CHAMPAIGN (WCIA) — Illinois sophomore Luke Goode is available to play at Iowa after practicing on Thursday, Illini head coach Brad Underwood said on Friday morning before the team left for Iowa City. Goode has missed three-plus months with a foot injury, after getting hurt in the team’s ‘secret scrimmage’ before the season against Kansas on Oct. 22.

“As expected he looked good,” Illinois head coach Brad Underwood said about Goode during his first full practice with the team. “He was having to take himself out of practice cause we went up and down quite a bit yesterday and he was trying to find oxygen but looked really good and competed really hard. Today will be another day and he’ll be in uniform tomorrow and we’ll see what that looks like. We’re not going to put him out there in long stints, that definitely won’t happen. His oxygen is not there yet and conditioning but that will come with time.”

Underwood said earlier this season Goode “was a projected starter” for the Illini, after the wing played in 28 games as a freshman last year. The Fort Wayne, Indiana native averaged 2.0 points and 1.8 rebounds per game in his first year of college ball, shooting 37 percent from 3, making 16 of his 43 attempts from beyond the arc.

“Luke is a tremendous leader,” Illinois freshman wing Ty Rodgers said. “He’s really vocal and obviously he’s a great shooter but what helps this team a lot is his leadership. It’s off the charts how much he talks and communicates and even his first day back at practice yesterday, you could just tell so much how it helped us.”

Illinois and Iowa tip-off at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in a nationally televised game on FOX.