As of right now the Illinois Men's basketball team is 6-1. Being the homer that I am, I always think the Illini will be solid and compete for a Big Ten title. I took a lot of flack last year as I predicted a 25 win season for Illinois. Here is my outlook for the rest of the non-conference season.
At the beginning of the season I though that Illinois would finish 9-4 or at best 10-3. This predicition was based on loses to Clemson, Mizzou, Texas A&M ( who we didn't have to play) and Vanderbilt. Now that we have taken care of Vandy, Tulsa instead of A&M, we are poised to finish at least 11-2. I know that is taking a lot for granted, since last year we lost to Miami (OH) and Tennessee State at home, but this is not last years team.
This years team has 3 players averaging over 10 points, with Demitri McCamey continuing his late season success, he is hitting big time 3's and hitting some mid-range jumpers also. Trent Meacham was shooting over 60% from 3 before his 0-4 against Clemson, and is actually taking people off the dribble when they over play him on his outside shot. The difference this year though has been Mike Davis. Davis was made to play in Bruce Weber's motion offense. The touch he has on mid-range jumpers is outstanding, and against Clemson he ran the floor better than any big man I have seen at Illinois. He has the baseline jumper that made Warren Carter a star his senior season, and is developing a back to the basket game because he is long and more athletic than most people who are guarding him. If you look at Mike's game, pretty much every shot he takes in uncontested because he moves so well inside the 3 point line. Add to this a senior leader who is completely selfless in Chester Frazier and you have the makings of a solid basketball team.
Chester Frazier is going to go down in history as my favorite Illini. Not favorite basketball player, but favorite Illini. Here is a recap of what Chester has had to deal with: First he came in and had fill the shoes of the most liked Illini and Sporting News Player of the Year in Dee Brown. Next he played hurt pretty much his entire career. He had to deal with his roommate and best friend almost killing another teammate in a drunk driving accident. Then he had to watch as that roommate got suspended for a year and then blew his second chance and got kicked off the team. Add to this the death of his father in April of 2007 after he had been diagnosed with lung cancer just 2 months before. Beyond this he had to deal with fans screaming for him to be benched for being a liability on offense. Chester could have easily folded, let Demitri McCamey take his starting spot, and ride through his scholarship and move on, or as he considered, leave the team and move back to inner-city Baltimore.
Instead Chester has fought hard to battle through all of this crap and now he is 3rd in the nation in assists per game, and has a 4 to 1 assist to turnover ratio. Along with this he has been the illini's best defender the past 3 years. (If you think Brian Randle was, you are an idiot) During off-season workouts, when coaches can't be around, Chester created workouts for all of his teammates and made sure that they got to the gym and got better. Watching this team and how well they play together and fight during games I can't help but think that they are following the lead of Chester Frazier. In the Kent State game, when the Illini were playing like crap and looked like they were about to lose, a hurt Chester dove into the stands for a loose ball and motivated his team to play for a win. As Mike Davis put it " That save, that changed the game right there, i don't think they wanted to play anymore after that save."
So the rest of the non-conference stacks up like this:
Georgia (5-2) - Lost to Loyola Chicago by 19 at home, they also only beat 1-6 Eastern Michigan by 1. They did stay close in a lose to Western Kentucky who knocked of Louisville by 14 at home. They have a stud freshman who was a top 30 recruit, but lost their leading scorer, rebounder, assist man, and steals leader from last year. They are young, and not very good, but last year they did win 4 games in 3 days during the SEC tournament to win the automatic bid for the NCAA tournament. They had to beat Kentucky in the morning and turnaround and beat Mississippi State that night because a tornado ripped through the Georgia Dome and postponed their game with Kentucky. Their guard play is extremely inexperienced since Sundiata Gaines who led the team in everything graduated, a Sophomore guard got kicked off, and a SF transferred. Of their guards that play over 20 minutes a game, 2 are Freshman, one is a Sophomore who only averaged 4 points a game last year, and a Senior who as a Junior played only 13 minutes a game and scored 3 points a game. This better be a win.
