This will be the eighth season for Fighting Illini head coach Bruce Webber. Webber led his team to a 21-15 record and an appearance into the 3rd round of the 2010 NIT where they were eliminated by Assembly Hall 77-71. This season, Coach Webber is looking at his entire starting five and top seven players from last season. “There’s no doubt we have talent and we have competition,” Weber told the Champaign News-Gazette. “Now can we figure it all out and play the way we want? And when they’re in there, use the most of their abilities. A team identity will be a key to us, especially early.”
The team is also adding at Top-15 ranked recruiting class that included Center Meyers Leonard, a consensus first-team All State selection who averaged 21 points and 11 boards as a senior. Also coming aboard are Crandall Head and Jerome Richmond. Head is the younger brother of former Illini All-American Luther Head. Finally, Richmond took home the Illinois Mr. Basketball honors and played in the McDonald’s All-American Game.
Look for the Fighting Illini to make another strong showing in the NIT.
A SHORT HISTORY
The fighting Illini men’s basketball team came into existence many years after the woman’s team was established. Roy Riley, the Team Captain and Coach was replaced with the first professional coach for the Illini, Elwood Brown who posted a 6-8 record. The team would go through a series of coaches who mostly stayed on for one year until 1912 when the school hired Ralph Jones for the job. Coach Jones would tally an 85-34 (.714) record and take the Illini to the National Championship in the 1914/15 season as he guided his team to a 16-0 record and their first and last National Championship.
It would not be until 2005, ninety-one years later that the Fighting Illini would appear again in the big dance as the team battled to a 37-2 record tying the NCAA record for most wins in a season. In the Elite Eight, in a game against Arizona, the team found themselves down by 15 with a little over 4 minutes left. Sparked by Luther Head and Deron Williams and Dee Brown, the Illini made the most improbable comeback, sending the game into overtime. The Illini would go on to win by one point to advance into the Final Four and would defeat the Louisville Cardinals to advance to the Big Dance. The team would fall short against the North Carolina Tar Heels who became the NCAA Champions.
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