News you can't leave work without: When Illinois coach Bruce Weber visited Crete-Monee basketball practice last winter, he took note of everything Michael Orris was doing — diving on the floor, directing his Warriors, leading the offense, communicating. Basically everything you'd want from a point guard.

But he also saw how the then-junior he'd just begun recruiting reacted to some adversity.

"Somebody beat him on a one-on-one, he'd jump up, (like) 'I'm going to stop ya,'" Weber said. "It's that kind of attitude that you want in your program."

It's that kind of addition that became official for Illinois on Wednesday morning, when the 6-foot-2 Orris faxed in his letter of intent on the first day of the early signing period. It marked the second straight November that the Illini added an in-state point guard after the signing of Chicago Mt. Carmel's Tracy Abrams a year ago. If all goes to plan, they will ink another floor general a year from now when verbal commit and Chicago Hope junior Jalen James can sign.

The message Weber sends after relying so heavily on Demetri McCamey at the point last year is clear: You can't have enough ball-handlers.

"If you can have more than one point guard, if you can have more than one person who can handle and pass, it obviously makes it easy on your team and your schemes," Weber said. "And really makes it much easier on the coach, to be honest.

"When we looked at what we had coming back, we really felt it was important to find a true point guard."