U of I Rallies from Halftime Tie to Beat Eastern Washington

[tornado]

EWU, who had already lost at home to a D-II team, was on the road in Champaign and almost pulled of an upset.

Illinois was carried by Trent Meacham (18 pts) and Chester Frazier (13 pts, 4 asst), but couldn't get much from anyone else.

Illinois eked out a 66-50 win, but the game was a 4-6 pt margin until the final 12 minutes or so.
Calvin Brock started and had one pt., but McCamey came off the bench for 11 pts, but 5 turnovers.
Billy Cole was 1-5, and missed all his 3-pt and FT attempts, while 26 ppg juco scorer Dominique Keller was scoreless.
Remember...there are people picking Illinois as a Top 50 team and 4-5th in the Big Ten.

EWU also was devastated by ineligibilities, and played without a couple of their top players...
their top scorer and one other starter, who were both academically ineligible.



UIUC sorely misses a shooter.....they probably wish they still had Jamar......

[tornado]

BTW--- Stan Simpson did not play at all as Bruce Weber wants to redshirt the kid, but Simpson reportedly does not want to redshirt!

[ER3]

EWU, who had already lost at home to a D-II team, was on the road in Champaign and almost pulled of an upset.

Illinois eked out a 66-50 win, but the game was a 4-6 pt margin until the final 12 minutes or so.

Eastern Washington did not "almost pull off an upset".

...and Illinois did not "eke" out a 16 point win.

You do get points for highly creative spinning here though.

[amckillip]

Eastern Washington did not "almost pull off an upset".

...and Illinois did not "eke" out a 16 point win.

You do get points for highly creative spinning here though.

I think I've gotta agree. By the 10 minute to go mark the Illini had the game in hand. They looked a lot better than another team I watched last night...

[tornado]

A lot of Illini fans seemed worried. Here are some comments from their forums--
"Good thing they're missing two starters. ....

This is pathetic. We are absolutely horrible.

who set the line at Illinois -22?
Won't be long before the bookies get smart. You will never see us laying 22 again this year.

Thank the Lord we have decent recruits coming in next year. It's all on Bruce's head for the talent we have out there right now. How we go from a National Championship game to last year and this year is really inexcusable.

I think this team is embarrassing to be wearing Illinois jerseys

I think things will change when Legion is available

ugh is right. Just ugly. Those that were predicting 19 wins and 9-9 in the conference better hope that Alex Legion is going to play lockdown perimeter D and drop 23 a night, b/c he'll need to to carry this group.

Kind of scary it was tied at the half. Hope this team can develop over the year, and improve, especially the front line."