Illini 2004-05

With last night's loss in the National Championship game to North Carolina, the 2004-05 season officially came to an end. A look back at this season follows.

In my mind, the story of this team actually started way back in 2003. At the time, Dee Brown and Deron Williams were freshmen with bright futures ahead of them. Brian Cook was graduating, but one of the country's top high school players, Charlie Villenueva, had verbally committed to our school for the next season. We also had underclassmen by the names of Luther Head, Roger Powell, and James Augustine who were developing into fine players as well. This was a team on the rise, poised to do great things in its future.

Unfortunately, that season was cut short when the team lost in the second round of the NCAA tournament to Notre Dame. It was a painful loss, no doubt, but that would soon be worsened when our coach, Bill Self, decided to leave Illinois and take the position at Kansas. To make matters worse, Charlie V decided to take that opportunity to change his mind and leave us for UConn.

Meanwhile, our existing players undoubtedly felt abandoned by their coach's sudden departure. This "team on the rise" was replaced by a team that was lost, confused, and in complete disarray. This was the team that Bruce Weber inherited when he took over as the new head coach of Illinois basketball.

It wasn't long before things started to unravel for Coach Weber. Off the court, he had to deal with Luther Head's multiple brushes with the law. On the court, he had to deal with a team that was generally reluctant (if not wholly unwilling) to learn the things he was trying to teach. Things got especially bad when we got blown out by Providence, and then got even worse with embarrassing losses to Purdue at home and at Northwestern.

The lone bright spot in the midst of all this was the emergence of Deron Williams as a bonafide star. While the rest of the team was struggling, Deron was making giant strides and significant improvements to his game under Weber's coaching.

Perhaps it was Deron's success that finally convinced the rest of the team to accept Bruce Weber as their coach. Or maybe it was the humbling losses to Providence, Purdue, and Northwestern that woke them up. Maybe Weber's "funeral for Bill Self" was the real clincher, who knows?

Whatever it was, at some point during the 2003-04 season, Dee Brown, James Augustine, Luther Head, and the rest of the crew finally came around and embraced their new coach. And the results were a thing of beauty. The rejuvenated Illini closed out Big Ten schedule with a 10 game winning streak, then made it to the final game of the Big Ten Tournament before losing to Devin Harris and the Wisconsin Badgers. We then made an impressive showing in the NCAA tournament, blowing out Cincinnati to make the Sweet Sixteen before losing to a Duke team that was loaded with NBA talent (actually, isn't that phrase redundant by now?).

When the 2004-05 season started last fall, the team merely picked up where it left off, returning all 5 starters. We beat a few scrub teams to warm up, then in our first game against a respectable team, dominated Gonzaga. That game was immediately followed by a showdown against the (then) #1 team in the nation, Wake Forest.

In a season full of highlights, that Wake Forest game was definitely one of the best memories for me. I remember feeling so hyped for the game all day, and finally turning on ESPN's broadcast to see Assembly Hall draped in a sea of orange. Then the game started and the Illini put on a show for the nation. Fast breaks and a barrage of 3-pointers pretty much put the game out of reach by halftime, and we just coasted from there.

After beating Wake, the national polls placed us at #1, but we still had doubters. As the season went along, we continued to roll, but that didn't stop the naysayers. Dick Vitale insisted that Kansas was better than us. Digger Phelps said we couldn't win on the road against a good team, and predicted we would lose to Wisconsin and Michigan State. Other analysts pointed to our lack of inside presence, and believed North Carolina was better (more on this later).

It didn't matter. We kept winning, whether it was at home, on the road, neutral site, whatever. We ended Wisconsin's long home winning streak when Jack Ingram brought us back with 2 huge threes in the second half, then took down Michigan State at Breslin when we made something like 12 shots in a row. Soon, the thought of an undefeated season crept into our minds as the wins piled up.

Still, the media kept talking us down. The Big Ten was down, they said. Illinois needs to lose a game before the tournament to refocus, they claimed. The Illini are this year's St. Joe's and Stanford, due to go down early in the tournament, people predicted.

Eventually, we did lose a game, this coming in the final moments of the regular season at Ohio State. In the grand scheme of things, the details of that loss are quite inconsequential, but I dedicated a previous entry to it nonetheless. See here.

