Thank You Seniors - Illini Pound UNLV

Well, I was half-right - UNLV did score 62 points on Friday night. But the Illini, led by Demetri McCamey and Mike Davis, dominated the Runnin' Rebels, putting up a lot more points than I expected in a not-as-close-as-the-final-score-indicated 73-62 win. I loved seeing the Illini beating the UNLV press consistently, resulting in a lot of easy fast-break buckets, as well as seeing DJ Richardson re-emerge, and Crandall Head and Meyers Leonard contribute.

A hearty Mazel Tov to Bruce Weber, who has finally won a tournament game at Illinois with his own players, and to the seniors, who won't have to wear the scarlet number "zero" (number of tournament wins) for the rest of their lives. And one more important fact - for only the second time since the NCAA tournament began seeding teams, the Illini beat a higher-seeded team.

The hill gets awfully steep in the next round. To have a chance to beat Kansas, Illinois will have to play the entire game like they played in the first half against UNLV. But for now, let's just enjoy this win.

OSKEE-WOW-WOW!

One Very Last Chance - Illinois vs. UNLV Preview

Last week, I wrote that the Big Ten tournament gave the Illinois senior class a chance to clean the slate and re-write their legacy. Of course, not only did they fail to clean the slate, but by staging a late-game collapse against Michigan they pretty much wrote the same legacy in permanent marker. However, the NCAA Tournament's selection committee was generous - by placing Illinois against #8 seed UNLV, they gave the Illini a fairly even shot to win their opening round game. The last group of 4-year players at Illinois to not win an NCAA tournament game graduated in 1980. Can this year's seniors take advantage of their chance to avoid that fate?

What to expect
Some things that jump out from looking at the profiles of UNLV and Illinois:

Both teams play tough defense, which isn't surprising considering who the coaches are. Lon Kruger's UNLV squad is 15th in the nation in defensive efficiency rating, while Bruce Weber's Illini are 23rd. The two teams are virtually identical in effective field goal percentage defense - UNLV is 26th in the nation; Illinois is a hair behind (27th). One red flag - UNLV is 17th in the nation in turnover percentage, but Illinois is 259th. This may give the Runnin' Rebels an edge by allowing them to pick up some easy points, which could be crucial in a game in which points will likely be hard to come by.

On offense, the teams couldn't be more different. Illinois, for better or worse, is a team that relies on jump-shooting. This results in the team not getting many opportunities at the foul line - the Illini are 334th (out of 345 teams) in the country in percentage of points per game from free throws. UNLV is pretty much the opposite of Illinois. They don't rely on perimeter shooting, as they are only 276th in the country in percentage points received from 3-point shots. However, they do get to the foul line significantly more often than Illinois does, and again, in a close game with tough defense those easy points could become a factor.

How I see it
The good news - I don't think we'll see a late-game collapse like in last week's Michigan game. The bad news - that's because I don't think Illinois will be able to pull away from UNLV for long enough to build a twelve-point lead. This one could very well shape up like the Illini's game at East Lansing last month. That was a tight game throughout, with neither team getting a significant advantage at any point, and the game was tied with four minutes left. But in those final minutes, Michigan State made plays, Illinois didn't, and the Spartans won.

I see a similar flow to this one, with the game being within one possession or even tied coming out of the final TV timeout. Unfortunately, at that point the Illini will go into one of their patented offensive dry spells while UNLV will make enough plays, including drawing a few fouls and sinking some key free throws, to survive and advance. And, sadly, our NCAA tournament drought will reach five years.

UNLV 62

Illini 57

Sad News for ex-Cub Luis Salazar

Last week, ex-Cub Luis Salazar, now a minor league manager in the Braves organization, was hit in the face by a batted ball while standing in the dugout during a spring training game. Unfortunately, as a result of this incident, Salazar will lose his eye. The "good" news is that he's OK otherwise and will be able to resume managing after a short recovery period.

Aside from giving everyone a chance to remember to be thankful for what we have, this news also gives me a chance to remember a happier time in Salazar's (and my) life. The date - September 9, 1989. The situation - Cubs vs. Cardinals at Wrigley Field, with the Cubs clinging to a half-game first place lead over St. Louis. The Cubs trailed 2-1 late, but with first place in the balance, Salazar would drive in the tying run in the 8th inning and then the winning run in the 10th inning, and the Cubs would never relinquish first place for the rest of the season. Watching Andre Dawson score the winning run (see below) remains one of my all-time favorite Cubs moments. Thank you, Luis Salazar, for this great memory, and best of luck to you in your recovery.

Beep, Beep, Beep - Illini Back Their Way into NCAA Tournament

I've got to hand it to Bruce Weber - he's brought excitement back to Illini basketball. No, not on the court excitement - the team is as painful to watch as ever, and their offense in the final minutes of a game still runs like a clogged toilet. I'm talking about Selection Sunday excitement: being on the bubble, not knowing if/when we'll see our team's name displayed, watching half the brackets go by before finally getting the word that we've made the NCAA Tournament. That sure gets the blood pumping and the endorphins racing!

It's nice to know that a team with a .500 conference record, a team that didn't win back-to-back games even once over the final two months of the season, and a team that lost its conference tournament opener after blowing a 12-point lead (yes - this all refers to the same team) can not only "earn" a bid to the NCAA Tournament, but can get a #9 seed and avoid one of the new "play-in" games. So thanks to a really soft bubble and that win over North Carolina in November, I guess Ron Guenther has an excuse to not fire Bruce Weber. In fact, we can probably look forward to Weber getting a raise and/or contract extension for his "accomplishments" after this season ends.

