Freshman center Brian Cook has the makings of an NBA lottery pick someday. He’s that agile, that talented.
But during Illinois’ two games at the NCAA East Regional in Winston-Salem, N.C., Cook looked more picked on than picked. On Sunday, Cook collected only two points and two rebounds against Florida. On Friday, Cook had just two rebounds and Pennsylvania held him scoreless.
In 27 minutes of action, the overmatched Cook bore little resemblance to this year’s co-Big Ten freshman of the year.
Cook doesn’t have to search his gut to understand why. All he has to do is look in the mirror. The slender, 6-foot-10-inch, 231-pounder needs some meat on his bones. Some muscle. So do a few of his teammates.
That was never more clear than Sunday when 6-7, 260-pound Florida center Udonis Haslem ate Cook alive under the boards in Illinois’ 93-76 defeat.
“I had to settle for jump shots from outside and they weren’t going in,” said Cook. “I’ve got to work on my game over the summer, on my positioning. I’ve got to get bigger and stronger.”
Bigger. Stronger. Higher. Farther.
Those will be the buzz words next season when the Illini will be favored to win the Big Ten title. But to get there, Illinois knows it must adopt the bruising defensive style used so well the last two seasons by Final Four teams Michigan State, with Andre Hutson and A.J. Granger, and Ohio State, with shot-blocking Ken Johnson.
“This team got better as the year wore on,” said Illinois coach Lon Kruger. “I don’t know that they feel that way now, but we’ll learn from this and get better. We’ll get bigger. We’ll get stronger.”
Their flameout against Florida aside, it was a pretty good year. On a hypothetical employee evaluation form, the Illini would check the middle box. The one to the left of: Meets expectations.
Die-hard fans and eternal optimists may have dreamed of bigger things, but Kruger’s young squad almost did what was expected of it. Pegged to finish third in the Big Ten, the Illini stumbled early with a redshirt freshman, Frank Williams, at point guard.
But the team matured as Williams did, beating the teams it was supposed to beat–Penn State, Indiana, Michigan, Northwestern and Minnesota–to claim fourth, two games behind Michigan State and Ohio State.
“We let a couple games slip away [Michigan, Wisconsin] early,” said Sergio McClain, “and that cost us the championship.”
In improving to 22-10, making a second straight run to the Big Ten tournament final and reaching the second round of the NCAA tournament, Illinois earned a place among the nation’s Top 25 teams.
The entire starting lineup of freshmen Williams and Cook, sophomores Cory Bradford and Lucas Johnson and junior McClain will be back. Only two backup seniors, Victor Chukwudebe and Cleotis Brown, are graduating. So with 12 of its 14 players returning, much more will be expected of Illinois next season.
“Definitely,” said Johnson. “We proved to a lot of people this year that we have a talented team. Next year we gave a great chance to expand on what we accomplished this year.”
The Illini need to polish up their exterior defense, hope Mahomet-Seymour recruit Brett Melton can bring more consistency to their outside shooting and hit the weight room.
“To go from 14-18 to 22-10 is quite an accomplishment,” said outgoing assistant coach Robert McCullum, the new head coach at Western Michigan.
“The direction this program is headed is nothing but encouraging. But it’s no secret that going into the off-season the No. 1 priority is strength development. We’ve talked a lot about it as a staff and the players realize it too.
“I don’t know that our lack of strength is a surprise given the age of the team, but we have to improve in that area.”
