Tate: A feel-good loss if there ever was one
ST. LOUIS — The perception of Illinois basketball changed in a positive way here Thursday night.
The defeat was expected. Missouri presented a multi-talented team that rattled off a 17-2 run early, carried a seemingly safe 55-41 lead into the final 15 minutes and then, Shazzam! Super-guard Phil Pressey and the Tigers needed all their cleverness to escape a feverish Joseph Bertrand-led rally, 78-74.
Bertrand, with just two points in the previous six games, scored 6 of 8 Illini baskets during a furious run that sent the underdogs ahead, 70-68, before critical turnovers allowed the Tigers to counterattack.
This has been a good week for first-year coach Frank Haith. Down at Miami, where he formerly coached, DeQuan Jones was declared eligible by the NCAA, presumably clearing Haith of charges that Jones was illegally recruited. Then came his first Border War, and his swift athletes pulled it off.
They are a special group, much like those inherited by Illini coach Bruce Weber in 2003. Like Dee, Deron and Luther, they can break down defenders off the dribble, shoot jumpers with deadly accuracy and cause havoc on defense.
Haith didn't teach these guys how to shoot and dribble. But he gets credit for rebuilding the chemistry after this veteran team lost five of its last six a year ago when coach Mike Anderson was preparing to move to Arkansas.
Bertrand's unexpected explosion came when the UI bench seemed hopelessly inept. All his baskets came from inside 10 feet as he penetrated relentlessly and gained more confidence with each drive. There should be carryover value here as the Illini face a Big Ten lineup offering only Ohio State as an opponent superior to Missouri.
Brandon Paul matched Bertrand's 19 points but had six turnovers, two of them coming in critical possessions in the last 2:00. That's when Kim English sandwiched a three-point play between two layups by Ricardo Ratliffe that sent Missouri up 75-70.
"Joe and our bench have been struggling, and he gave us a big lift," Weber said. "Missouri had us in a bind early, and we had them in a bind late, but they made the plays when they had to. Our 17 turnovers were too much."
Seed planted?
The excitement of this game won't be remembered when the NCAA committee makes its selections in March.
So the upshot of the six-day pre-Christmas period is a reduction in the UI's chances to earn success at NCAA tournament time.
Oh, that's three months from now and, you're correct, teams change during the course of the season.
But neutral-court losses to UNLV in Chicago and to Missouri in St. Louis put the team behind the eight-ball ... not only knocking the UI out of the Top 25 but casting it logically into the middle of the Big Ten pack.
Seeding is everything at NCAA time. So if the Illini are 11-2 (which they are), produce what would be considered a relatively successful 10-8 Big Ten record (optimism is my glaring weakness) and add a win or two in the conference tournament, they'd draw an immediate tossup NCAA game followed, if successful, by one of the nation's premier teams.
That's how the draw works. We saw that last season when Illinois (9-9 in the Big Ten) beat UNLV for win No. 20 and then ran smack into No. 2 Kansas.
So if you're like many fans, and you don't get serious about college basketball until the NCAA tourney, these December games are huge. They not only tell you a lot about your team but the results also have a major impact on seeding.
History makes it an even greater concern because in 54 tournament games since 1981, the Illini have beaten only two NCAA opponents seeded ahead of them: No. 5 Illinois beat No. 4 Cincinnati in 2004, and the Illini were seeded No. 9 vs. No. 8 UNLV last season. In that 31-year span, the Illini lost nine times to teams seeded below them and 14 times to teams seeded higher. The title-game loss to North Carolina pitted two No. 1 seeds.
Reaching back
Perry Clark, who handled TV commentary for UI-Cornell on Monday, related his efforts to land the Illini head coaching job when Lou Henson retired.
"I met with Ron Guenther in Atlanta after the 1996 season," Clark said, "and I knew Jimmy Collins was a popular assistant and had a lot of support. I didn't want it to look like I beat out Jimmy for the job. I told Guenther that, if he wasn't going to hire Jimmy, he needed to make that clear with an announcement.
"I was very interested in the job. I've always recruited Chicago, and over the years I recruited 17 Chicago players at Georgia Tech, Tulane, Miami and Corpus Christi. I believe I could have been successful recruiting there."
