He is a communication anchor for a group of Eastern European players who are still learning not just English but the specific vocabulary of American basketball — the calls, the language of Brad Underwood's system, the cultural shorthand that happens in a huddle during a timeout when everyone's heart rate is 160.
Davis spent a year at Mercer learning what it takes to compete in college basketball at the Division I level before arriving at Illinois. He understands what Mirkovic, Stojakovic, and the Ivisic brothers are going through as they adapt to a new country and a new standard of competition — and he provides consistency, warmth, and basketball IQ in the moments when those players need a reliable teammate most. Underwood himself noted that Davis "does everything that I ask" — that kind of coachability and communication is contagious in a locker room full of players still mastering the language the instructions are given in.
On the floor, his shooting stretches the defense in ways that directly benefit the interior scorers. When Davis is on the court, defenses cannot collapse entirely on Mirkovic in the post or sag off to help on Tomislav Ivisic in the paint — because leaving Davis open on the perimeter is leaving one of the 99th-percentile shooters in the country with a clean look. Every drive that Stojakovic makes, every offensive rebound that Mirkovic turns into a put-back, every dump-off pass that Tomislav Ivisic converts in the paint — all of it becomes easier because Jake Davis is standing 23 feet away making the defense think twice.
The Tournament Numbers — Doing the Dirty Work
Davis moved into the starting lineup in mid-January and has started every game since. In the four tournament games that brought Illinois to the Final Four, his stat lines don't jump off the page — but that's the point. He is not asked to jump off the page. He is asked to do exactly what Brad Underwood needs him to do in any given moment: space the floor, make his shot when it comes, crash the glass, defend his assignment, and make the game easier for the players around him.
Against Houston — the second-best defense in the country — Davis grabbed three offensive rebounds and hit a three-pointer on the way to 5 points, a block, and a 83.3% true shooting percentage. He was efficient and smart, doing exactly what Illinois needed against a defense built to deny guards clean looks. It's the kind of quiet, winning performance that never makes a highlight reel but absolutely shows up in the final score.
Coming Home — Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis
🏟️ "It's been a childhood dream. The fact that it's in Indianapolis is even better. It's a cherry on top for me."
— Jake Davis to WISH-TV, Indianapolis, April 2026
The Final Four is at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis — the same building where Davis grew up watching the Colts. When Illinois practiced at Lucas Oil on Thursday, Davis walked the floor and looked up into the stands to find the section where he used to sit with his family watching the Horseshoe play. He knows every corner of that building. Now he will play a Final Four game in it.
There is one more detail that makes this story almost too good to be true. Davis's opponent in the Final Four is UConn, whose freshman guard Braylon Mullins hit one of the most dramatic shots in recent tournament history — a near-halfcourt three-pointer to beat top-seeded Duke with 0.3 seconds remaining to send the Huskies to Indianapolis. Mullins is from Greenfield-Central High School, just east of Indianapolis. He grew up in Hancock County — the same county where Jake Davis grew up.
They played AAU basketball together. They grew up knowing each other. And now they will play in the Final Four together — on opposite sides of the court — in the city they both grew up in.
That quote tells you everything. In the middle of the biggest week of his basketball life, facing a player from his hometown on the biggest stage in college basketball, Davis's first instinct is to be genuinely happy for him. That is the Cathedral in him. Coach Delaney's voice — he prepares you to be a man — is audible in every word.
What Jake Davis Means to This Illinois Team
Brad Underwood has built something special in Champaign. The international players bring talent and skill that puts this team in a different category. Mirkovic's rebounding and shot-making. Stojakovic's efficiency and defense. Tomislav Ivisic's interior scoring. These are players who will almost certainly have professional basketball careers. They are the headliners.
But Jake Davis is the fabric. He is the thread that connects a locker room full of players from three different continents, in a basketball program that needed someone from Indiana's heartland to walk through the door and be exactly what he is: a winner, a communicator, a shooter who makes everyone else's job easier, and a 21-year-old kid who grew up dreaming of playing in Lucas Oil Stadium.
He won a football state championship as a freshman at Cathedral. He won a basketball state championship as a junior. He texted his old coach to congratulate him when Cathedral won another one while Jake was in the Elite Eight. He has a 4.21 GPA. He shoots in the 99th percentile of NBA players. He is the Big Ten Sportsmanship Award honoree. He moved into the starting lineup in January and Illinois hasn't lost since.
The kid from McCordsville is going to the Final Four. In Indianapolis. In the stadium where he watched the Colts grow up. Against a kid from his own county.
You cannot write a better story than this. 🔶🔵