John Groce has done everything but call him the Invisible Man.

You can’t always see fifth-year senior Sam McLaurin’s contributions on the stat sheet.

How do you put a price tag on menacing an opposing big man, establishing pinpoint position to alter shots or having a sixth sense for switching on defense?

Over this three-game stretch where Illinois has seemingly turned around its season after losing six of seven Big Ten games, McLaurin has, by Groce’s standards, been “ridiculously good.”

That much was evident during Wednesday’s press conference, when the Illini’s first-year men’s basketball coach wasn’t hiding praise for his big man.

“Sam had the highest grade out defensively of any player I’ve coached since we’ve been grading out the way we do, which would be six years, of a guy that’s played 20 or more minutes in a game,” Groce said of McLaurin’s performance against Minnesota.” The guys in the locker room (Tuesday), when we read that thing off, clapped for him, darn near gave him a standing ovation. That’s how good he was defensively.”

Then Thursday, as his fellow seniors stared down a Purdue team they had failed to defeat in seven tries, McLaurin pulled down three offensive boards, five total, and scored a quiet season-high eight points off mostly second-chance opportunities. The six-foot-eight McLaurin also drew the difficult task of guarding Boilermakers seven-foot center A.J. Hammons while Nnanna Egwu sat on the bench.

Hammons scored 10 points on the night, managing just four rebounds in 24 minutes.

One play in particular baffled Groce. Rarely does D.J. Richardson run into screens, but in the first half on Thursday he got picked, leaving D.J. Byrd wide open for a three.

“Sam comes out of nowhere and takes him!” Groce said after the game. “He just has such great awareness. He just sees things. It’s a gift.”

McLaurin doesn’t know the hurt of the Weber era. He’s the physical embodiment of Groce’s philosophy – the past is the past.

This summer, McLaurin saw the opportunity to fulfill one of his dreams by joining a top-tier college program. He’d accomplished nearly everything he could at Coastal Carolina, becoming the school’s leading shot blocker and reaching the top 10 in total rebounds. He found himself watching prime-time college basketball games on TV thinking he should be there. When Groce offered him the opportunity, he jumped at it.

He was quickly embraced by his teammates, given the “old man” nametag and elected as a captain, but his game took longer to assimilate.

McLaurin almost never took charges at Coastal Carolina. He didn’t have to. He was the school’s leader in blocked shots. 

With the physicality and size of the Big Ten, McLaurin had to change his game. He had to learn to grind out defensive possessions, use fundamentals to his advantage and lean off trying to make the show-stopping defensive plays he’d become accustomed to in the Big South conference.

Groce has constantly used the term “grade out” to describe how he evaluates players in game situations. Former Illini head coach Bruce Weber used the “Matto chart,” which awarded players points for their hustle plays. While Groce wouldn’t get into exactly what his philosophy entails, he said the bulk of it is preventing rebounds, avoiding easy layups or deep post catches, refraining from fouling and stepping out and defending at the catch on opponents’ 3-point opportunities.

Groce saw those qualities in McLaurin when he recruited him to Champaign, and Wednesday he said his fifth-year forward has lived up to his expectations.

“He has a physical disposition,” Groce said. “The guys on the team respect him. I mean, how could you not? He dives on the floor for loose balls, he takes charges, he never misses a screen and he very rarely if ever misses a blocked out.”

Illinois had 20 offensive rebounds against Purdue on Thursday. Eight of those came from guards. Who do you think cleared the lane?

“I just try to win, man,” McLaurin said. “That’s what I’m here for.”

That’s why, while others care about scoring, McLaurin is fine cleaning the mess. And his game around the basket has noticeably evolved since the early going of the nonconference schedule. He’s putting his shoulder down and moving toward the rim instead of accepting midrange jump shots. Well, that is except for two 3-point attempts he took in the Minnesota game, one of which he actually drilled for his first 3-pointer of the season. They were the first attempts from distance he had attempted since his freshman year in 2008-09 at Coastal Carolina.

“That was fun, man,” said McLaurin, laughing at the mere notion he’d joined his teammates as cold-blooded 3-point shooter. “They left me open. I’ve been working on them, me and Mike LaTulip, like every day, so I knocked it down. The second one felt good. It looked like it was going to go in for a second. It rattled around, but I got the one in.”

At his old school, McLaurin could only make his way into the tournament by winning his conference. That won’t be the case at Illinois, where every win now works toward building a resume that could truly make McLaurin’s final season of college basketball special. The Illini still need to grind out a few more wins to be safe, but luckily that’s McLaurin’s specialty.

“The stat sheet on him, in particular, doesn’t even come close to telling the story in terms of what he brings on the defensive end, how unselfish he is on the offensive end, the little things he does on the glass and how he screens,” Groce said. “He makes winning plays. Sam’s a winner.”

So much so, sometimes you wouldn’t even realize he’s there. He’s just fine with his role as the Invisible Man.

Ethan can be reached at [email protected] and @AsOfTheSky,