By Stewart Mandel, SI.com

One Shining Moment

	James Augustine had a career-high 23 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to help Illinois advance to a matchup with Wisconsin-Milwaukee. AP

Illinois players opened up the local paper Saturday morning to find an amusing position-by-position breakdown of their second-round game against Nevada. The lone Illini player who wasn't given the edge: Forward James Augustine, who would be matched up against the Wolf Pack's All-America big man Nick Fazekas.

With two minutes left in the first half and the upset-minded ninth seed having just cut Illinois' lead to 27-25, point guard Deron Williams fed a dart pass to Augustine, who went up strong for a lay-up, got fouled by Nevada center Chad Bell, then hit his free throw to make it 30-25.

Over the last two minutes of the first half and the first of the second, Augustine would score nine of his team's 11 points as the top-ranked Illini opened up a 38-29 cushion. And nearly all were set up by the kind of picturesque motion offense Illinois displayed so well this season.

With less than a minute left before halftime, star guard Dee Brown dribbled patiently for about 25 seconds, began to drive, then, just as the Wolf Pack defense collapsed on him, dished to Augustine in the corner for a jumper to go up 34-27. Augustine then blocked Bell's shot at the other end just before the buzzer. Finally, following an Augustine steal just after halftime, Williams set up the half-court offense, drove, spun and dished to a streaking Augustine for the slam to build their biggest lead to date.

It was an avalanche from there, with the Illini going up by as much as 22, and Augustine was the unquestionable winner of his matchup with Fazekas, scoring a game and career-high 23 points, grabbing 10 rebounds and helping hold the Nevada star to 11 points on 5-of-20 shooting. Afterward he wasn't exactly bragging about it.

"The guards did a great job of getting me the ball, and Coach [Bruce] Weber drew some plays for me," was as much as he would say.

Nevertheless, between the efforts of Augustine and backup center Jack Ingram, who scored 12 points in 21 minutes, the Illini certainly helped diffuse the popular notion among their critics that their big men are their Achilles heel.

"That's why we're so much better than last year [when the Illini lost to Duke in the Sweet 16]," said Weber. "Our post players were a weakness last year. Now we can depend on them."

Player Who Impressed Me

There were any number of qualified candidates for the Illini, the most obvious being Augustine and Williams (who finished with 15 points and 10 assists), but the surprise star of the night was Ingram, who made six of his seven field-goal attempts and reached a career scoring high. In one first-half sequence, he hit a long jumper from the corner to put the Illini up 25-20, then on the next possession, stole the ball from Wolf Pack guard Kyle Shiloh, and, after Illinois had slowed it down for most of the shot clock, took a feed from Brown and went strong to the hoop for another bucket.

"He brings everything," Augustine said of Ingram. "He plays defense. He's an offensive threat and he hustles all the time. To score 12 points in [21] minutes, in a game like this, is a huge contribution."

Courtside Confidential

The Illini won comfortably despite All-America Brown missing all four of his shot attempts and scoring just two points (on garbage-time free throws). There was a reasonable explanation, though: Brown was suffering from a severe stomach ache that caused him to cramp up early in the game, then got drilled when he ran into a hard pick by Nevada's Kevinn Pinkney. "I didn't know where I was for about five minutes after that," he said. ... WAC player of the year Fazekas (21.4 points, 9.4 rebounds), a sophomore, has been considering a jump to the NBA this spring, but a nightmare tourney experience may force him to put those plans on hold. Perhaps bothered by the facemask he's had to wear to protect a broken nose he suffered late in the regular season, Fazekas shot just 3-of-14 in the first round against Texas and struggled to defend Longhorn big men Brad Buckman (Nevada coach Mark Fox actually replaced him with freshman Bell in the closing minutes), then followed it up with a 5-of-20 shooting performance Saturday. ... Brown, slumped in a locker room chair afterward, was asked if the Illini, who have their sights set on bigger goals, would bother celebrating their Sweet 16 berth. "Does it look like I'm celebrating?" he answered. "We can't celebrate until we cut down the nets." ... Illinois' next opponent, Cinderella Wisconsin-Milwaukee, will be the subject of two intriguing side stories this week. For one, it is Weber's alma mater, but also, Panthers coach Bruce Pearl is notorious among Illini followers for accusing Illinois of a recruiting violation involving future star Deron Thomas when Pearl was an assistant at Iowa in the late '80s. Pearl and longtime former Illini assistant Jimmy Collins are sworn enemies who are now opposing head coaches at Horizon League schools UWM and Illinois-Chicago. By league mandate, they do not shake hands before or after games.

Championship Formula

Whatever doubts the Illini created between the loss to Ohio State and their unimpressive first-round win over Fairleigh Dickinson, they erased with authority Saturday. Facing a potentially troubling matchup against a Nevada team that ranked among the top 10 nationally in field-goal percentage defense and rebounding margin, Illinois looked very much like the dominant team that made mincemeat out of the Big Ten all season -- despite getting a limited contribution from its most dynamic player, Brown. Their defensive intensity was as strong as it's been all season, holding the Wolf Pack to 37 percent shooting, and their motion offense looked just as picturesque as it did in January and February during a 21-6 second-half run. "When we get ball movement like that, we're hard to defend," said Brown.

Next up for Illinois in the quest for its first Final Four berth since 1989 will be 12th seed Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which on paper seems like a big break, but not if you've seen the Panthers play. Pearl's unique system of pressure defense and unrestrained 3-point shooting can wreak havoc on unsuspecting opponents, as it has Alabama and Boston College the first two rounds. However, Weber has faced it before, both as a longtime Purdue assistant facing Tom Davis' Iowa teams and against Pearl's Panthers themselves while at Southern Illinois. And perhaps just as important, the Illini will be playing their next two tournament games in their home away from home, Chicago (albeit DePaul's Allstate Arena rather than their usual venue, the United Center). The Orange Krush were already heavily represented in Indianapolis; just wait until next weekend. A potentially daunting Elite Eight matchup looms against Oklahoma State, but if the Illini play the way they did Saturday, it's hard to imagine them falling short of the Final Four, if not the championship game.