Clark was 107-49 in his previous five years at Tulane when he applied for the Illinois job. But Guenther had seen Florida's Lon Kruger in a previous Final Four and had him in mind all along. Kruger was 81-48 with a Big Ten title in four seasons at Illinois.
Loren Tate writes for The News-Gazette. He can be reached at ltate@news-gazette.com.
But why did Illinois need to attempt such a stirring comeback, Loren?
Any Illini fan who wasn't wailing and gnashing their teeth during Mizzou's big first-half run must have already turned off the TV (or radio). Illinois stumbled around the court in a haze...if they play like that, they can lose to anyone.
Loren, we both were at the game yet you don't even mention that Illinois failed to use their height advantage with Leonard. Why did he not get the ball down low? Why was he playing 25 feet from the basket? Also, why was Coach Weber's "motion" offense more like "molasses"? Why was there nothing used to stop the Mizzou guards from having easy access to layups--like a zone defense? Mizzou used a zone and a man-to-man when they needed--we didn't. Just askin'
Wow, these comments are such a joke. If HQ continues to print these, they should compensate readers for the lost time in their lives and the brain cells damaged by reading these inane posts.
Good article Loren. Mizzou is a darned good team and a very tough matchup for us, and we almost pulled out the W after an epic comeback. 11-2 and being around the top 25 going into the Big Ten season is better than most expected. A lot to be excited about. Nice to see Bertrand penetrate the D, hopefully other players follow suit. Leonard is such a taltent but he needs to listen to coach and stay down in the low post.
The most effective teams are those that shift between man-to-man & zones as the
situation might dictate. Everybody knows what we are going to do and so we easy for our
opponents to prepare because of our predictability. Our '05 team was just as predictable
as any Weber team defensively, but they were so good that it didn't really matter. Most teams
will require defensive creativity however. We can't take quicker, more athletic teams on man
to man and expect to be successful
Mizzou is a very good team and present bad matchups for us on the perimeter (as they will for most teams). Playing a zone would have given their guards better shots, basically thats the last thing you want to do when trailing and making a comeback. Our D was able to force some bad shots and get some turnovers. Overall our D played pretty well given that Mizzou played lights out for much of the first half.
And Weber's D has been very good at UI, among the nations better defenses year in and year out, even when we werent very gifted talent-wise. Look up the stats, they speak for themselves.
SaMMYHOUSTON,,,about Weborns D...I see this. One reason the scores are low is that they waste so much time running clock so their points per game are reasonalbe that they give up.
If you remember the UIC game last year, the winning bucket for UIC was on a put back of a clear layup down the nearly uncontested middle of the lane first. If you remember, it happened lots that way last year,,teams driving right thru to the hoop when they need a basket. If you
play match up man, it does not happen. If you play hard man to man, you get out coached and teams penetrate at the drop of a dime. For Loren, I can only say this, Loren, you let BKnight beat you to telling us how dumb Weborn is to not have Leanord and other big men under the basket. You could have written this all of last year and into this year but somehow you cannot find the letters to say it. Well, now the secret is out and lets see what is next up for the very
bad Weborn offense. After all, I am sure we kept it close cause weborn knew Bertrand would go 9 for 9 and we all forgot, if he had not, if he had had a regular game, we would have lost by 16
A loss is not a win no matter how many times Moses Saint Tate says it is while closing his eyes and holding his hands over his ears. But if it makes him happy to keep chanting it, be our guest. Cheerleaders are cheerleaders.
Now, it's true that the Illini made it a close game against a very good team and that does reflect well on the Illini. There's reason to be hopeful for this very young team as it continues to grow. And if Foul Machine can ever live up to the hype from Moses and Klee Klub.
But Weber deserves some criticism for not putting Foul Machine Leonard under the hoop to stay. I know it's treason to even utter the words Bob Knight, but last night he correctly pointed out that handling the ball instead of being under the hoop was not the right place for Foul Machine and Tyler Griffey. Griffey needs a Charles Atlas crash course -- he got handled under the boards.
"Meyers has to learn to fight," Weber said.
Not quite Bill Russell yet, Moses Saint Tate and Klee Klub.
what makes you think Weber didnt want Leonard down in the low post more? Just because Leonard wasnt doing it enough doesnt mean Weber didnt want him to and didnt tell him to. Weber urged Dmac to drive more through a much of Dmac's career at UI, yet DMac didnt follow through.