As for the game itself, I'll have a preview of the UNLV Runnin' Rebels later, since I'll admit that I don't know too much about them. What I do know is that in the coaching department, the Illini will be at a severe disadvantage going up against Lon Kruger. I think a paraphrase of James T. Smith says it best: pitting Weber's coaching skills against Kruger's is like going against an army with a handgun. At least we won't be playing a true road game in the NIT like last year, and we'll have a chance to end our five-year NCAA tournament victory drought.

Illini Basketball - Marginally Relevant since 2006!

The Camel's Back is Broken - Fire Bruce Weber

There - I've said it. After Friday's loss to Michigan, the Bruce Weber era should be over, NCAA tournament appearance or not. Yes, of course it's the players who lost the game, say the Weber supporters - Weber didn't miss shots, or play bad defense, or allow the Wolverines to end the game on a 21-4 run after the Illini took a 12-point lead with about eight minutes to go. But how come the same thing happened at the end of the 2006 NCAA tournament loss to Washington, and at the end of the 2007 NCAA tournament loss to Virginia Tech? How come the players keep changing, but the team keeps choking away big leads? The only constant is Weber - he takes whatever talent he has and has them playing so tight that they are unable to execute down the stretch of tight games.

Yes, we might still make the NCAA tournament, but does this team deserve it? And does anyone (besides our potential first-round opponent and their fans) really want to see this Illini team play another meaningful game? And are things going to be better next year, when we'll have no seniors, no proven point guard or big men, and when too many of the "great recruits" we've already brought in have regressed (Richardson) or are basically invisible (Griffey, Head, Bertrand)? It's one thing watching ugly, boring basketball when the team wins (see 2008-09), but now we aren't even winning. The only way things are going to improve is by bringing in some fresh blood at the top. I wouldn't worry about losing our incoming recruits - they'd probably welcome the chance to play for a coach who might actually let them, you know, play.

Bottom line - Bruce Weber inherited a program that was on a par with Michigan State, and now we've fallen so far that we're even behind Michigan (to say nothing of Purdue, Ohio State, and Wisconsin). We're pretty much in the same boat with Minnesota, Penn State, and Northwestern - the "S.S. At Least We Aren't Indiana or Iowa". Our Big Ten record the last five years (44-44) is identical to the last five years of the Lou Henson era (45-45), only without the crippling NCAA sanctions. If not for the extra three NCAA tournament berths this year, we'd be in danger of missing the NCAA tournament for the third time in four years - and we might miss the tournament anyway.

Enough is enough. It's time to fire Bruce Weber.

The Fighting Illini and the Tabula Rasa

It's been a disappointing regular season for the Illini basketball team, as so much more was expected from them than "they'll probably make the NCAA tournament even if they lose their first Big Ten Tournament game". But with said Big Ten Tournament opener at hand, the team has a chance to clean the slate and re-write their legacy. A win today would, in fact, guarantee a spot in the NCAA tournament - it would get the team to 20 wins, and, perhaps more importantly, give them a second win over Michigan which would make it impossible for the Wolverines to get ahead of the Illini in the eyes of the NCAA tournament selection committee. We certainly don't want to see a repeat of last year, when Minnesota went on a run to the Big Ten Tournament championship game and essentially stole our spot in the NCAA tournament. Let's hope the team remembers that and takes care of business.

As I wrote before, Michigan has been playing well of late and really should have beaten the Illini in Champaign last month. Illinois, on the other hand, still hasn't won back-to-back games since the first week of January, so even coming off an impressive thrashing of Indiana, beating the Wolverines on a neutral floor is not going to be easy for the Illini. But for now, I'm going to skip any analysis, criticism, and predictions, and just jump in and cheer. I'd like to ask all Illini fans - however you feel about this team, the seniors, and Bruce Weber - to do the same, at least until the season's over.

Go Illini!

EDIT: So much for a clean slate. For the second year in a row, we'll be sweating out selection Sunday. A picture's worth a thousand words, but we only need one word to describe Illinois basketball:

Illini-Purdue: Not Exactly a Recap

There's not much need to rehash Tuesday night's Illinois loss at Purdue. It was the Boilermakers' Senior Night, and they are tough at Mackey Arena (16-0), so it's not a shock that the Illini came close and lost. Instead of focusing on the micro level, I'd rather take this opportunity to focus on the macro level.

When Matt Painter took over as head coach at Purdue, he inherited a mess. In Gene Keady's final season, the Boilermakers lost 21 games. However, in Painter's second season - in the year before his highly-touted recruiting class (Hummell, Johnson, and Moore) arrived in West Lafayette - he guided Purdue to the NCAA tournament and even won a game. And of course, things have only improved for Purdue since.

Contrast that story with Painter's former boss. Despite being in year two of the "Weber Can Recruit" era (two-thirds of Weber's highly-touted recruits already on campus), the Illini find themselves in a familiar position: kicking around the .500 mark in conference. If they beat Indiana on Saturday to get to 9-9, their overall Big Ten record in the five years since Dee Brown and James Augustine graduated will be exactly .500 (44 wins and 44 losses). For the fourth time in five years, the Illini will enter the Big Ten tournament needing to win a game to be sure of getting an NCAA tournament bid. And next year we can expect more of the same (if not worse), since four seniors are departing and only five players on the 2011-12 roster will have played any meaningful minutes in their Illini careers.

To summarize: Matt Painter needed only two years to reverse a horrible situation at Purdue; he started doing so before his best players arrived; and he's kept the arrow pointing upwards over the last four years. Even if we gloss over the fact that Bruce Weber didn't inherit the situation he's in - he created it - he's now had two years with more talented players on hand, and the program still shows no signs of progress. So how much more time does Weber get to turn the Illini program around? My two cents: if it hasn't happened by now, it's looking less and less likely that it's ever going to happen.