The weeks following the Ohio State game up until today feel like a blur of basketball, beer, blue and orange. First came the Big Ten Tournament at the United Center, which was my first chance to see this team in person. After beating Northwestern in the first game, Coach Weber's mom died, bringing a somber tone to the following game against Minnesota. The predominantly Illini crowd at the UC gave Bruce a standing ovation when he was introduced, and there was a moment of silence for Dawn Weber, which was nice, but there was still a game to be played. The Illini went on to beat Minnesota, and then Wisconsin the next day to win the tournament.

Watching the team and coaches celebrate by cutting down the nets was a great moment as a fan, but it was only a precursor to the things to come. The real tournament was coming the following Thursday in Indy, where I was once again able to watch the team play live. For details of the trip see here. As far as the games went, nothing too spectacular happened but the Illini took care of business so it was all good.

The next challenge was an interesting one, with a matchup against Illini Nation's enemy #1, Bruce Pearl. I wasn't able to go to the game, but again, it was all good as the team got a victory that night and moved on to the Elite Eight against Arizona. I had decided to get tickets with Andy and Scott, splitting the Thursday/Saturday sessions at Allstate with Andy.

So Saturday was my turn to go, and what happened at this game ended up being one of the most incredible and memorable sports experiences of my life. With a trip to the Final Four at stake, the Illini took the floor to face a hot Arizona team featuring the best shooter in the country, Salim Stoudamire.

The game went back and forth for 30 minutes before Arizona went on a run and took a 15 point lead. With 4 minutes left in the game, the score was 75-60 and things looked very very bleak, to say the least. Other than Stoudamire, we weren't stopping anyone on defense, especially Channing Frye and Hassan Adams, and on offense our guys looked tired and tentative. As I sat there watching my team get blown out on essentially our home court, thoughts started running through my mind about our great season coming to an end and falling short of the Final Four.

Then, we hit a couple threes, get a couple steals, and before I know it, we're back in the game. All the while, I'm completely stunned that we even have a chance to win the game. But when it was 80-77 and Deron hit a three to tie it from the top of the key, I couldn't help but jump up with the erupting crowd at that exhilirating moment. A few minutes and a lot more heartstopping plays in overtime later, we came away with a victory. Off to St. Louis!

When it was over, I was speechless in amazement at what just happened. It was easily the best game I have ever seen, and made that much more special because 1) the season and a trip to the Final Four were on the line and 2) I was there to witness it in person. Even more gratifying was watching the team and coaches cut down the nets after the game, with an all-orange crowd still buzzing about the win and cheering them on.

Honestly, after the Arizona game, and making to St. Louis, I felt like I was "playing with house money", for the next week it was like I was walking on clouds. It was weird, before the next game against Louisville, I almost didn't care if we won or lost, because of everything the team had already accomplished and all the joy it brought to me as a fan to watch it.

Of course, I still did want to see them go on and win the championship, and finish one of the greatest seasons of all time with a bang. I watched them beat Louisville pretty handily, setting up a showdown with the team everyone thought was more talented than us all year, UNC, which looked pretty impressive in dismantling Michigan State.

So the whole season came down to this one game. The beauty of college basketball, and the NCAA tournament. There's plenty of articles today about the game so I won't go into all the gory details, but suffice to say it was a tough loss for the Illini and Illini fans. We missed a lot of shots we normally make, but North Carolina earned the win. In the end, they just had too much firepower and we came up just short.

Did the game prove all the analysts right, when they talked about the Tarheels being better all year? Maybe, but I don't know if you can say that from one game. Not saying they are or aren't, but again, if we just hit one of those open threes near the end of the game, it's a whole different story. Roy Williams himself said something after the game like "if we played them 10 times, who knows what would happen?".

Did Sean May's dominance prove the analysts right, when they said we had no inside presence? Again, I don't think that was proven in this game. I doubt any NCAA team could have stopped Sean May last night, or the past few games for that matter. There were some shots he made that were just sick, you gotta just give him credit for being a monster on the floor.

Anyways, those are debates for another day. No sour grapes here in losing, the fact is that UNC beat us fair and square last night and they deserve to be the champions after that game.

As for us Illini fans, it was a fantastic run and by far the most enjoyable season I have ever experienced with any of the teams I root for. Not winning the championship will hurt for a while, but I can't be unhappy with all the great things about this season that I'll remember for the rest of my life. The last game may have been disappointing, but the season as a whole definitely was not. Just in writing this blog and recalling all the memories I went through with the team, makes me realize how lucky I was to even be a fan of the Illini throughout this historic season.