 |
| |
|
 |
 |
|
|
Posted: Thursday October 24, 2002 10:03 PM Updated: Thursday October 31, 2002 4:15 PM Illinois Fighting Illini
The following preview is provided by Blue Ribbon. For the most thorough preview available of the upcoming season, order the 2002-03 Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook, on sale now at 1-800-775-2518. Team Preview | Blue Ribbon Analysis
Illinois coach Bill Self was one game away from a third straight trip to the regional final, after taking Tulsa there in 2000 and the Illini in 2001. The 2001-02 season started with great promise, and a preseason ranking as high as No. 2 in the country in some polls. Road losses to No. 5 Maryland and No. 7 Arizona were the only blemishes on the Illini's non-conference schedule, which included winning the Las Vegas Invitational and an impressive 11-point win over No. 8 Missouri in St. Louis. But as usual, the Big Ten was a dogfight last year, and the Illini stumbled to a 4-5 start, including a four-game losing streak on the road. However, the senior-dominated team recovered to win its final seven conference games, sandwiched around a 10-point win at Seton Hall in February. Illinois reached a Big Ten Tournament semifinal for the fourth straight year, losing by six to eventual champion Ohio State, but still earned a No. 4 seeding in the NCAA Tournament. Two comfortable victories led to a berth in the Sweet 16, where No. 2 Kansas ended the Illini’s season with a 73-69 defeat -- a year after they had ended the Jayhawks' season in another Sweet 16 game. You can't talk about this year's Illini without first looking at what's missing. Last year's senior class went out in style, helping Illinois grab a share of the Big Ten regular-season title one year after winning it outright. They led the Illini to three straight NCAA Tournaments and reached the Sweet 16 in their last two seasons, averaging 22.3 wins per year during their stay in Champaign. And at home, they were nearly unbeatable, going 42-10 at Assembly Hall, including a 37-2 mark over the last three years.
The biggest hole to fill will be from a departed junior -- guard Frank Williams (16.2 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 4.4 apg), a two-time All-Big Ten first-teamer who was the conference player of the year as a sophomore. Williams was the first Illinois player since 1990 to be selected in the first round of the NBA draft when the Knicks took him at No. 26 last spring. Last season he led the team in scoring, assists and steals, finished second in defensive rebounds and hit 81 percent of his free throws. His backcourt mate was Corey Bradford (11.6 ppg, 3.1 rpg), a four-year starter who never reached his potential after averaging more than 15 points a game during his first two years at Illinois. A knee injury suffered before his junior season dogged him, and although he was able to play 32.4 minutes per game last year, he didn't completely rediscover his scoring touch. However, he did finish third on the Illinois career scoring leader list with 1,735 points. The Illini also must find replacements for three big men who took care of a lot of the dirty work inside. Gone are 6-foot-8 forward Lucas Johnson (3.8 ppg, 2.5 rpg), 6-foot-9 forward Damir Krupalija (7.0 ppg, 4.7 rpg) and 6-foot-11 center Robert Archibald (10.6 ppg, 5.5 rpg). Johnson and Krupalija struggled to stay healthy last year, each missing nearly half the season, while Archibald posted career-high numbers and finished second on the team in rebounding and fourth in scoring. But fresh off leading a Big Ten all-star team to a 4-1 trip through Europe this summer, Self is more concerned with the future than the past and is practically giddy with anticipation for the start of the post-Williams/Bradford/et. al. era. "This is the most excited I've been to coach a single season since I've been a head coach," Self said. "This team has terrific athleticism, a premier player in Brian Cook, and expectations are not as high as in the past two seasons. We have some good players who many people don't know are good players." One guy everybody knows about is this year's big man on campus, 6-foot-10 senior forward Cook (11.2 ppg, 6.1 rpg). The team's second leading scorer last year was a second-team All-Big Ten selection for the second straight year, thanks in large part to his multi-faceted game. Cook has a surprisingly soft touch for a player his size -- he led the Big Ten in conference games not only by hitting 92 percent of his free throws (46-for-50), but he also finished fourth in the conference in rebounding and blocked shots. He shot 51 percent from the field and came up big in the Illini's conference title-clinching game, scoring 22 points and grabbing 11 rebounds at Minnesota. Cook, who has the size to post up but the skill to take his man to the perimeter, is a candidate for preseason Big Ten Player of the Year honors, and the Illini offense will lean heavily on him. "The last two years we had a much more balanced group, where we would run the offense for the open man to take the open shot," Self said. "This year, every one of our players will look to Brian Cook to be the main point producer on the team. We'll run more through him than we have for any individual in the past." The only other players on the roster with starting experience are a pair of guards who split a job last year -- 6-foot-3 sophomore Luther Head (4.5 ppg, 2.9 rpg) made 13 starts, while 6-foot-3 senior Sean Harrington (6.4 ppg, 1.7 rpg) started 14 games. Head started 11 of the last 12 games and repaid his coaches with dynamic play in the NCAA Tournament, including 19 points in a first-round win over San Diego State and six assists in the loss to Kansas. He shot 51 percent from the field and finished second on the team with 