2008 Woodie Awards
Fighting Illini have work cut out for them
Marlen Garcia ; Chicago Tribune (KRT)
Issue date: 3/30/05 Section: Sports
- Page 1 of 3 next >
|
Gill, who played in the NBA for 14 years, addressed Illinois' basketball players 15 days ago as the Illini prepared to play Wisconsin in the championship game of the Big Ten tournament.
Gill told the players about his glory days starring for the 1988-89 Flyin' Illini, but mostly he emphasized what he didn't do.
"He played professional basketball," Illinois' James Augustine said. "He has lots of money. He has a lot of things, and the only thing he can talk about is not finishing the Final Four and his season."
The 1988-89 team fell to Big Ten foe Michigan in the NCAA semifinals in Seattle, and since then Illinois has remained one of the most successful programs in the country to never win a national championship.
"It kind of makes you think that with all the things he has, he doesn't have that one championship and that's the thing that hurts," Augustine said. "It kind of makes you think that you want to finish."
Augustine and his Illinois teammates will get their chance to put Illinois atop the college basketball world this weekend as they head to the Final Four for the first time since 1989. They will play Louisville in a national semifinal at 5:07 p.m. CST on Saturday at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis.
They clinched the berth Saturday night with an unforgettable overtime victory over Arizona at Allstate Arena, rallying from a 15-point deficit with 4 minutes 4 seconds left.
The pressure has been mounting all season. Before Saturday, the players shrugged it off. Against Arizona, they embraced it.
"There was definitely a lot of pressure," Williams said. "We made that pressure. We set the goal of getting into the Final Four."
They aren't content to stop there. Their ride has to last until championship Monday. After all, that's what they've wanted all along.
"All year they've talked about a national championship," Weber said on national television Sunday, "and we're going to go after it."