Hawaii at home (3-2) - Hawaii has lost to San Francisco and Cal State Fullerton at home where they are normally hard to beat. This is Hawaii's first road game, and they average 70 points a game, but average only 11 assists a game, and 19 turnovers
Chicago State at home (3-3) Chicago State lost to Marquette by 20 and Northern Iowa and Mercer by 11. They actually have played pretty well, and this other than the Mizzou game scares me because this is a team that can hang around and make it tough for Illinois.
Detroit at home (2-4) Detroit lost to Purdue by 30, Depaul and Milwaukee by 9. Their head coach is Ray McCallum who some of you might remember as one of the assistants who got canned from Indiana last year. There was a little bit of controversy as Eli Homan asked to transfer from Indiana after he threw a plant in new head coach Tom Crean's office and had to be escorted out by security. His reason for leaving was that he wanted to go closer to home which is California, then he went to Detroit. I feel that anyone who was involved with Indiana last year is a scumbag, and McCallum is included in that. Either way I think that the Illini should stick it to any person that was involved with Indiana's program last year. Yes I am still bitter and screw Indiana. This is also the debut of Alex Legion for the Illini, so it will be interesting to see how he plays, and also how much he plays.
Missouri in St. Louis (6-1) - Mizzou has only lost @ no. 14 Xavier by 4. They beat USC when they were ranked. They are led by 3 seniors in DeMarre Carrol, Leo Lyons, and Matt Lawrence. Carrol and Lyons are post players, while Lawrence is basically a 3 point shooting guard. These 3 are collectively averaging about 45 points, and are playing really well. Add to this that Illinois has beaten Mizzou in the Braggin Rights game I believe the last 8 years, so this is going to be one of the hardest games that we will play all year. Having Alex Legion will help a ton because Mizzou plays a "40 minutes of Hell" style where they press the entire game. This is the same style that Clemson played, and having an extra guard who can handle and shoot will help enormously. I don't want to bag on Jeff Jordan, but he was a liability when he was in during the Clemson game, and Legion should take care of that problem. If we can break the press like we did against Clemson, then I think we have a shot, but our interior defense is going to have it's hands full, and we are going to need a lot more out of Mike Tisdale. Hopefully the games before this can allow Dominique Keller to get a little more comfortable in the system. Also he should be getting better on defense which we are going to need to deal with Carrol.
Eastern Michigan at home (1-6) EMU has lost to Purdue, Georgia, and Detriot, but they only lost by one to Georgia. There other loses are to St. Johns, Cornell and Brown. Some games they have been blown out (Cornell, Purdue, and Detroit) but they have been competitive in others. Hopefully there isn't a hangover after the Mizzou game during this game because we open up Big Ten play @ Purdue two days later. I think this is going to be an ugly win for Illinois. They are led by Brandon Bowdry who is a 6-6 230 pound forward who scores and rebounds, but he looks like a turnover machine averaging 4.6 a game.
So basically I think that we finish off with maybe a lose to Mizzou in the Braggin Rights game and finish the Non-Conference schedule 11-2, which is only 5 wins away from last years total. The Big Ten season is going to be much harder to predict since the middle of the conference is much better than it has been, and the top of the conference is pretty beatable. Purdue, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Ohio State are all not very good yet. I think that Michigan State will get it figured out like they always do, they have so much talent it is amazing. Purdue doesn't look like they have gotten much better than last year, but they have looked bad against great teams. (It really makes me sick to add Duke as a great team) Wisconsin is not good talent-wise, but Bo Ryan always has a good team no matter the talent. Ohio State is relying heavily on BJ Mullins who is considered by many as the best high-schooler in the country last year, but he looks over-matched, and not really great. He will be amazing eventually, but he is not what Kosta Koufas was last year.
Durty
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