Zvonimir Ivisic hopes the third time will be the charm. The third-year college basketball center added more than 25 pounds of muscle to his frame over the last four months at Illinois.
He looks significantly stronger than he did a year ago but it did not really help to beef up his appearance.
Ivisc, known to most college basketball fans as Big Z, perhaps most notably spent a lot of time in the sun since his arrival to Champaign. His next focus should be on his chest.
How did Zvonimir Ivisic get to Illinois?
Ivisic was born in Vitez, Bosnia and Herzegovina and moved to Sibenik, Croatia when he was 14 years old. He played three years of professional basketball in Montenegro and Yugoslavia from 2020 to 2023.
At 7-foot-2, Big Z ultimately committed to play for John Calipari at Kentucky in the recruiting Class of 2023 after deciding to withdrawal from the NBA Draft pool on two separate occasions. It took more than half of the year for him to be declared as eligible, which ultimately led him to dunk all over the NCAA during the most exciting debut in college basketball history.
Zvonimir Ivisic decided to follow coach Cal to Arkansas after his freshman season. He averaged 8.5 points and 4.3 rebounds in 19.1 minutes per game as a sophomore but did not stick around.
The rising junior reentered the transfer portal at the end of March and signed with Illinois in April. His twin brother Tomislav is already on the team.
Hit the weight room!
Illini strength and conditioning coach Adam Fletcher got Zvonimir Ivisic in the gym as soon as he arrived to campus. He added 27 pounds to his frame over the last four months to tip the scale at 272.
Don’t get me wrong. Fletcher and his staff saw pretty significant gains with a number of his players.
Big Z is very clearly in much better shape today than he was at Arkansas or Kentucky. However, the before/after picture bears a striking resemblance to the Alex Jones meme.
Never forget Alex Jones once posted before and after pictures to sell a supplement in which he barely changed but just got redder
byu/i_am_bartman infacepalm
Ivisic’s physique looks pretty much the same outside of a nice tan and some added definition. You cannot deny his progress but his next focus should be on the chest press.
I’d be lying if I said Zvonimir Ivisic did not transform his body upon arrival to Illinois. I would also be lying if I said the added muscle will help to take his game to the next level. Big Z does not like the paint. Until he can learn to love the space under the basket and how to use his muscle, it won’t matter.
If both of those things can come together at the same time, then the Big Ten might have a problem!