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 this weekend's News-Gazette, former Illini Nate Mast is profiled for his tireless work turning Parkland College into a juco power. Mast, as we found out during last year's 10-year reunion of Bill Self's Big Ten champs, writes as well as he coaches.

Headline: A ringing endorsement

Date: Jan. 2, 2011

By NATE MAST

The 2000-01 Big Ten champion Illini men's basketball team came within a whisker of reaching the Final Four. Current Parkland coach Nate Mast, right, a plucky walk-on that year, was kind enough to share his memories of that team of 10 years ago.

Where to begin?

So many memories pass through my mind when I try to put into words what that team and that year meant for so many people.And because I didn't want toleave out any great stories, I decided to reach out to my teammates and find out what immediately flashed into their minds when I asked them to relive the moments from that year.

As I sat there and read their responses, I never stopped smiling. And what I didn't think would happen, did happen. The answers all had bits and pieces of the same stories. In other words, we all pretty much remembered the same things. So even though this is written from my perspective, just know it includes the memories of the rest of the guys on that 2000-01 Fighting Illini men's basketball team.

Hope you enjoy the trip down memory lane ..

The 2000-01 season would be my final one to put on the Illinois jersey and walk out on the Assembly Hall court, the place where I grew up watching great Illinois players who made it easy to dream big about one day playing for the Illini.(Guys like Kenny Battle, Kendall Gill, Nick Anderson, Stephen Bardo .. I could keep going all night.) The first thing I can say about joining the tradition of Illinois basketball is that it never dies from year to year or from team to team. I've just recently gotten to know those former players who I watched growing up, and when they get together, it is story time just like it is when I get together with my teammates. You know those are some pretty special years when that much time goes by and you can all still sit around and relive your time as an Illini.

But back to 2000-01. The first major development, of course, was the hiring of our fearless leader, Bill Self. I think at first everybody was like, who is this fella? Guys felt a bit uneasy about losing Coach Kruger and not knowing who the next coach would be, how he would be or what he would be about. One of the first things I remember about Coach Self is sitting in his office in the first few weeks after he was hired and watching him look me in the eye and tell me that he started a walk-on at Tulsa and he wasn't against doing it here. (I was definitely excited, but my first thought was, "I bet you didn't have a guy like Frank Williams at Tulsa!")

We got to know Coach Self early on when an open gym turned into a conditioning session that no one on that team will ever forget. We ran every different kind of sprint you could run on a basketball court, with no end in sight. We ran 22s (down and back twice in 22 seconds), 30s (halfcourt, three-quarter court, full court in 30 seconds) and ladders with changing times (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1, etc). Not to mention we weren't in shape since this was preseason. It was unexpected and something we weren't used to. He just wanted to see what shape we were in, but more importantly, I think he wanted to see who had some guts. We found out later during our two weeks of "boot camp" what we were really working toward. In our last day of boot camp, Coach Self strutted into the gym with a camouflage shirt on with the word "WAR" on the front in big black letters, and he'd smeared black army paint under his eyes. There wasn't one guy in that gym who wasn't ready to go to battle after that day, and it would pay off down the road.

The team had faced some adversity in the years leading up to this point. Finishing last in the Big Ten in 1998-99, even though we had a nice run in the Big Ten tournament. Getting to the Big Dance in 1999-2000 but falling in the second round to Mike Miller and the Florida Gators. We were getting closer as a team, but too many people were still going in too many different directions.

I guess you could say we were dealing with some issues about team chemistry coming into that 2000-01 season. We had the Peoria crew with Sergio McClain, Frank Williams, Marcus Griffin, and later, Jerrance Howard. We had Damir Krupalija and Robert Archibald, who were from a different culture. Then you had Lucas Johnson .. we're still not sure where he came from. Then you throw in a few other guys in Brett Melton, Brian Cook, Sean Harrington, Clayton Thomas, Joe Cross, Nick Huge and the tallest Illini player ever, Nick Smith as a redshirt.Like I said, chemistry wasn't always the best.