Don't even bother trying to point out logic to Moonpie.... Doesn't matter what the result, he will always find SOMEthing to blame on Webber. If I hated a team as much as he appears to hate the Illini....I do think I'd find some other team to watch. Then again...maybe I just don't enjoy ripping someone all the time the way he does....
Anyway...a surprising and admirable effort in the 2nd half, after a lackluster 1st half. Go Illini!!!
JDG -- get it right, old pal: I always criticize Moses Saint Tate and not Weber. Today was the first time I aimed at Weber. I actually like him.
It's Moses Tate that I think has been ridiculous for decades.
Are you one of those lockstep conservatives who can't stand that anyone would ever ever ever disagree with you? Good luck with all that, Herman Cain.
Be sure to post the proper insult here when you are trying to shout me down like all good wingnut conservatives do.
Have a nice.day.
Klee wrote "At one point, a staffer came up to Bruce Weber and said something. I don't know what. Weber waved his hands and said, "Just play." The Illini played free in the second half. They broke loose. Bertrand was the best example of that."
Why didn't Weber just let the boys play from the start of the game and likely they wouldn't have been dowqn by 14 points before they made their comeback. Weber persists in slowing down and harnessing his team and it shows in the uncomfortable, stagnant, play not to lose offense that Illini show game after game. Every now and then a player or several break out but they are not encouraged to "play out of system". Missouri is a good example of a team whose players aren't leashed up like the Illini are most of the time and the results are evident. Just as the results were evident when Bruce Weber finally gave the order to just let them play and the Illini made up 15 points to take the lead. But then Weber's Illini went into Bruce Weber's infamous protect the lead, timid play not to lose, slow down mode, inserted Maniscalco back into the game and momentum promptly vanished as the much more aggressive Missouri retook and kept the lead. Missouri was playing to win, where Weber was playing not to lose.
First everyone is so sure that Missouri is going to spank us and then we play well and have a chance to win and now everyone wants to slam on Coach Weber. He can't win for losing. The Illini had a very good chance to win that game, but with the ball and a tie game and then again with the ball and down a point, Brandon Paul, who played an other wise very good game, throws the ball away twice, once to a fan in the front row. I don't think Weber threw either pass, and this has been an issue with Paul all year. Hopefully he can learn from that and not let it happen again, but now way can you pin this on Weber. If you want to slam him for his coaching when they do bad, then you have to praise him when he makes a choice in coaching style that allows the team to succeed.
are you a freaking moron? where did you get your brains at? a cracker jack box? absolutely NO LOSS, reflects good on ANY team, let alone my beloved Illini. winning isnt everything, its the only thing! bruce weber has turned our team into a mid major team just like he had at southern illinois, he does not realize that this is the big ten, this is where the big boys/men play and it aint for the faint of heart. fire bruce weber now, you see what hes doing to our basketball team we are never going to win a championship while he is here in champaign or even get beyond the sweet 16 ever again and thats no crap! Thats a fact!
Well let me be the first to say thank god, read the DI, that you are not Mike Thomas. You guys a probably the same idiots that were bitching up a storm after the Beckman hire. Here's a friggin news flash for you.... we AREN'T Ohio St football, and we aren't Duke basketball. We probably will never draw multiple or even single top 10 or four-star recruits consistenly in either sport and we will never get that big name coach to come here for the long hall (see Self, Bill). Who is this alternative dream coach you fools want? And I hope you don't say Jerrance is the answer right now. I think one day down the road he will take over as head coach but he's not ready yet. Bruce is here, he works his ass off and I hope he gets support from Thomas and can continue working here. Funny how BIG TIME coaches are always quoted talking about how Weber is one of the great basketball minds and coaches in the nation, but you basketball geniuses are so much smarter and have all the answers. I'll defer to people like Mark Few instead of clowns like you before coming to judgement on Weber's coaching ability.
What exactly has Bruce done to our basketball program? You act like we are and have always been consistently competing for national championships here. Hate to break it to you but we haven't won a national championship here in a very, very long time. You think it's a fact we won't ever make the Sweet 16 again? I'll take that bet for however much you want to put down, it might not take too long to win that bet.
