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Illini Basketball Have Found a Winning Hand (Starting Five)

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College basketball is exactly like poker- you need a winning hand of the five very best that you can put out there. When Illinois Fighting Illini basketball took the floor against VCU in Miami, I tweeted how much I really liked the starting five that Illini basketball Coach John Groce went with for that game- Guard Tracy Abrams, Guard Malcolm Hill, Guard Jalen Coleman-Lands, Center Mike Thorne and Forward Leron Black.

The result was a blowout win over Virginia Commonwealth, and they haven’t looked back since. After the win over Brigham Young at the United Center tonight, it’s become clearer and clearer that this five needs to be the starers the rest of this season; it’s the most talented lineup 2016-17 Illini basketball can trot out there.

You could obviously play a lineup where you have guys with higher recruiting rankings, players who had more stars next to their name when they entered college basketball. You could obviously go with a more experienced starting five, or perhaps a smaller lineup with Hill at forward and the three guards.

Scrap that, this line-up is winning, this is the way to go. John Groce after the 75-73 win over BYU, about whether this will be the lineup or not.

“They played pretty well together. We’ve got good production from guys that came off today. I liked what I saw there,” said Groce.
“Little more of a rhythm with the rotation, but everybody’s got to be ready. We’ve got an interesting team when it comes to
certain guys with certain strengths based on opponent and all that.”
“They’ve got to be ready.”
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“It takes a certain level of maturity to do that and a very sacrificial spirit that really cares about the team. I think right now we have that, but that’s something you have to — it’s like having a relationship with my wife. I can talk to her and connect and interact with her today, and if I don’t do that for months, it deteriorates.”
“It’s something you have to do every day. So we’ve got to continue to work on that every single day, the connection that our team has,” Groce concluded.
You got to love the analogies that Groce used there. Most Illini basketball fans can relate to that in some way. We all understand the meaning of “happy wife, happy life.”
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Up next for Illini basketball, another neutral court battle in a big time arena. They’ll take on Mizzou in St. Louis for their annual clash.

Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.

He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.