The Illini Know How to Play the Game

The name of the game is basketball, but when opposing coaches and players look at Illinois, other games come to mind. The Illini conjure up other images: relay teams, high jumpers, sprinters and sleight-of-hand artists.

The Illini are quicksilver, skimming over the basketball court like the wind.

But when he hears Louisville Coach Denny Crum talk about Illinois’ “great athletic ability,” Illini guard Kendall Gill looks unhappy. When Ball State Coach Rick Majerus says, “Illinois has some world-class athletes; you could have a great track team,” Gill looks downright depressed.

Gill is one of those streaking athletes who leaves defenders sucking air.

And Kendall Gill is one of the primary reasons No. 3-ranked Illinois (29-4) is favored to reach the Final Four of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Tournament. In this week’s Sweet 16, Illinois takes on Louisville (24-8) Friday in the Midwest Regional semifinal in the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

Sunday, the winner will play the winner of Friday’s Missouri-Syracuse semifinal for the right to advance to the Final Four in Seattle, April 1 and 3.

Gill missed 12 games this season with a broken foot, but he has not missed a beat since returning in time for the final two regular-season games. With Gill in the lineup, the Illini are 21-0. But please, don’t use the word athlete around Gill.

“I just wish they’d stop saying it,” he said. “Why can’t people just say we’re a good basketball team? We’re not track athletes or football players. You could put a track team out here and I doubt that they’d be very good at playing basketball. We’re basketball players. The athleticism just makes us better.”

Gill says he is pleased that the basketball world “is saying stuff” about the Illini, “but I’d rather be known as a great basketball player instead of a great athlete. Athletes aren’t supposed to be intelligent. But if you look around this locker room, you’ll see a room full of intelligent players. Why is it the only player on a team who is supposed to be intelligent is the coach’s son, and he’s never a great athlete?”

While opposing coaches talk about how the Illini use their athletic talent to break up passing lanes, Gill would like someone to recognize the team’s basketball savvy.

“We know how to handle a lead,” he said. “Give us credit for spreading the floor when we need to. We give a great athletic effort, but when (guard) Steve Bardo is running our team, give him credit for setting up the offense.”

Then Gill smiled.

“I guess it’s difficult for television to show Steve setting up the offense,” he said. “I guess for television it makes more sense to show the spinning reverse dunk. That’s what sells. People don’t pay to see you do math problems.”

It is athleticism, and a new-found maturity, that set this year’s Illinois team apart from those of the past. In other seasons, the Illini would be home on spring break by now.

Two years ago, Austin Peay upset Illinois, 68-67, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Last year, it was Villanova recovering from a 10-point deficit in the final minutes to win, 66-63, in the second round.

“We thought about the Villanova game,” Gill said. “It crossed my mind once in the second half against Ball State, when they closed within six points and we were missing our foul shots. But then we scored a basket and the thought disappeared. We didn’t allow ourselves to think the game was over until it was over. We wouldn’t want anyone to come back on us like Villanova did. You can’t afford to soften up.”

In Indianapolis last Saturday, the Illini beat Ball State, 72-60, in the second round despite the Cardinals’ efforts to muscle Illinois out of its game.

“I think you saw our maturity against Ball State,” Gill said. “They were trying to push us around and take us out of the game mentally with a lot of talk. Last year it probably would have developed into a bench-clearing brawl. If we were immature, we would have gotten into that and our heads would have gotten out of the game. We would have lost.”

But this team does not appear to be a choker. At least not yet. Appearances, though, can be deceiving. After all, the Illini look as though they’ve just escaped from the Atlantic Coast Conference, not the physical Big Ten.

The shortest player on the team is Gill, at 6-foot-4, and the tallest is Lowell Hamilton, who at 6-7 and about 209 pounds plays center because someone has to do it.

Kenny Battle, a superb 6-6 swingman, probably leads the team in acrobatic dunks and hustle. Nick Anderson, also 6-6, hit the 35-footer at the buzzer that beat Indiana the last week of the regular season.

Four players average in double figures: Anderson (17.6), Battle (16.2), Gill (15.5) and Hamilton (14.1). And then there’s 6-8 sophomore Marcus Liberty (8.6 points). Perhaps because Coach Lou Henson didn’t rush him, Liberty is beginning to live up to his reputation as the nation’s top player coming out of high school two years ago. He sat out last season because he didn’t meet Proposition 48’s academic standards.

“There isn’t a team in the country that hustles more than this team,” Henson said. “We are small. We give away muscle. We give away height. And we don’t do everything right. But we always, always, hustle. Other teams might outmuscle us and they might try to work against our pressure, but no one is going to work against our quickness.”

And, Kendall Gill might add, no one is going to outscore them in basketball savvy, either.