Weber was handed a gift from the gods -- a Top 10 program. Today, it's Top 50, at best. It's all on him. He can't recruit out of state. He can't even recruit in-state. He put all his money on a high school freshman who didn't pan out. He has no plan, unless you count desperation. Other coaches are pandering -- as long as Weber is here, Illinois is an easy mark, and they know it. Note that Self never was feted by his peers; coaches are a lot less genteel when they are getting the snot beat out of them.
And this clown knows how to spell "judgment." How ironic that you do not.
UFO>>UFO...so , you would rather take the word of Mark Few than any one else. Well, lets see, last I looked, most doctors never testify against other doctors,,,get the picture here spaceperson.. What do you expect at an after game new conference, another coach to bad mouth and pick at his opposing coach. What solar system are you from. And, since Knight is Knight, he sat there and told us all what we have seen for ourselves game after game.
For all you naysayers who say Illinois can't recruit. "Illinois wiil probably never recruit multiple or even a single top ten players or 4 stars recruits consistently in either sport" Accordingly to Scout.com Illinois has(since 2002) recruited 20 4 star recruits in basketball. That is more than any other b10 program in that period. However MSU(6), Indiana(5), and Ohio state(7) have more 5 star players than Illinois(2) even though a large percentage of these players never played more than a season or two and sometimes not at all. Schools like Purdue and Wisconsin have recruited significantly less talent according to both Scout and Rivals. Purdue has had only nine 4 star recruits and zero 5 star recruits. Basically if you rate the schools. OSU is probably the frontrunner while Illinois, Indiana, and MSU are virtually the same if you add up all the stars and give a point for each one.
Hey uofiisu-
No, we aren't acting like we won national championships before Weber. HOWEVER, we did consistently compete for Big Ten Championships and Big Ten Tourney Championships that we can no longer even dream of now. So if you want to defend Weber for taking this program down to the mid-level fo the Big Ten, then youre more than welcome.
We "Weber-haters" can see the forest through the trees. While you'll look at one game (Mizzou) and say that Illinois is almost there and can compete with any team in the nation after a near-miss to a top 10 team, we have seen this song and dance over and over. This one game will mean absolutely nothing for the upcoming games, no matter how many puff pieces the N-G decides to write. This team under Weber will continue to struggle to score points and will end up losing to NU , Penn St, Iowa while maybe pulling off the occasional upset at home.
You and the rest of the people on this board can call us whatever you want but 2, 5, 10 years from now if Weber is still coaching and you are still holding your breath every Selection Sunday that IL gets a 8 or 9 seed, then please look in the mirror and you'll know whom to blame.
Your absolutley right...This is "deja-vu" every year with Weber. Motionless offense, lack of leadership from players, Weber with his horrible faces screaming at the kids when you can tell they havent a clue what there doing. Why even run a motion offense when you have one of the best big man in the country. Myers Leanord spends too much time at the top of the key and should be getting a touch on the ball down low every time. I am so sick of Bruce Weber. The only positive is Ron Guenther is retired and hopefully this new A.D. director will not settle for mediocrecy like Guenther did. FIRE BRUCE WEBER!!!!!!!!!!
Oh hell, sorry I made a friggin typing error you jackass. Maybe, just maybe, one day I will achieve perfection like you. Thanks for giving me the right to defend Weber though, I appreciate it. I will defend Weber every single chance I get as long as he is the head coach at the University of Illinois. The guy works hard, runs a clean program, I feel like he and his staff recruit our state well and out-of-state adequately, and I think he's a very suitable in-game coach. I don't always agree with some of his decisions, but there's no coach that doesn't make mistakes and I don't see anyone else out there that would come here and do a better job. Hindsight being 20-20, yes, Thad Matta may have been a better hire, but it didn't happen then, and there's no way it will happen now. And I don't know who else you guys have in mind to replace him. You think Brad Stevens would come here? Jerrance? I understand what you're saying about competing for Big10 Championships. We need to be. Completey agree with that, but I think with what Weber is doing now we could be on our way back to that. We're 11-2 with two losses to pretty darn good teams. UNLV is going to win a lot of games and Missouri might be a Final Four team, losses happen. I, in no way, like to lose ANY games, especially the Mizzou game. I drive my girlfriend crazy watching Illinois football and basketball together. I take it very seriously and when we lose it puts me in an awful mood. I've spent a lot of money going down to StL every year for that one and every year it's the most exciting and fun game to attend and we need to win it. But we showed flashes of what we could become and I feel confident in this team and the coaches getting there.
