NORMAL \u2014 Ryan Pedon got together with his team for individual player meetings in the week before Illinois State held its first official practice for the 2025-26 men\u2019s college basketball season last month.<\/p>\n
The fourth-year Redbirds coach and former Illinois assistant didn\u2019t limit those meetings to his office. Or even Illinois State\u2019s home venue at CEFCU Arena.<\/p>\n
Pedon met with Ty Pence at a coffee shop in Normal the day before that first practice. Part of their discussion centered on how much had changed since Pence\u2019s freshman season.<\/p>\n
The former St. Joseph-Ogden standout arrived at Illinois State as key recruit in the Class of 2023. A top 10 player in the state and top 50 at his position nationally with a handful of power-conference offers. That made getting the 6-foot-6, 205-pound Pence to pick the Redbirds a big deal.<\/p>\n
What transpired that first season wasn\u2019t what Pence \u2014 or Illinois State \u2014 expected. He started once in 24 games as a true freshman and ultimately filled a small, inconsistent role off the bench as the Redbirds finished with a 15-17 record that included a first-round exit at the Missouri Valley Conference tournament and no postseason play.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis freshman year didn\u2019t go as he wanted, as he would have planned,\u201d Pedon said. \u201cIt showed so much character on his behalf and the people in his life and the people around him to stay the course. In this era, we all know, probably 95 percent of guys that didn\u2019t have a good season as a freshman and expected to do better would have gone straight to the portal. He didn\u2019t. To me, that defines him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sticking with it<\/p>\n
Pence avoided the transfer portal after the 2023-24 season, saw his role grow last season as a sophomore and now returns again for Illinois State an upperclassmen with leadership responsibilities on a team with real NCAA tournament expectations.<\/p>\n
The Redbirds were picked as the Missouri Valley Conference favorites, and Pence and Co. will get their first chance to test themselves at 2 p.m. Sunday in an exhibition against No. 17 Illinois at State Farm Center in Champaign.<\/p>\n
Pence can look back at his freshman season with some positive perspective. At least now. In the moment? It was tougher to deal with then.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things I\u2019m really thankful about the way my freshman year went,\u201d Pence said. \u201cThere were a lot of struggles, but it really taught me what I need to improve on and things I could learn from it. I think that\u2019s really helped me push to become the player I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pence had to learn how to fail after blitzing through a high school career that saw him earn All-State honors his final three seasons, win The News-Gazette\u2019s All-Area Player of the Year honor in 2023 and leave SJ-O as the Spartans\u2019 all-time leading scorer with 2,328 points. And he had to learn that it was OK to fail.<\/p>\n
Lessons he applied last season in a bigger role for Illinois State because he never considered leaving. That he never saw or felt Pedon waver in his support was a difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cThroughout that (freshman) year in the morning after almost every single game when I wasn\u2019t playing as much, he would come in here and work out with me,\u201d Pence said. \u201cThat\u2019s just something that\u2019s always stuck with me. It shows he cares about his players and he wants what\u2019s best for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always stuck with me and continued to push me. He never babied me in those situations and he always told me to stay with it and it would reward me in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having a support system<\/p>\n
Pence had the support of his teammates \u2014 and roommates \u2014 Chase Walker and Johnny Kinziger during that difficult freshman season. Those three have formed the core of Illinois State\u2019s preseason MVC favorites heading into this season, but two years ago, they were all new \u2014 all feeling out how they fit at the college level.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw everything from Ty (freshman year),\u201d said Kinzinger, a 5-11, 170-pound junior guard who averaged 14.6 points last season. \u201cIt didn\u2019t go as he planned. It didn\u2019t go as he hoped. He never flinched. He always kept an upbeat spirit and just came back every day working. It just shows who he really is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSuper positive, super resilient and a great teammate is how I would describe Ty,\u201d added Walker, a 6-9, 280-pound forward who averaged a team-high 15.2 points and 6.2 rebounds last season. \u201cHe\u2019s always there when I need him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The support he receives doesn\u2019t just come from those close to him at Illinois State. But also those from his hometown.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s such a great kid, and he\u2019s so easy to root for,\u201d said Brian Brooks, the SJ-O Superintendent and former Spartans boys\u2019 basketball coach. \u201cBeing the head coach here for 15 years, we had some good players, but we never had a player like him. You don\u2019t have a player like him at St. Joseph-Ogden very often. I don\u2019t know if people understand that. You just don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watching from afar these days, Brooks said Pence staying at Illinois State despite some early struggles speaks to the type of person Pence is.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something he should be super proud of is he\u2019s fought through the adversity and come up on the other side,\u201d Brooks said. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to play college basketball. You go from getting 20-plus shots a game in high school to maybe getting three or four in a college game, and people expect every one to go in, and if they don\u2019t go in, people think you\u2019re not any good. It\u2019s just tough to deal with. Most players today can\u2019t deal with the roller-coaster ride of not playing much one night and then playing a lot the next. He has. He\u2019s come out on the top side of it. I thought he had a great sophomore season, especially at the end. He\u2019s in line to have a phenomenal junior year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starting to break through<\/p>\n
Pence said the spring after his freshman season was where he decided to make the mental switch to not have a repeat performance in year two. That he wouldn\u2019t let it happen again. That he\u2019d put in the work required to get physically and mentally stronger.<\/p>\n
Pence returned for the 2024-25 season and was a part-time starter for Illinois State. He played in all 36 games, transitioning from a starting role early in the season to a primary role off the bench in mid-January. He was just as effective in both, averaging 7.4 points and 4.0 rebounds while shooting 52 percent from the field, 37 percent from three-point range and 83 percent from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n
Pence was even better in postseason play as Illinois State went 22-14 and won the College Basketball Invitational title. He earned all-tournament team honors during the Redbirds\u2019 run to a CBI championship and put up 14.3 points and 6.3 rebounds per game while shooting 61 percent overall and 57 percent from three-point range in three CBI games.<\/p>\n
\u201cLate in the season last year, I saw a different look in his eyes,\u201d Pedon said. \u201cI saw a competitive edge that was game-changing for us. \u2026 He\u2019s as good a teammate as I\u2019ve ever been around in 25 years. He has battled some tough times. He has never flinched. I\u2019m so proud of Ty Pence and the guy that he\u2019s become \u2014 not only the player. What you\u2019re seeing is a total maturation here on and off the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pence said the way he practiced between the end of the MVC tournament and CBI last season gave him a sense of how successful his how postseason run might be.<\/p>\n
That successful finish to his sophomore season propelled him into the offseason where he, and the rest of the Redbirds\u2019 returning players, decided to run it back and try to be the first Illinois State team to make the NCAA tournament since 1998. It\u2019s why Pence, Walker and Kinziger all chose another year together.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still all roommates,\u201d Pence said. \u201cThose two, those are my best friends. We\u2019ve been together since day one. We all push each other. It\u2019s crazy that we\u2019re already juniors. (Reaching the NCAA tournament is) a goal we\u2019ve put to ourselves since we got here. We hope we can get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NORMAL \u2014 Ryan Pedon got together with his team for individual player meetings in the week before Illinois…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":313245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,15347,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-313244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-illini-sports","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaabasketball","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115394874339662284","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}