Remembering 2004-05: Illini braggin' but draggin'

Remembering 2004-05: Chicago gets taste of No. 1

Remembering 2004-05: UI climbs to No. 1

Remembering 2004-05: UI 91, Wake Forest 73

Remembering 2004-05: UI 89, Gonzaga 72

Remembering 2004-05: UI 87, Delaware State 67

Remembering 2004-05: UI 92, Lewis 61

Remembering 2004-05: UI 78, Southern Illinois-Edwardsville 58

Remembering 2004-05: N-G front pages

Remembering 2004-05: Midnight Madness

Remembering 2004-05: Orange & Blue Scrimmage

EACH WEEK, WE'LL TAKE A LOOK BACK AT A MEMORABLE MOMENT IN ILLINI HISTORY, THANKS TO THE WORDS OF THE NEWS-GAZETTE

This week: In our continuing series on the 2004-05 Illini, Bruce Weber's gang won its Big Ten opener against Ohio State to improve to 15-0.

Headline: Two thumbs up — Augustine plays lead role for Illini

Date: Jan. 5, 2005

By BRETT DAWSON

CHAMPAIGN - He'll go shopping today, or to a restaurant, and somebody will come up to James Augustine and ask the obvious question.

It always happens after a night like Wednesday, a night when Augustine scored a career-high-tying 21 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to pace top-ranked Illinois' 84-65 win against Ohio State.

'I hear it all the time at Wal-Mart - people will yell at me from the next aisle, 'Why can't you play like that all the time?' ' Augustine said after his best all-around performance of the season. 'I mean, we're so deep as a team, I'm satisfied with how I am.'

And there's a lot to be satisfied with.

The 6-foot-10 junior is averaging 10 points and 7.3 rebounds a game playing for the nation's No. 1 team, now 15-0 and 1-0 in Big Ten play.

But those Wal-Mart patrons aren't the only ones who'd like a little more out of the Illini big man.

His teammates, his coach - heck, even his dad - would like to see the assertive, intense Augustine they saw Wednesday rearing his head more often.

'He ought to play like that every game,' Dale Augustine said, and if ever there's an expert on James' play, it's his dad.

Dale Augustine hasn't missed one of his son's 80 career games in orange and blue.

Even an ice storm can't keep him away.

'I called him today, because of the weather, and I was like, 'You guys coming?' He was just like, 'Yeah,' like it was no big thing,' James Augustine said. 'You can always count on him. I don't think he'd miss a game for anything.'

The elder Augustine was among the 16,618 Wednesday at the Assembly Hall, sitting (and often standing) in his customary spot atop the player-guest bleachers, wearing the same expression he always does.

He's always interested, never too happy. Or too frustrated.

When James Augustine made a spinning layup and drew a foul, there was no fist-pump from dad. When he buried the first of two midrange jumpers, there wasn't so much as a smile from the stands.

'Never until the game's over,' Dale Augustine said.

On Wednesday, Pop's postgame smile was wide as ever.

'That's the best he's played since probably Memphis last year,' Dale Augustine said. 'I was thinking driving down here tonight, 'He hasn't done much since that game.' '

That might sound a little harsh, but don't worry. The younger Augustine is used to his father's honesty.

'That's my dad, since I was 12,' Augustine said. 'I remember the long car rides home, knowing I had two points and fouled out, and he was going to talk to me the whole 45 minutes on the way home.'

James Augustine doesn't mind.

Deep down, he kind of likes it.

'That's how my dad's always been - he's never going to be satisfied, no matter how I'm doing,' Augustine said. 'It drives me. He's always going to find something.'

Even Dale Augustine - a high school teacher and football coach by trade - couldn't find nits to pick Wednesday. His son had matched a season high with 16 points by halftime, scoring on a variety of moves in the paint and outside it.

By the end of the game, he'd recorded his second double-double of the season, the 12th of his career.

'He really got after it tonight; he was really intense,' Dale Augustine said. 'Maybe it was something he ate.'

He certainly devoured Ohio State center Terence Dials, who came into the game as one of the Big Ten's most feared post players but left having had his fill of Augustine.

In a two-minute stretch early in the second half, Augustine - still hobbling after rolling his ankle in the first half - scored seven points and helped stretch a six-point lead to 12.

Illinois led by double digits for all but 3 minutes, 41 seconds the rest of the way.

'He was great,' Illinois coach Bruce Weber said. 'He was very active. Really, other than Cincinnati, the three games before that, he was very much involved, doing a lot of stuff, and hopefully he'll continue to do that.'

The folks at Wal-Mart certainly hope so. So do his teammates.

'He finally got some confidence and wants to shoot the ball, wants to score the ball,' said Deron Williams, who had 14 points and eight assists. 'We want him to play like that all the time.'

Still going

At 15-0, Illinois is off to the third-best start in school history:

SEASON START

1988-89 17-0

1914-15 16-0

2004-05 15-0

1978-79 15-0