34 steals. Harrington tied for second on the team with 87 assists and shot 40 percent from 3-point land. His 56 3-pointers were second on the team behind Bradford. He joined Self on the all-star tour of Europe and finished fourth on the team in scoring with 9.0 points per game, leading the squad with 12 3-pointers and a .444 percentage from behind the arc. With the departure of Bradford and Williams, his experience and outside shooting will be even more crucial to the Illini's success this year. The backcourt will be bolstered by a pair of newcomers, freshmen Dee Brown and Deron Williams, both of whom can play the point and shooting guard spots and were members of the 12-man USA Basketball Junior Men team that competed in Venezuela in July. The 5-foot-11 Brown, who played for Proviso East High School in Maywood, Ill., was Mr. Basketball in Illinois last year and a McDonald's All-American who's known as a "one-man fast break" after averaging 25.6 points, 5.5 assists and 2.9 steals as a senior. "He is as quick as anybody in the nation, can really handle the ball and is a great shooter," Self said. "Dee has point guard skills and a scorer's mentality." Williams, a 6-foot-3 Texas tornado, averaged 17.6 points, 8.4 assists, 6.1 boards and 2.6 steals last season for The Colony (Texas) High School. "Deron is a true point guard who has tremendous strength and size, along with great shooting ability," Self said. "Deron has point guard skills and is big enough to guard any of the perimeter positions. He has terrific court vision and a great ability to create scoring opportunities for his teammates." Self loves the versatility he has at the guard positions. "Head, Harrington, Brown and Williams give us four good perimeter players and flexibility at either of the guard spots or at wing," Self said. "Deron is big enough that we can often play three of them at the same time, while Luther and Dee are excellent ball hawkers who will allow us to extend our pressure farther up court." Providing additional depth in the backcourt are 6-foot-1 junior Jerrance Howard (1.0 ppg, 0.6 rpg) and 6-foot-5 junior Nick Huge, a walk-on transfer from Appalachian State. Senior Blandon Ferguson (2.2 ppg, 1.5 rpg), a 6-foot-4 swingman, played both guard and forward last year, starting seven games and displaying outstanding athleticism. Along the front line, 6-foot-6 sophomore forward Roger Powell (2.9 ppg, 1.8 rpg) and 7-foot-2 sophomore center Nick Smith (3.8 ppg, 2.2 rpg) will join Cook as the experienced big men on the squad. Powell saw limited duty last year but was the leading scorer on the Big Ten's all-star European tour, averaging 14 points, and he finished third on the team with 5.6 boards per game. Smith is the tallest player in Illinois history and the team's first 7-footer in more than a decade. Last year, as a red-shirt freshman, Smith hit double figures in scoring three times, including a season-high 17 against Loyola-Chicago, and he shot 54 percent from the field on the season. A trio of freshmen will also compete for playing time up front. Forward/center Aaron Spears, a 6-foot-9 product of Chicago's Dunbar High School, averaged 26 points and 12 boards as a senior and played in a number of national all-star games. He was a first-team All-State pick by the Chicago Sun-Times. "Aaron is a player who has worked extremely hard, both in the classroom and on the court," Self said. "He has gotten himself into excellent physical condition and has the frame that with strength training will be an even more physical force. Aaron can have an immediate impact on our program and continues to open the door to recruitment of Chicago-area players." Kyle Wilson, a 6-foot-8 forward Dallas Jesuit High, is more of a perimeter threat and says he patterns his game after Dirk Nowitzki. "He's got great size at 6-foot-8 and 230 pounds, which is Damir Krupalija-type size," Self said. "Kyle is an excellent shooter who can score in the paint and behind the arc. He's very versatile and can play both inside and outside." Forward James Augustine, a 6-foot-10 forward from Lincoln-Way High in Mokena, Ill., was a consensus Top 100 recruit who has impressed with his ability to run the court. "James can really shoot the ball and is a very good runner and jumper," Self said. "Right now he is more of a face-up post player who needs to develop a back-to-the-basket game, but he is a terrific prospect." Self is counting on the young frontcourt players to provide depth. "Nick Smith will have a leg up on the young guys, but Augustine, Spears, Wilson and Powell are all very competitive and definitely have an opportunity to contribute early in the season," Self said. A team that faces as much roster turnover as the Illini will have its work cut out for it heading into the season. Self has recruited a ton of talent, but it's young talent, and he'll have to rely on some inexperienced players to give him quality minutes this year if they want to compete for a third straight Big Ten title. Self knows he's got a number of versatile players, but the roster is thin overall. "This team is an interchangeable group that will allow us a lot of flexibility," he said. "Last year, injuries hurt us but didn't devastate us as a team. This year, we don't have enough Big Ten experience to play without our big guns over a long stretch of games as we did last year." Having a sure-fire first-team all-Big Ten player in Cook surely helps, but will it be enough to survive a non-conference schedule that includes North Carolina, Temple, Arkansas and Missouri, as well as what's sure to be another rugged year in a balanced Big Ten? Probably not, but it should be fun to watch as the next generation of Illinois stars get their feet wet.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
