INDIANAPOLIS — When the clock hit zero, Illinois senior forward Ben Humrichous dropped to a squat and bowed his head. Freshman guard Keaton Wagler looked back toward his team’s bench as UConn celebrated its 72-61 national semifinal win over the Illini, and he saw Humrichous having a private moment.

“When I saw that, the tears started going down my face super fast,” Wagler said.

Then a funny thing happened.

As the Illini walked off the Final Four court Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium, the mass of orange-clad fans gave their team one last goodbye.

“It didn’t feel like we lost, honestly,” wing Andrej Stojaković said. “Obviously you understand that the game’s over and you lost. But the way how loud it was, the way they looked at you, clapping for you, yelling for you, it’s truly special how many people came out to support us.”

The emotions were evident in the locker room afterward. Coach Brad Underwood, a onetime community college coach who just carried his “dream job” program to college basketball’s biggest stage, was in tears.

He was far from the only one.

Asked about this season, Humrichous — a senior who grew up 50 miles from Lucas Oil Stadium — was puffy-eyed as he described this team.

“It was a joy,” Humrichous said, seemingly at a loss for words. “It was a joy.”

In reaching the Final Four, this Illinois team did something the program hadn’t done in 21 years. Building a sustained winner in college basketball is harder than it has ever been when players can transfer after every season and teams are competing for players with cold, hard cash.

But Underwood has this program reaching higher than it has in two decades. This year’s team, with a collection of European talent, a freshman phenom in Wagler and various other misfit parts who transferred in over the last two years — it was a unique group. Underwood has learned to gel personalities and playing styles with the best of them.

“It sometimes takes a little time and there’s a loss or two in there,” Underwood said. “But when you’ve got a staff who works as hard as we do and every single one of them is in tears, they’re invested, and they’re invested for the right things. So we’ll be back.”

The coach firmly believes his program will be back on college basketball’s biggest stage.

Two years ago, Champaign, Ill., native Kylan Boswell needed a fresh start after two seasons at Arizona.

“I needed to (expletive) leave Arizona,” Boswell said. “Excuse my language. I could not stay there anymore and I needed to surround myself with a situation that’s — just different people, a fresh start.”

Born 14 days after the Illini lost to North Carolina in the 2005 national championship game, he understood as well as anyone on this roster what the Final Four means to this program and its fans. His journey back home was far from the only story of a player just trying to find a home.

Humrichous worked his way up from NAIA ball at Huntington University in northern Indiana. Stojaković was at his third school in three years and just wanted a place he could call home. The “Balkan Five” were all looking for somewhere to make their mark in America.

There was no guarantee this collection of players would gel at all, let alone at the exact right time.

“That’s what this thing’s about, it’s meshing personalities,” Underwood said. “Putting the pieces of the puzzle together, that’s my challenge. We can work on X’s and O’s and all that, but meshing personalities is why our staff is so good.”

The sea of fans in orange who gave this team a standing ovation as it walked off the court understood that this group, with all its quirks and personalities, will never step foot on the court together again.

It’s no surprise given the proximity between Indianapolis and Champaign, but of the four teams competing Saturday night, Illinois had by far the largest and loudest crowd of the 72,111 in attendance.

UConn outplayed the Illini for much of the night. The Huskies were the better team Saturday and they will compete for their third national championship in four years Monday against Michigan.

But the Illini leave Indianapolis with few regrets, other than the result of the game.

“I think we were just a lot of fun,” Humrichous said. “This was a team that was really easy to celebrate from the outside as people got to know us and the gift that each and every one of my teammates were. We were just special.

“Everybody talks about creating a legacy. People remember the 2005 team. Now they’re going to remember the 2026 team. That’s an honor and a joy.”

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