IL wins in Hawai'i

[bert notorius]

IL gets its first lead at the 6 min. mark in the second half on a 16-2 run. Randle survives with 4 fouls. IL in the bonus for 13 min.

79-77

Frazier, Brock & McCamey had tolerable performances. Weber substituted non-stop the first half. The freshmen got the hook often.

[Da Coach]

Story and box score from Yahoo Sports--

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/recap?gid=200711160246

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200711160246

[MacabreMob]

Wow... nice comeback. So maybe this year they will be the Comeback Kids (last year, down the stretch, they were the collapse kids).

Congrats to you and yours, Bert. Now, you better come here and post when they lose too.

[Big Mike]

Rumor is MJ bought a house in Hawaii just to watch the tourney games..........

[tornado]

Wow....Illinois has to go as many as 39 minutes with starters as they out-shoot (50% to 46%), severely outrebound (42-28 ), and get more steals, blocks, and way, way more FT's and FT attempts, and still barely pull this game out.
On paper it should have been a blowout, so I am a little stumped how they almost blew the game and had to win on a shot in final few seconds, playing with Big Ten refs.
The six Illini newcomers, including starter Rodney Alexander (0-3), Demetri McCamey (5-7), Bill Cole (0-1), Steve Holdren (0-2), Mike Tisdale (1-1), and Mike Davis (0-0) accounted for 17 pts, 10 of them from McCamey.

One notable absence.....Jeffrey Jordan did not play at all in this game.
Is this just some sort of posturing by Bruce Weber to prove he isn't going to favor the walk-on with the famous dad?
Jordan might have actually helped the Illini as some of their guards (Trent Meacham) stunk it up.

[MacabreMob]

Hey - take it ez on UIUC.

We all know now they are Top25 worthy. Winning on the road this early in the season against a quality opponent in a tough place to play. (their first road win last year was 1-17 at Minnesota who finished 190 in the RPI with a 9-22 record)

On top of that, they handled NE'rn who then took Maryland to OT... and Maryland (in the ACC) is a good measuring stick.

[bert notorius]

They left their defense on the mainland. The Nash kid is a playa (is that still vogue?) Once again it appears no one wants to be the go to guy. I'm pretty proud of myself for staying up til 3 just to listen to a sub par radio feed. IL fans are such lightweights. It was late. I was lonely. Wah! No idea why Jordan sat. That usually means not enough effort on defense in practice.

edit.

When IL does lose, I'm sure I won't be able to get here quick enough to start my own thread...

[bert notorius]

IL cruises over Arizona State. 77-54. Duke tomorrow.

[SFP]

I think BW is one of the better coaches out there. Can he recruit? That is debatable but his coaching skills should not. I'm not a U of I fan but I do like BW. So I hope they blow away DUKE!

[jasonpeoria911]

Blowing away Duke would want more IL players to play for them but one game won't matter to much so I guess they can blow Duke out of the waters. Won't do much for Dukes ranking i'm sure LOL. It took them what, 7 or 8 games to finally drop from the top 25 last season?

Jason

[tornado]

IL cruises over Arizona State. 77-54. Duke tomorrow.

I like this line from the story on the FightingIllini.com website. They clearly
know what is actually important to the fans, press, and media:

"The person who drew the most attention in the Lahaina Civic Center during the game was NBA great Michael Jordan who was there to watch his son play for Illinois. Jeff Jordan, a freshman guard, had one point and an assist in 11 minutes."
He also had 3 turnovers

[BradleyBrave]

Rodney Alexander continues to impress me. A very solid game last night.

[chitownBUB]

Arizona State is not much of a test. They were 2-16 in the Pac-10 last year and had
only 8 wins overall, mostly against bad competition like #336 Northern Colorado, DII San Bernardino St., Colgate, and NC A&T.
I know they have a good coach, but their main rotation of players includes 5 freshmen and 4 sophomores.
You can even tell that the folks at ASU might be anticipating a bad season, as the early non-conference part
of their schedule includes Cal Poly, FGCU, Delaware St., Coppin St., Montana St., Idaho, Nebraska, and St. Francis.
It really wouldn't surprise me if when it's all said and done, their out of confrence RPI could be around 300.

[MacabreMob]

UIUC getting 6 1/2 tonight vs Duke.

I'm on 'em with the points. It's in the bag, baby.

[bert notorius]

I'm thinking Duke by 9. IL is weak at the foul line. Duke is infamous for Coach K's reffing from the bench. Randle is a foul machine.