UPDATE WITH LATEST ON THE CLIFF ALEXANDER RECRUITING HERE
Tonight’s Illini basketball game had an interesting development. The recruiting of Cliff Alexander made an impact on the blowout of Jacksonville State.
In the closing seconds of the game, the upper sections of the Assembly Hall crowd chanted “We want Cliff! We want Cliff!”
Then the Orange Krush Illinois student section joined in. Decision day is Friday; Cliff will make the announcement in a press conference at Curie high school.
He just got back from visiting Kansas; and the consensus is it’s 50-50 between Illinois and Kansas right now. It really says a lot about Illini Nation, their passion for basketball, and their desire to have Cliff land in Champaign. It also speaks to the strong interest in the Cliff Alexander recruiting story; it transcends a regular season college hoops game.
Tune in tomorrow, as I’ll have another post with all the up to the minute knowledge and sentiment on Cliff Alexander’s recruiting
Moving on to the current team:
All eleven available Illini basketball players saw time in the season opener. In fact everyone saw double figure minutes. By nine minutes in, Coach John Groce got all eleven playing time in the second game of the college basketball season too. Once again Illini basketball blew out a low-major school from the state of Alabama. Sunday’s victim was the Jacksonville State Gamecocks
In the 80-63 blowout of Alabama State, three Illinibasketball players, Nnanna Egwu, Joe Bertrand, and Rayvonte Rice scored in double figures. Tracy Abrams and Malcom Hill were just one basket away from joining them. In the first half of the JSU blowout victory, each Illini basketball player made the stat sheet.
John Groce is using the acronym E.1.H. “Every One Helps” as the mantra for 2013-14.
“Everyone needs to be a NBA All-Star in their specific role,” Coach Groce said after the game.
So there you go.
It’s more than a marketing slogan or catch-phrase. Everyone plays. And everyone scores. They scored 80 points in the opener, and 86 in the second game despite the fact that not everyone makes three-point baskets. Actually very few of them do. The Illini have shot rather bad from distance. Illinois was 20%, 4-20 from distance in the opener. In game 2, they attempted just three 3s in the first half, missing all of them. In the second half, they hit four treys; going 4-12 for the game, a more closer-to-respectable 33%.
“We’re going to do this thing by committee. Not afraid to play 11 players in 10 minutes,” Groce said.
Of course, it should be pointed out that everyone getting playing time is a function of these two games being against low-major scrubs. You won’t see the end of the bench as much when Big Ten play gets here; obviously.
This Illini basketball team has 9 new players coming in and only four returnees. The last time Illini basketball had 9 newcomers was the second season of Lon Kruger, the 1998-99 team (Cory Bradford, Cleotis Brown, Fess Hawkins, Damir Krupalijia, Lucas Johnson, Robert Archibald, Nate Mast and a two more that I can’t remember.) You remember how awful that team was.
Although they did lay the ground work for a very successful run of Illini basketball and couple of players from that era went on to play basketball professionally.
The four players returning for Illini basketball are Nnanna Egwu, Tracy Abrams, Joe Bertrand, sort of Rayvonte Rice (who is now also being referred to as Ray Rice) and Michael LaTulip. The first three will score most of the points for your Fighting Illini basketball team. And those points will obviously comes from attacking the basket and inside the three point arc. Bertrand was the high scorer last night; with his first career double double.
Interesting side note, Illinois has played the fewest non-conference home games of any Big Ten team these past few years. Groce looks to change that:
Groce “Want to be a program that continues to play a number of games at home. We have great environment, great fans. Will build it.”
Catch me Tuesdays at 10:30 AM Central talking Illini and Northwestern for KOZN Omaha, Fox Sports Radio
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also an analyst for multiple news talk radio stations across the world; with regular weekly segments on NBC and Fox Sports Radio. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks) and RSS