Illinois coach Bill Self said it ended exactly the way he’d pictured it.
In his dreams.
“We were lucky,” Self said. “We were lucky.”
Frank Williams said it felt like he was watching a movie. “Frankie to the Rescue?”
Robert Archibald said when he saw the winning shot drop through the net “it was like `is this really happening?'”
Yup. And double yup. From 4-5 to 11-5 in the Big Ten. From given up for dead to Champaign darlings. Good thing the Big Ten had a few extra first-place trophies lying around this year because the Fighting Illini (23-7, 11-5) got one for themselves Sunday at Williams Arena. Their 67-66 victory over Minnesota gave them a tie for the league title with Wisconsin, Ohio State and Indiana, as well as the No. 3 seed in the Big Ten tournament.
For the Illini, it was a victory that was . . .
Just. In the nick. Of time.
“Is this going to be an easy one to let go?” said Minnesota coach Dan Monson. “No.”
One minute 14 seconds left. Minnesota (16-11, 9-7) leads 66-62–and has the ball. A share of the title hangs in the balance. In retrospect, Coach, what were you thinking? “I don’t know if I’ve ever been in a situation that looked as bleak,” Self said.
Twenty-seven-point-one seconds to go. Still up by four, the Gophers take the ball out and try to bring it up against the Illini’s full-court trap. But Minnesota guard Kerwin Fleming, a Chicago native, gets squeezed by Williams and Luther Head. Fleming gives the ball up to Williams, who sees Cory Bradford behind him. Bradford nails a three, his third in the last five minutes. It’s 66-65 Gophers.
“It wasn’t set up that way,” Williams said. “I just happened to see [Bradford]. I reached in at the last moment and fell to the ground. That way [the officials] couldn’t call anything. That was a little high school move there.”
Williams’ remember-it-for-the-rest-of-his-life move was only seconds away.
Thirteen seconds to go. The Gophers turn it over again in the backcourt. Illinois ball, 6.9 left. You make the call. Williams, who’d scored 10 points in the first half, had been shut out for the first 19:53 of the second. Maybe there was a better option.
Are you nuts? Self put the Big Ten title in his star’s hands. And Williams delivered, driving the lane, surging through bodies to lay it in over Minnesota’s Travarus Bennett with 2.9 seconds to go for the victory.
“Coach drew it up that way,” said Williams, who finished with 12 points. “[Bennett] is a great defender. He had been deflecting balls the whole game. But that last shot–it was just there. Where does it rank with [my] biggest shots? Man, that was probably the top one.”
If the game had unfolded as neatly as the game-winning play, Illinois would have had it easy. Instead, it was a wrestling match from the get-go.
To win its second straight league title and third in five seasons, Illinois had to overcome this: a 27-14 first-half deficit; sloppy ball-handling, illustrated by 20 turnovers; 18 points by Minnesota freshman Rick Rickert before he fouled out with 2:15 to go; 15 points by Bennett; six straight points by Fleming after Rickert picked up his fourth personal; a 23-11 rebounding deficit on the offensive end; and a Gophers squad that refused to quit.
“We’ve been through this situation a million times,” Bradford said. “We weren’t afraid. We’re a tough team–and we proved it today.”
Bradford proved it with 19 points, including 5-for-8 from behind the arc. No shot was bigger than the bomb that cut the deficit to one with 17.6 left. “I was just at the right place at the right time,” he said.
Forward Brian Cook proved his toughness with game highs of 22 points, 11 rebounds and four blocked shots. Cook committed seven turnovers, most on traveling calls, but he was the steady hand who carried the Illini throughout.
“That was fun,” Cook said. “This championship is better than last year’s because nobody thought we’d be here.”
There were a lot of heroes Sunday, a little luck–and just enough time on the clock to get it done. The same team that opened Big Ten play with a 4-5 record is the same team that finished the regular season with eight victories in a row, earning a piece of the title nobody really gave it a serious chance to win.
