James Augustine used to find Dee Brown’s unpredictable and dynamic passing unsettling.
“For the first couple of months, you never knew when the ball was coming,” the 6-foot-10-inch Illinois sophomore recalled. “You would look one way and he would look the other. He’d throw it at you and you’d miss it.”
They worked out the kinks long before they arrived at Illinois together in the summer of 2002, laying a foundation for their collegiate success when they played together on a traveling-club team in high school.
Years earlier, Brown had played with Luther Head on the West Side in a neighborhood league. Head, a 2001 Manley High graduate and Brown, who was graduated from Proviso East a year later, give the Illini a powerful perimeter presence along with Texas native Deron Williams.
“It’s all about knowing your personnel,” Brown said.
He has his down pat.
Every Illinois starter, with the exception of Williams, is from the Chicago area. Brown, Head, Roger Powell of Joliet and James Augustine of Lincoln-Way Central grew up playing with or against one another, picking up nuances of each other’s strengths and weaknesses along the way.
Their experiences have jump-started a young Illinois team (26-6), helping the Illini reach the Sweet 16 to play perennial powerhouse Duke (29-5) on Friday in Atlanta.
“This team is a year away,” Illinois athletic director Ron Guenther has said more than once this season. “It’s a young team.”
But this youthful team, with first-year coach Bruce Weber, has given the university its first outright Big Ten title in 52 years and its third Sweet 16 appearance in four seasons.
Unlike the previous two Sweet 16 teams, this season’s starting unit has a heavy Chicago flavor, similar to the teams former Illinois coach Lou Henson recruited.
The 1988-89 “Flyin’ Illini” squad that advanced to the Final Four featured West Aurora’s Kenny Battle, Rich Central’s Kendall Gill, now with the Bulls, Simeon’s Nick Anderson, Providence-St. Mel’s Lowell Hamilton, King’s Marcus Liberty and Carbondale’s Stephen Bardo. Bardo was the lone starter from outside the Chicago area, though he had connections to the Chicago players through participation in summer high school all-star camps.
“That was a huge feather in our cap,” said Bardo, a sports reporter for WBBM-Ch. 2 and a radio broadcaster for Illini games. “We all knew each other for years before we decided to go to Illinois.”
The same is true for Augustine, Brown, Head and Powell, all of whom are expected to return next season, as is Williams. Greater expectations will await them, regardless of how far they advance in this year’s NCAA tournament.
The players built a comfort level by “just knowing what each other can do and knowing the spots we like to be in and getting each other the ball,” said Head, a junior who in 2000 became the first Public League player in six years to sign with Illinois.
Powell, 6-foot-6-inch junior forward, and Augustine used to be rivals in the South Inter-Conference Association’s West Division. Their high schools are about eight miles apart.
“Now we’re starting, battling right next to each other,” Powell said. “I think about it all the time. I think it’s cool. How often do you have that, two guys from the same conference playing together all the time?”
Earlier this month the former adversaries were named honorable mention all-Big Ten. Brown was a second-team selection.
Williams was Illinois’ only first-team pick and is the team’s leading scorer at 14.2 points a game. The sophomore was raised near Dallas.
“I think Deron just forced himself in there,” Head said. “He’s a good player and you can’t push him away. You have to let him in.”
Williams bulldozed his way through, commanding respect with his physical strength and keen court sense.
“He’s got so much game,” Bardo said, “he can adjust to any situation.”
Next season, at least one more Chicago-area player will join them. Shaun Pruitt, a forward from West Aurora, signed a letter of intent in November. Weber also has extended a scholarship offer to Calvin Brock, an outstanding player from Simeon.
Pruitt will be the first West Aurora player since Battle, now the coach at Illinois Institute of Technology, to join Illinois.
“The things they’re accomplishing now, next year they’ll do it fully,” Battle said. “They’re going to be dangerous.”
But he’s not counting them out this season.
“They’re in a great position,” he said. “They have no pressure on them. They can go out, perform, pull off an upset and amaze people.”
Homegrown talent
Roger Powell (43)
Joliet 2001
Dee Brown (11)
Proviso East (Maywood)
2002
James Augustine (40)
Lincoln-Way Central
(Mokena) 2002
Luther Head (4)
Manley (Chicago) 2001
