I-L-L

Suprisingly enough, this is my first post about the Illini basketball team this year. I'll start by saying I'm an Illinois grad, and while I know we Illini fans can get a little annoying bragging about our basketball team, just remember, we've sat through 3 seasons of the suckiest football known to man, so some of us feel we deserve this. I've watched just about every game this year, and one thing that really stands out to me is the way this team is unafraid of the shot clock. Most college teams try to come down, set up their offense and get up a shot in 25 seconds. If the shot clock runs down to around 10 seconds, however, it's a total panic. Normally at that point, whoever has the ball is going to either attempt to drive the lane and draw a foul, or just jack up a bad shot. As a result, most teams relax their off the ball defense reflexively, as they don't want to give up a bail out foul, and they know it's likely that the man who has the ball will be the shooter, so they try to get into rebounding position. Illinois is able to take advantage of that habit, as they are willing to make 4 passes in 10 seconds to get a wide open shot. They also play great defense from start to finish in every possession. That's what makes this team so special. You can't relax for a second against them, or the next thing you know, they're standing on your neck.

Now, I know this team has flaws (particularly inside) but I think they can more than handle any team they come up against in the tournament. And I feel pretty confident that if they lose a game, it won't be due to a lack of effort. That's why I don't see North Carolina beating them. UNC's probably a more talented team, but they're lazy, and selfish. I see a team like Duke being a bigger threat, because while they're not as talented as Carolina, they know it. The Blue Devils understand that to win, they have to play all out the entire game.