D.J. Richardson isn’t blind to the world around him.

He knows he hasn’t lived up to expectations since winning Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 2009-10. In fact, Richardson’s career has largely paralleled the team’s disappointing results over the past two seasons, and he’s admitted to getting frustrated and acting immature.

But in the early part of this season, Richardson has drawn possibly the highest praise of any player on the roster. Illini basketball coach John Groce said the senior guard has graded out the highest in preseason practices, and assistant coach Jamall Walker said Richardson is the most coachable player on the team.

All of that has a tendency to sound like preseason Kool-Aid, but if there is some encouragement that Richardson might have uncovered something to trend his career upward, it’s his honesty.

“I don’t think I really developed like I should have or needed to,” the senior guard said at Illinois basketball media day on Oct. 10. “I kind of went down. I kind of took some steps backward, but this is my last year. I kind of feel like where I’m at now, how I’ve been playing, this is kind of where I should have been at my sophomore year.”

Richardson built a reputation from behind the arc in his first season at Illinois — shooting 39 percent from three and averaging 10.5 points per game — but his averages steadily declined over the past two seasons, lowering to 35 percent on 3-point attempts last season. But last year was particularly difficult for Richardson because of a high fracture in his wrist that left him physically unable to shoot for part of the season. He was left in games for his defensive value, but opposing coaches would tell their players to “scoot back” because he was no longer seen as a threat on offense.

“His confidence probably dwindled but not his motivation,” said Marcus Fair, Richardson’s uncle and mentor. “He was always growing up used to being the star player, the best player through grade school and high school. It was an adjustment. Part of that is understanding there’s more things you can to do to help your teams win.”

Common misconception would say Richardson was a lights-out shooter in high school, but he was actually a slasher, whose No. 38 national ranking (according to Rivals) as a recruit was built mostly off his knack for getting to the basket. When he arrived at Illinois, his surprising 3-point accuracy was seen as his greatest asset and that became a role he couldn’t shake.

“There’s times in the season where I thought I was doing pretty good and I lost a little confidence,” Richardson said. “I just had to play my role. My role now has to be a lot more than just shooting. It’s going to happen in my senior year. It’s going to help the team, and also help my future career too.”

When the new Illini basketball staff arrived in Champaign, it was time to reevaluate Richardson’s game.

Walker was given the assignment, but he wanted Richardson to take ownership of his development. Instead of watching film, he asked Richardson what areas he felt he could improve, and Walker got an honest answer.

“Last year, being a one-dimensional player, being a shooter and a defender, I couldn’t shoot,” Richardson said. “Teams guarded me and sat back in the lane, basically trying to let me shoot.”

Walker and Groce saw the same thing. They mapped out a plan to transform Richardson’s game. Two-thirds of his half-hour individual workouts over the summer were spent on ball handling so he’d have the freedom to attack the basket more, thus opening up his shot and forcing defenders to play off of him.

Walker introduced the advantage drill — a pad drill so Richardson could get used to contact in the lane — where the senior dribbled through cones and changed speeds while Walker bumped him with a mat to try and throw off his lines.

“A lot of times in basketball, the guy who can get faster to the spot from point A to point B makes things happen,” Walker said. “You don’t need to have ‘AND1 Mixtape’ ball handling to get to where you want to be. We want to go straight lines. We want to play in straight lines. We don’t want to play with the ball.”

Richardson said he’d never done anything like the advantage drill before this summer, and he’s consistently praised Walker for the strides he’s made with his ball handling and coming off ball screens. All that work came to a head when the public got its first glimpse of the new and improved Richardson during the Illini’s Orange and Blue scrimmage on Oct. 22, when Richardson earned 10 trips to the charity stripe in 25 minutes of action.

“It’s because he was attacking the rim,” Groce said after the scrimmage. “Everybody knows he’s such a threat from behind the line, you have to close out on him and you have to take threes away or he’ll punish you. Now I think complimenting that with some dribble-drive game, and that’s never going to necessarily be his MO, but it needs to compliment his shooting.”

Keep in mind, it wasn’t always sunny skies and roses. Former Illini coach Bruce Weber and his staff always urged Richardson to attack the basket off the dribble, but Fair said his nephew wasn’t ready to listen. Richardson earned some nasty bruises in the early part of his career, and his body wasn’t ready for the beating it takes if you try and drive the lane in the Big Ten. Fair said Richardson’s body and mind had to mature before he could make strides in his game to become a more multi-dimensional.

“I just explained to him that he had to change the way he approaches the game,” said Fair, who speaks to his nephew about once a week during the season and three to four days a week in the off-season. “You can’t go blaming other people. You can’t blame coaches. You can’t blame teammates. Sometimes, you have to look in the mirror at yourself and you have to say what are some of the things you could do different. … He needed to learn how to listen better to the coach. You need to be able to provide whatever they need even if you don’t like it or don’t really agree with it. It doesn’t really matter. That’s what the coach wants you to do. We had to teach him how to be a better listener.”

Richardson was the prime example of a shooter that lost his confidence, and in basketball, that can be a death wish. The new coaching staff has revived that confidence.

The senior said he’s playing the best basketball of his life, and his game is completely different. He’s gained weight, adapted to the new system, earned the respect of his coaches, learned how to create his own shot and assumed the role of team captain after learning on the job from last year’s lone senior Sam Maniscalco. Richardson may not have developed the way he wanted to through his first three years, but he’s confident yet again that will change this season. He’s talked to former Illini legends Kenny Battle, Kendall Gill, Dee Brown and Stephen Bardo about their time in college, and he believes he know holds the cards to leave a similar legacy.

“I just went through struggles. I was getting frustrated. I was young,” Richardson said. “I hear from a lot of players who played here at the University of Illinois that ‘I wish I could come back and play basketball for one more year, two more years.’ Just from me hearing that from guys, even legends that played here, it’s just amazing. It speaks to how much I need to take advantage of my senior year.”

Ethan can be reached at asofsky1@ dailyillini.com and @asofthesky.