Unlike so many disappointing Chicago-area sports franchises in 2002, the University of Illinois men’s basketball team began the current season without high expectations. But the Fighting Illini then won their first eight games, infecting even the most cynical alumnus with visions not only of a third straight Big Ten title but also–dare I suggest it?–of reaching the NCAA Final Four. No sooner had the Illini raised hopes, however, than they surrendered their unbeaten record last Saturday in what amounted to their first real road test. It was a failure that didn’t compare with the full-season flops of the Bears, Cubs, and White Sox, but it brought the Chicago sports year to a fitting conclusion. And it was an early reason to fear that next year (now this year) might not offer anything different–not in the NCAA tournament in March nor in any other season.
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So this looked like a rebuilding year, with a team full of underclassmen. Self was soon starting three freshmen: forward James Augustine, out of south-suburban Lincoln-Way, and the guard tandem of Deron Williams from Texas and Dee Brown from west-suburban Proviso East. But the Illini came out strong, and as every other Big Ten team fell by the wayside–including Indiana in a bitter game with rival Kentucky–they kept winning. Here at the United Center they beat a downtrodden Temple that lacked coach John Chaney, out with pneumonia, and–while Indiana was losing to Kentucky–claimed their first prestigious win of the season, an 85-70 thrashing of Missouri, which entered the game likewise unbeaten, having been revived by former Duke assistant Quin Snyder. That win lifted the Illini to 8-0 and eventually to seventh in the national rankings. The key to their early success, agreed everyone up to and including Self, was the impressive play of Brown.
Listed at an even six feet tall, Brown doesn’t look that big, mainly because he affects the playground dress–baggy shorts, deceptively large white shoes with black trim, and relatively high white socks, higher than Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen used to wear, anyway–that’s been all the rage at the major colleges and in the NBA in recent years. Brown also sports a distinctive Nike headband, wearing it with the swoosh logo twisted a little so that it’s over his right eye rather than in the center of his forehead, which somehow gives the impression of a beret worn at a rakish tilt. He looks like a kid and he plays like a kid, all quicksilver quickness as he scoots across the court like a water bug; in short, he’s Allen Iverson without the tattoos, the firearms, and, of course, the attitude, which makes all the difference. He also has remarkable composure for a freshman, making him the closest thing the Illini have ever had to Isiah Thomas when he was at Indiana.
The dispiriting thing was the way the Illini lost track of Brown for an inexcusably large stretch of the second half, while Self’s array of defenses came off as irresolute rather than confounding. The Illini appear to lack bulk: between the slight sophomore center Smith and the tall, thin freshman Augustine–whose shaven head and chin beard give him a monkish look that befits his name–they may not have enough beef to combat the rough-and-tumble, three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust offenses of the Big Ten. Against Memphis, they needed bigger things from backup power forward Roger Powell, the sophomore from Joliet. Harrington and sophomore Manley product Luther Head were also nonfactors. When Harrington is hitting his shot and Head is coming confidently off the bench, the Illini make it look easy, which is what they did in the early rounds of last season’s NCAAs. Williams’s struggles at the line made him a liability at crunch time, and Cook’s disappearance in a big game was irksome. Yet he persevered to finish with 21 points, just above his season average, and Brown looked together–right up to his long, potentially game-tying last shot, which fell short. The Illini battled back each time they fell behind, and they said all the right things afterward about correcting mistakes and learning from defeat.