It is the players jobs to play the game and it is his staffs job to prepare the players and develop them from the minute they get to C-U. A coach can only do so much. Everyone wanted Demitri to play sound defense and take games over by taking the ball to the basket, but it just never seemed to click for him and I will NEVER put that on Coach Weber. And there are other situations like that one where people seem to want to blame Weber instead of the players on the court and it is something I'll never fully understand.
I know I'm outnumbered when it comes to topics like this and the negativity that surrounds this website's message boards. You all come here to vent and bitch and call for coach's firings, and that's all fine and good; that being said, yes, I will most definitely listen to RESPECTED people in the same profession (like Few) before falling into all the garbage that spills from your fingertips. And I also will certainly respect Klee, Asmussen, and Loren's take on these subjects because they are alot closer to these situations and people than anyone posting on here. I always supported Zook, as I will any head coach here, up until it was clear he had lost the Illini community, six straight to close the regular season, and terrible in-game decisions clearly plagued the outcome.
And how exactly would I, or other Weber supporters, be the one to blame for Weber being here in 2, 5, or 10 years? I highly doubt that my opinion on Weber has any bearing at all on whether or not he is here in the next decade. Mike Thomas will make that call on his own in due time. If he decides to make a change, I might not like it, but I would respect it...... and then soon after a replacement is hired I will the the one on here defending the new coach because you all will surely be bitching that he's not the right guy for the job.
I agree, some people just want to come on here and gripe. well, we all want a top 10 or even a #1 team, but can't you just watch the games and enjoy them? You are not paying anyones salary so you are not losing anything. I get frustrated when they don't play as I think they are capable of playing but none of us could go run up and down that court for as long as they do against opponents that they do. we are just observers. I like Bruce, his clean program and morals and the fact that he is a family man. Before I go judging him, I would like to know what his players think of him. Do they want to get rid of him? If they don't then I do not either.
Jesus!! It kills me with the we can’t compete with the big programs crap… I moved to Tampa after graduating from Illinois. I went to watch Bardo and Gill ( the year after) play Florida at the O’Connell Center with my Florida alum brother-in law.. and remember looking down my nose at a facility that might be equal to some suburban Chicago high school… with maybe, 3,000 fans, and it was that many since last year’s final 4 team was in town early December. The gators 1st ever tournament bid was 1987.. their 1st ever tournament win that wasn’t vacated by the NCAA for violations was 1994, the year their boy wonder coach Lon Kruger led them to an improbable final 4 run. When Lon left Florida for the leper colony of the prairie so many of you paint Champaign as, people down here were upset… like what happened with Self, BUT THEY GOT OVER IT!!!!!! Hired an unknown, Billy Donovan, everyone was afraid would bolt to Kentucky when the time came, and won 2 out of the last 6 National Championships… if you would have told me 30 years ago that the Gators would win more National Championships in that period than the Hosiers won games in the tournament I would have called you crazy. The Hoosier’s haven’t even been the 3rd best team in Indiana… so throw all your tradition, we can’t compete crap away… what Florida got was a new AD, Jeremy Foley who demanded excellence. Florida hadn’t ever won a SEC title till Spurrier got there in 1990. SO ILLINOIS WON MORE BIG TEN FOOTBALL TITLES IN THE 80'S, THEN FLORIDA HAD EVER WON SEC CROWNS.. Just watch what happens to Will Muschamp if he has another crappy season…
Coach Weber states that "Missouri had us in a bind early" - - has Bruce ever noticed that his last 4-5 squads have a tendency to fall way behind early (whether at home or away or on a neutral court)?
And I'd like to see the names of the 17 players that Clark recruited from Chicago - and what happened to them. Guenther said in 1996 that he wanted a coach who'd taken a team to the Final Four. That obviously ruled out Clark - - and Collins. No one else in the Big 10 hired him after 1996, either...............
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