Illinois coach Bill Self sounded as if he were suffering from laryngitis. He was suffering all right, but not from a virus.
“I told him he needs to calm down,” sophomore center Nick Smith said. “It has been three days since the Purdue game and his voice is still not back.”
No, but maybe his team is.
Taking Self’s high-volume lectures to heart, the 20th-ranked Illini (17-5, 7-4) bounced back from their disappointing loss to the Boilermakers with a vengeance Tuesday night to pound Michigan State 70-40 at the Assembly Hall and inch within a game of the three-team logjam in first place.
“I can handle losing–if you play the right way,” Self said of his team’s play at Purdue. “Yeah, I’ve been hard on them. You can keep saying `Oh, we’re young,’ but finally you just need to say: `Forget young!’ We have got to deliver.”
Freshman guard Dee Brown definitely delivered. He delivered a game-high 24 points. He delivered five assists, five rebounds and five big steals. Mostly he delivered the spark Illinois has been missing recently.
Self took Brown aside after the Ohio State game, but the message took a while to sink in.
“[Self] sat me down and talked to me,” Brown said. “He said `Where’s that fire you had at the beginning of the season? You have to get that back.’ That’s what I plan to do the rest of the season. I know it all starts with me.”
Self apparently also got through to freshman guard Deron Williams, Smith and Roger Powell. Williams had a collegiate high 12 points, Powell 10 and Smith nine on a night when Illini star senior forward Brian Cook got into early foul trouble and wasn’t a factor.
Hours after being named one of 20 finalists for the Naismith College Player of the Year Award, Cook underwhelmed the voters with a season-low four points. It was his worst performance since a two-point effort against Texas A&M Corpus Christi last year.
Thanks to Brown and Williams, however, Cook hardly was missed.
“Sometimes you learn lessons the hard way,” Self said. “We play good in spurts. We play just good enough to win at home and just good enough to lose on the road. Energy and intensity is what gets us there. Tonight we played as hard as any team I’ve ever had and it starts with your guards.”
Brown (five) and Williams (four) combined for nine of Illinois’ season-high 13 steals as the Illini erased an 8-2 deficit with an 18-0 run, led at the half 37-17 (a season low in a half for the Spartans) and blew things open with a 21-0 second-half run during which it held Michigan State without a basket for 9 minutes 36 seconds. It was the Spartans’ lowest offensive output since a 52-39 loss to the Illini in East Lansing in 1993. The 30-point defeat was the second worst in Tom Izzo’s eight years at MSU.
“I don’t know where to start,” said Izzo, whose team had 18 turnovers. “Illinois played about as well and as hard as you can play. [Illinois is] playing two point guards and we’re struggling to get one. We had a couple bad turnovers and fell apart.”
Michigan State’s sixth loss in the Big Ten virtually eliminated the Spartans from the race and didn’t help their flickering NCAA tournament hopes. Illinois, which plays Northwestern on Saturday at the United Center, improved to 37-1 at home under Self.
“That was awesome,” Self said. “To think we did it without Brian. Going into the game this was the worst feeling I’ve had all year. Luther [Head] was out [groin injury]. We haven’t been bouncy. We’re a good team, but we’re not great unless there’s unbelievable energy.
“I don’t know why the light came on tonight. Maybe because we’ve talked about it so much. At 5-11 or 6 feet, as Dee refers to himself, you have to be different to make an impact at this level. Dee doesn’t understand the magnitude he has as far as affecting other players.”
– Self said reserve freshman forward Kyle Wilson, who went home to Plano, Texas, and has missed the last two games for “personal reasons,” is “still part of the team.”
