1-217-R-U-LEGIT

So Microsoft has this number that you can call to see if your software is real or a rip-off. If we were to set up a hotline to see if the Illini were legit, what would it say?

Well, first off, we have to look at the ranking that we currently have: #6 in the country. Is this for real? Well, we are undefeated so far. We have a couple nice wins - Xavier projects as an NCAA team, Wichita St. and Georgetown look to be boderline NCAA/NIT, and Rutgers and Oregon have chances to be NIT teams. Of course, we do have a nice win at North Carolina, who is currently 6-2 and right on the edge of the Top 25. There are 9 other undefeated teams in the Top 25, though only Duke, UConn, Villanova, and Florida have real cases to be ahead of us. Among the 1 loss teams, Memphis seems to be legit to be ranked ahead of us (they're the only team that's hung with Duke this year). I don't think that you should rank a 2 loss team ahead of an undefeated team that had the buzz that the Illini had coming off of last season. So, is #6 appropriate for now? I think that the ranking is legit for now.

But what does that really mean? Nothing.

The real interesting question is, "Do the Illini have a shot to challenge for the National Championship?" Interestingly enough, I'm buying more and more into how this squad plays. Last year, I made a posting about the Illini team, and I was convinced that we were the best team in the country. This year, I'm not going to make that statement. But some of things that apply to last year's team applies to this year's team.

I wrote last year: "This is a squad that reminds me of the old early 90's UNLV squad - run and gun on offense, but able to play halfcourt, but more importantly, shut down D. The UNLV squads liked the matchup zones a little more, whereas, we run something similar, but more of a doubling/switching man."

We'll use that again for this year's team. Out on the perimeter, Dee Brown is an elite defender. He's excellent on the ball with his footwork and willingness to work. Away from the ball, he's a ballhawk. Rich McBride has improved his defense immensely, though he still tends to use his hands a litlte too much. Where this year's team gets interesting is with Brian Randle. Last year, we were a little small at times, and had to rely on Deron Williams' strength and Luther Head's overall athleticism against the height of some swingmen. This year, we can match up Brian Randle at 6'7" against other team's wings. And off the bench, the play of freshman Jamar Smith has been a very pleasant surprise. He's listed at 6'3", though he seems more like 6'1", Jamar does move his feet well on D, and is willing to hit the floor. Having him on the floor hounding the guy who brings the ball up lets Dee get some rest. He's just a very heady player for a freshman, in general. When he gets stronger next year, watch out.

I think that where this team excels is with how the bigs play D. James Augustine has become an excellent defender over the years. He is rarely in foul trouble, and really does impact how the other team plays. He, Shaun Pruitt, and Marcus Arnold all rebound pretty well, and are active for big men. What I like is that Weber will have us double the high screen, and often push the ball handler back to halfcourt. This completely takes teams out of their offense, and makes the undisciplined teams crumble. The defense that we play makes teams take tough shots - contested jumpers, tough post looks over two people, etc. And teams that don't pass well generally will look awful against us.

In all honesty, on defense this year's version is superior to last year's version. We take a step back in replacing Deron with Rich, but replacing Luther with Randle is about a wash. And really, having Jamar Smith come off of the bench is a better defensive addition than when Rich came off the bench last year. But, the biggest reason is the addition of Pruitt/Arnold over Powell at the 4. While Roger was a tough player, he was often overmatched (see last year's Gonzaga's Morrison, Ohio St.'s Sylvester, and Iowa's Bruener) and asked to do too much. Jack Ingram was a nice player, but he couldn't be counted on to do as much dirty work as we've seen Pruitt and Arnold do. Our bigs still seem to double with a very high level of effectiveness. Not just up high like I mentioned earlier, but also down low. They don't allow the easy dump offs to cutters when they double. With a defense this good, we should be able to stay in any game that we play.

Whether we end up being a top 32 team or a Final Four team will be in our offense. At times, we look like we're still trying to figure out how to play with each other. We'll throw the ball away and look awkward in our motion. Some of the guys still don't look natural in the motion. But I think that the team issues will come together as the season progresses. Our bigs can run, and teams have wanted to slow it down against us. We can still run and gun if teams allow it, but I think that's been a point of emphasis against us this year.