I'd like to think I had some influence on guys because I showed up every day and went through the same battles they did, but they knew I wasn't getting the minutes the rest of them were getting. They knew I did it because it meant something to me, and this team was about more than any one person. It meant so much to me that I told Frank I was going to foul him every day that year to make him the best player in the league, and that got me a smack across the face and a team fight that would end with meas the instigator. BUT, what that did was earn the trust of each player. Frank was my guy. There was no question I couldn't compete with him, but there was also no question that I was going to try and compete with him every day. If I could beat him up in practice and make it hard for him, then come game time, there was nothing any team or player could do that would match what I tried to do in practice.

OK, I'll get off my Rudy soapbox now and move this story along. To that end, here are some of the memories that really stick out from that year:

— Running 30 suicidesin 30 seconds each in the final day of boot camp, when we just ran 22's (down and back twice) in 22 seconds each the day before.For some, that may have been thehardest thingthey ever had to do.

— Tales from boot camp that include Joe Cross getting all pumped up to make the next sprint and then barely moving off the line. Damir Krupalija falling down on a sprint and Brian Cook stopping mid-sprint to go and see if he is all right. Nick Smith and all the times we got behind him and pushed him through the finish line.

— Listening to Jerrance try to rap on the buses and planes to any beat that Brian Cook could come up with and actually sounding good 1 out of 100 times, or so.

— Time spent before and after practice doing trick shots at Ubben or in Assembly Hall.Particularly senior night against Iowa, when I finally made a shot from the B-section before the game. (Cory Bradford can vouch for me. One high bounce off the floor, one kiss off the glass, and straight through the net.)

— Some of Coach Self's vocabulary — "Jiminy Christmas" and "Dad-gummit," to name a couple.

— Lucas Johnson and his heroic dives for loose balls in practice after the ball had bounced out of bounds at least three times.I remember one time when he saw an opportunity to take out the Gatorade stand, which was loaded with cups full of fruit punch Gatorade. Rod Cardinal wasn't too happy about that.

— Sean Harrington and his season of magic tricks with a deck of cards.

— Jerrance Howard and his imitation of Chief Illiniwek's dance in the locker room after an Illini victory.

— Christmas break meals at Aunt Sonya's with a practice before and a practice after.

— Hotel camaraderie that included several of us getting flipped off our mattresses and pinned against the wall for an unspecified amount of time.

— Our trip to the Maui Invitational and the time spent at the beach with the Illini Family.

— Paint the Hall Orange against Michigan State.

— The amazing comeback win against Seton Hall, when Rob Judson came into halftime fired up and told us to look at the name on the front of our jersey and ask ourselves what it meant to all those before us.

— Marcus Griffin's tip-in at the buzzer with the ball under the basket against Wisconsin.

— Beating Mizzou in the Border Battle.

— Laying on the locker room floor at the Assembly Hall after shootaround before the last home game of my career with a bunch of other guys because we didn't want that night to end and we didn't want to leave the building.

—Spending time with former Illini like Stephen Bardo after winning the Big Ten conference title that year.

— Earning the No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

— The pregame shootaround in the Sweet 16 before we destroyed Kansas. About 15 minutes into it, there was a loose ball and pretty much everyone in the gym jumped on the floor and scrambled for it. Coach Self stopped the shootaround and said, "Let's get out of here. We're ready to play!" And we definitely were.

— The Orange Krush and their relentless energy.

— The emotion after we lost in the Elite Eight against Arizona in San Antonio and knowing what it meant. One of the hardest days of my life, realizing it was over. Everyone has to hang up their shoes someday. I knew for me it was that day.

To all of you current members of the Fighting Illini Basketball Family and to those who are on your way, remember this:

You are part of something that you will have no way of comprehending while you are there, but let me be the first to tell you — and you can ask all the others — your time here will impact the rest of your life. You leave high school as an uncertain kid, and then you put on that Orange and Blue, and you grow and mature and become the man you will be for the rest of your life. You will always want to go back to those days. You will do anything to be able to put on that practice gear anddo closeout drills again.

It is not all fun and easy. The hard times and adversity is where you find out what defines your team. When you lace up the shoes each day, ask yourself: is everyone in that locker room doing it with the same goal in mind? Find that identity. Let not one day go to waste. Let not one opportunity slide by.

And finally: do things together as a team. Trust each other and those great coaches. Ten years from now, you will have your own set of stories, andthey will be as good and enjoyable as you make them.

Go to work, men!