Illinois Gets a Dee Plus

Dee Brown was alone in a gym on a cold January day, less than 24 hours after his Illinois team had been upset by Indiana, 62-60, and less than 12 hours after the Illini had returned to campus in the middle of the night after a quiet and grim bus ride.

While teammates had slept, Brown sat next to Coach Bruce Weber to watch tape. The senior guard had scored only five points on one-for-nine shooting and, even with 11 assists, thought he had let the team down.

So, on a day off, with no practice or meetings to attend, Brown came to the gym with one purpose in mind.

To shoot.

To shoot until the loss was erased from his mind. To shoot as his private punishment. To shoot so there would be redemption in the next game. To shoot so that he could prove his critics wrong ... again.

The critics had said Brown, who is no taller than 5 feet 10 even though he’s listed at 6-0, wouldn’t make it at a big-time high school such as Proviso East in the Chicago suburb of Maywood. Then they said he would be overmatched as a point guard in the rough and tumble Big Ten Conference.

So much for that. Brown played in the national championship game last year and is trying to guide the Illini back, averaging 14.4 points and 5.6 assists as fourth-seeded Illinois (25-6) prepares to play Air Force (24-6) Thursday in the opening round of the NCAA tournament in San Diego.

But until the day last May when he broke his foot at an NBA tryout camp, Brown didn’t expect to be in college now.

His Fighting Illini had an almost-dream season a year ago. Led by Brown, Deron Williams and Luther Head, best friends and roommates, they lost once in the regular season and didn’t lose again until North Carolina beat them in the title game.

When Williams and Head went off to the NBA, Brown was going to follow. He was going to leave on the table a year of college eligibility, having already earned his degree and become convinced that things would not be as much fun, as fulfilling, as exciting, at Illinois without his buddies.

“How could it be?” Brown said. “It was time for something new for all of us.”

Except that while experts predicted Williams and Head had a chance in the NBA, they said Brown was too short and too slight to be an NBA point guard, and was not nearly a good enough shooter to be an NBA shooting guard.

“I would have made it,” Brown said, “but it wasn’t meant to be.”

During a scrimmage in Chicago, Brown suffered a broken foot, ending whatever chance he had to be drafted. For weeks afterward, he was despondent.

“He came home and stayed in the house,” said his mother, Cathy Brown-Blocker. “He didn’t want to talk to Deron and Luther; he didn’t want to talk to Coach Weber.”

Said the coach: “Dee was in mourning a little bit. We had to let him get his mind together. For weeks he had nothing to do with us, but when he came back, he was back.”

John Maestranzi, Brown’s AAU coach and the father of one of Brown’s other good friends, Anthony Maestranzi, a senior guard at Northern Illinois this season, said that to understand why Brown was so devastated, you must understand where Brown came from.

“Where I first saw him on a playground was in an area of the city where you don’t want to go,” Maestranzi said. “Dee never shot the ball, he always passed. When I asked him why, he said, ‘If I miss, I’m afraid someone will shoot me.’ He was a little guy, about 12 years old, with all the talent in the world, and he was worried someone might literally shoot him.

“There were always contradictions about Dee. He was always being told he was too little on the one hand, but he knew he had more talent than all these guys who were bigger. He was cocky in one way but insecure too.

“So that all came together last summer. He broke the foot and instead of hearing sympathy all Dee heard was that he wouldn’t have made it in the NBA anyway.”

Weber thinks Brown will have a fine NBA career. He expects that someday Brown will make an excellent coach. He admires Brown for his academic commitment and for his fierce work ethic.

“Look at him out there,” Weber said, watching that January day when Brown was shooting by himself. “Doesn’t need to be here; no one else is here.”

Weber was criticized last summer by Brown for not publicly supporting his NBA plans. Brown had been recruited to Illinois by Bill Self, who left for Kansas after Brown’s sophomore season, and Brown stayed close to Self.

The coach said he always supported Brown. “But I always wanted Dee to consider reality too,” Weber said. “Was he ready for the NBA? What did the scouts say? Dee needed to hear it all.”

This season hasn’t been everything Brown hoped for. His shooting percentage is down drastically -- 36.7% this season from 49.9% last year -- and his three-point shooting has slipped from 43.4% to 32.5%.

“Don’t look at only the numbers with Dee,” Weber said. “Look at the tape. Watch him make the right cuts and the right passes.”

Brown didn’t want to be here, but he is. He’s in the NCAAs again.

“Honestly,” Brown said, “for it to be a success we need to go one step further. We need to win it all. That’s what would make it worthwhile, coming back. To win it all.”

Not many think that’s possible.

“Of course not,” Brown said. “That’s what I’m about.

“Always underestimated.”

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Another shot

Illinois is back in the NCAA tournament and earned a fourth seeding despite having lost two of its top three scorers from last season’s team that went 32-1 in the regular season and lost to North Carolina in the championship game.

2004-05

*--* Player, position PPG *Luther Head, guard 15.9 Dee Brown, guard 13.8 *Deron Williams, guard 12.3

*--*

2005-06

*--* Player, position PPG Dee Brown, guard 14.4 James Augustine, center 13.5 Rich McBride, guard 10.0

*--*

* Now plays in the NBA. Head is with Houston, and Williams is with Utah.