Individually, there are some issues. Dee has looked off until the Oregon game, but picked it up there, and again at the Braggin' Rights game. He's only shooting like 37% from the floor, but he seems to be getting his outside shot back. Rich seems to be willing to take people off the dribble and take a 16' pull-up, which may loosen up the D on his outside shot. Randle has shown the ability to drive to the hoop, and has a knack for getting some garbage points off of loose balls. The problem is that it's all been inconsistent for these guys. In the big games against top teams, we'll need a more consistent effort from 2 out of 3 of these guys. I do like the contribution that Jamar Smith has made - he's like 55% from outside, and just has a good feel for the game.

The bigs are just getting it together right now. Auggie has become pretty reliable for about 14 points, and is mixing it up a little more than he has been in the past. Pruitt has looked a little tentative on offense, but Marcus Arnold is getting back to doing athletic things. Against Mizzou, he had a very nice reverse layup, a strong drive from the top of the key, and a hard dunk to finish off the game. If he's doing athletic things as a 4, then we become a very scary team.

So really, we have a nice 7 man rotation right now. When Chester Frazier gets back, he'll get some minutes spelling Dee. And Warren Carter fits in somehow (though I have to admit, after 2.5 years, I have no idea how - you can't play the guy for more than 3 minutes at a time; he gets lost on offense and shoots whenever he catches it, but makes enough to be intriguing; on D, he's always lost, but is tall and athletic enough to recover a lot of the time, and seems to be a good rebounder). I think that it's realistic to ask for 25 points and 20 rebounds from Auggie, Arnold, and Pruitt. If we get it, then we'll be looking alright.

Here's the deal. Dee's good for 15 a night. Figure that Brian, Rich, and Jamar combine for 25. We'll get 25 from the bigs, plus you'll have some random number between 0 and 10 for Warren. That puts us at 65, conservatively. No one's cracked 65 on us this year, and we've only had 3 out of 12 teams get to 60 on us. At the very least, we'll be in every ball game. We'll tend to have the advantage in experince, so you figure that Auggie and Dee will be able to make some plays at important times for us.

So what do we have trouble with? Oddly enough, I don't think that it's zone. This year, we seem to have been able to get the ball inside against the zone, and Randle has done a very nice job penetrating against other team's forwards in zone. I think that if we were to face a team that plays the style of D that we play, we'd have issues, since we're a little suspect in passing under pressure. So who comes to mind?

Duke comes to mind very quickly. If you remember our Sweet 16 loss to them 2 years ago, it was like watching two teams with the same game plan go at each other. They're good again. Watching Villanova play last year in the tourney, I think that their overall talent level on the perimeter would pose interesting problems (Rich couldn't check either Allen or Foye). UConn has a scary weapon with an unfortunate name in Rudy Gay (worst selling jerseys, anyone?) who's a 6'9" (not making that up) swingman (also not making that up) that should be the #1 pick in the NBA draft this year to go with some nice bigs in Boone. A few teams that have two inside weapons may give us trouble, as well - Boston College (Dudley and Smith) and Gonzaga (Morrison and Batista), and Indiana (Killingsworth and White). But those teams would have point guard issues against us. I think that the same goes for Michigan St. and Texas.

I really have no clue about Florida, as their top players are all sophomores and juniors who we don't know that well. And Memphis is one of those teams that looks great on paper, but seems too young (5 freshmen getting real minutes) and too flaky to win 6 tourney games in a row (though could beat anyone in the country on a given day). I don't think that any of the rest of the teams really stand out.

So for the Illini, I think that a conservative over-under on regular season losses is 4.5. Figure that we lose at Indiana, at Michigan St., at Wisconsin, and at Ohio St., and maybe at Iowa. We do have a chance to make it through with only 1 or 2 losses, actually, as we do match reasonably well against the previously mentioned teams, but we'll just leave some potential upside. We should finish right around 26-4 or 25-5, somewhere in the top 3 in the Big Ten, and have a shot at a 2 seed in the Dance if we can make it to the Big Ten tourney finals.

If we get a 2 seed, we're looking at Dayton or Detroit in the 1st 2 rounds, maybe Minneapolis in the Sweet 16/Elite 8, and then Indy for the Final Four. It's a much tougher road than last year's Indy-Chicago-St. Louis route, but if we can make it to Indy... who knows?

-Chairman