The possibility exists, of course, that the coaches were just doing what good coaches do.
Selling a fantasy. Laying it on thick. Telling the players exactly what they wanted to hear.
This year, however, the audience actually believed what they were saying. Sometimes it’s good to be naive.
“As amazing as it seems,” says fifth-year Illinois senior forward Brian Johnson, “we think Coach (Lon) Kruger thought the season we’ve had was possible. I give the coaches a lot of credit. They saw something we didn’t quite see.”
When Johnson and his teammates gather at Kruger’s house Sunday afternoon in Champaign to watch their fate played out on TV, they will be root, root, rooting for Purdue to beat first-place Michigan State. Deep down, though, they’ll also be cheering for someone else:
Themselves.
“I guess we’ve changed a few perceptions about Illinois basketball this year,” Johnson said. “That’s been fun to do.”
Whether the five senior starters on Kruger’s 1997-98 basketball team end up tying for the school’s first Big Ten championship since 1984 is beside the point. The point is they apparently never once stopped trying to get there.
“I’m sure every one of us had his doubts,” guard Matt Heldman said. “But that just motivated me even more to prove we could do it.”
Johnson. Heldman. Kevin Turner. Jerry Hester. And Jarrod Gee.
An engineering graduate. A finance major who thinks he’d like to work at the Chicago Board of Trade someday. A would-be architect. A May graduate adding a sports management degree to the one he already has in speech. And a business student.
Not an NBA lottery pick among them. Just five nice guys from Des Plaines, Libertyville, Chicago, Peoria and Chicago. Recruited by the Lou Henson regime but molded by Kruger and his staff.
“Sometimes,” Kruger said, “when you get players who’ve been around awhile . . . they feel like they’ve got all the answers. Coaching this team has been very easy for me. Every one of these guys has been great.”
This season Kruger’s five overlooked seniors have done what nobody seriously thought they could: Work hard. Get along. Listen to their coach. Work harder. Shut out the negative thinking and the negative influences.
And win.
“We’re not the biggest team,” Hester said. “We’re not the fastest team. But as far as playing to each other’s strengths, this is the best team I’ve ever played on. This has been the most satisfying season of my career.”
In an age of teenagers bolting early for the NBA, of players ripping the head coach on their way out of town to the next stop on their college tour, of disciplinary suspensions “for a violation of team rules” and of 20-year-old egos out of control, Illinois’ seniors are an anomaly.
In 20-plus years as an assistant and head coach, Kruger can’t remember five seniors on any of his teams, let alone five who all started.
The Illini are also unusual in another way. Like the heroes in an old Chip Hilton book, the Illini appear so normal that they squeak. No point-shaving accusations. No arrests for underage drinking. No talking back to Kruger in the huddle.
All egos checked at the Assembly Hall door. Unfailingly polite to the media; almost shy. For the Illini, a showboat isn’t a way to act, it’s a musical. And that includes the starters as well as key subs Sergio McClain, Victor Chukwudebe and Arias Davis.
“Egos are healthy,” Kruger said. “Good athletes have strong egos. But they’re not selfish egos. A selfish ego can destroy everything.”
The players also claim they all like each other.
“It’s really been a close group all four years,” Johnson said. “We enjoy each other’s company and care about one another. I guarantee these will be relationships that extend beyond college.”
“Chemistry is something you can promote, encourage,” Kruger said. “But if they don’t feel it and it lacks sincerity, it’s not worth much. This group, obviously, has a feeling for each other.”
On the court, the Illini have had machinelike consistency. Over the last two seasons–61 games–they’ve never lost more than two in a row. They led at halftime in 14 of their 16 conference games this year. Their regular-season record last year with former stars Kiwane Garris and Chris Gandy in the lineup: 21-9. Their record this season: 21-8.
“In December we were searching, testing a bit,” Kruger said. “But since the first conference game, 16 times these guys lined up and played hard. In a long season, that’s very unusual. I can’t think of a single occasion where they weren’t ready to play.”
Finally, this was a team that never got too high after a win or too low after a loss.
To a man, they agree the turning point came early in January when they won at Iowa and two days later won again at Northwestern–convincingly. With each victory after that, their confidence soared.
The source of their strength? It’s possible it evolved from their individual and collective personal challenges.
Shooting guard Turner didn’t just have to overcome the deaths of his father, mother, brother and grandmother. This year he had to adapt from being a part-time shooter to becoming the scorer his teammates relied on.
“I’ve never doubted myself,” Turner said. “What Coach Kruger did was give me the opportunity to go out and play. That was the main thing.”
For Hester, what stands out is the dedication he showed rebounding from back surgery last winter to become perhaps the league’s most consistent rebounder and scorer. For Gee, it has been the no-quit approach, persevering despite the doubts and off nights that have plagued him since being named Illinois’ Mr. Basketball as a high school senior.
Imagine, moreover, what it took for Johnson to believe he could walk on at Illinois and hope to play someday, let alone become an intricate rebounding, passing, screening cog in a possible Big Ten champion.
And finally there has been the gritty example of point guard Heldman (nickname “Otis”), who, when faced with the challenge of following a legend at point guard (second-leading all-time Illini scorer Garris), outhustled a used-car salesman to prove he deserved the job.
“I think one reason for this team’s strength and consistency,” Kruger said, “has been the fact that they’ve all had to adapt–Heldman to playing point guard, Turner to being the scorer, Hester to his back and (Johnson) from a role player into a playmaker. Because everything’s new to them, they’ve stayed hungry.”
Before every game the Illini go through a ritual. Huddled in the tunnel, they join arms and start bouncing up and down, chanting. “What time is it?” somebody will shout. “Game time!” will come the reply. The ritual ends with a “No Limit! on 3. 1-2-3. No limit!”
“Meaning,” Johnson said, “there’s no limit to what we can accomplish.”
Since returning to Champaign from their big win Tuesday night at Indiana, the Illini have been treated as heroes.
“Everybody here has been really excited about what we’ve done,” Hester said. “But we still have a lot more to do.”
Add Indiana coach Bob Knight to the list of the team’s admirers. Tuesday night he paused–before blasting the officiating–to deliver a bouquet.
“I told Lon Kruger before the game,” Knight said, “that of all the teams I’ve seen this year, his has been the most enjoyable to watch. They play the game the way it should be played. They’re unselfish, they have a purpose and they look to each other.”
In the end, however, the look on the Illinois players’ faces Tuesday night may have been more revealing than anything nice anyone can say.
All around the arena there was mayhem. Knight was going ballistic about official Ted Valentine. The Indiana fans were in hysterics. But the Illini never wilted.
“We were very confident going to Bloomington,” Johnson said. “Much more so than the first time we played them.”
“Coach Kruger helped us,” Hester said. “He kept reminding us to keep our minds on the game.”
The Illini remained unflappable for 40 minutes. Somehow. And if you stared into each of their faces, this is what you saw:
Nothing. No panic. No emotion. No get-me-out-of-here-fast.
“We knew,” Heldman said, “that all we had out there was each other.”
They soared this year. Together.
