The Illini were forced to confront one last demon before claiming a spot in this weekend’s Final Four. They had to face Arizona, which had upset Illinois in the regional final in 2001–the last time Illinois fielded a top-seeded, championship-caliber team. That Illinois team had size and experience up front in Brian Cook, Sergio McClain, and Robert Archibald and a skilled point guard in Frank Williams, but Arizona was simply tougher. Even though the Illini had a home crowd behind them this time at the Allstate Arena, the game progressed with a disturbing deja vu as a deeper, more athletic Arizona team took command.
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This season’s Illini have claimed all along they’re different, and they proved it in a game that was most reminiscent of the sixth game of the 1992 NBA finals, when the Bulls came from 15 back in the fourth quarter against the Portland Trail Blazers to win the only championship they’d clinch in the old Chicago Stadium. The Illini will determine this weekend whether they go down in history as a great team, but they already look the part, in that way great teams have of reflecting one another from sport to sport and year to year. Like last year’s NBA champs, the Detroit Pistons, the Illini are a team based on defense. But they resemble even more last year’s World Series champs, the Boston Red Sox, given their similar cursed histories. Like the Bosox, the Illini have had to overcome the forbidding expectations of even their most loyal fans; like the Bosox, the Illini are a team not of great athletes but of players unified in a way that’s emphasized their strengths and minimized their weaknesses. The 1989 Flying Illini were a far more athletic Final Four team, but the disparate talents of this season’s Illini uniquely suit one another.
The tall, thin center, James Augustine, won the opening tip in almost every game the Illini played this season, but he lacks the bulk one associates with centers and runs with a stiff-legged gait, like an old man in a bathrobe chasing the dog that’s carrying off his morning paper. He all but disappeared against Arizona, as Wildcats center Channing Frye and forward Hassan Adams chewed up the Illini inside, making a combined 20 of 27 shots; but he carried the Illini through the Big Ten tournament and the early rounds of the NCAAs. Illinois forward Roger Powell, known as “the Preacher” for being a genuine Bible-thumping Pentecostal minister, has been the meekest of the starters and the one most affected by pressure; but he played well in the early going against Arizona. He and Augustine were spelled throughout the game by Jack Ingram, the tough bench player with the fierce look of a Gary Oldman villain and a deceptively soft shooting touch.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Doug Benc–Getty Images.
