Fighting Illini Battle Trouble Together

Compared with some stories that have emanated from the Final Four in this and other years, the saga of Illinois’ 1988-89 season doesn’t exactly have miniseries written all over it. Why, the Illini have had the same coach all season.

But Illinois, which faced Big 10 rival Michigan and interim head coach Steve Fisher in the semifinals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament Saturday in Seattle, is a team that has negotiated more than the usual bumps in the road en route to the school’s first Final Four appearance in 37 years.

Illinois Coach Lou Henson has a tendency to get carried away when discussing his team’s character, such as his pronouncement that the Illini’s 83-69 victory over Louisville in the Midwest Regional semifinals was “one of the finest victories I’ve seen in intercollegiate basketball.”

But there is something about this Illinois team.

“We’re all from the Chicago area, and we’re all very similar,” guard Steve Bardo said. “So we stick together. We’ve faced adversity. But we mesh well. Our team chemistry gives us an edge.”

No sooner had they earned the No. 1 spot in the polls with a 17-0 start than the Illini ran into trouble.

Near the end of a nationally televised, double-overtime victory over Georgia Tech on Jan. 22, Super Bowl Sunday, guard Kendall Gill broke a bone in his left foot.

Four days later, the Illini traveled to Minnesota and, with Gill out of the lineup, suffered their first loss of the season.

Also that day, the mother of forward Nick Anderson, Illinois’ leading scorer and rebounder, was involved in a serious car accident during rush hour at a Chicago intersection.

The accident claimed the life of Alberta Anderson’s boyfriend, who was driving, and left her with a broken leg, a broken arm and broken pelvic bones.

The Illini righted themselves with a 75-65 victory over Indiana Jan. 28, and all the players signed the game ball and sent it to Alberta Anderson.

But it was a temporary high. Without Gill, a 6-4 junior who is Illinois’ only real outside shooting threat, the team’s chemistry was basically shot. His injury caused him to miss 10 more games, three of which the Illini lost. “His injury was devastating,” Henson said.

As the regular season ended, Illinois found some normalcy. Gill returned for the final home game of the season, a 118-94 victory over Iowa. Alberta Anderson watched the game from a wheelchair behind the Illinois bench.

But last week, at the Midwest Regionals in Minneapolis, another cloud settled over the Illini.

The Illinois players were going through a three-point shooting drill during their workout in the Metrodome last Thursday when forward Kenny Battle, retrieving a ball along the baseline, slipped and fell in a puddle of water caused by a leak in the roof.

Battle, a senior whose intensity has already moved Henson to create an annual Kenny Battle Hustle Award, went down hard and bruised a knee.

The next night, against Louisville, Battle was able to play only 15 minutes, in which he scored only four points and grabbed four rebounds.

To make matters worse for the Illini, starting center Lowell Hamilton twisted an ankle 2:34 into the game and wound up playing only 13 minutes.

Illinois survived, but the team suffered another blow after the game when guard Larry Smith, who had scored eight points off the bench, was informed by his brother that their mother, Bernice Caldwell of Alton, Ill., was hospitalized after suffering a stroke the day before.

Although he was told that his mother’s condition was improving, Smith considered leaving the team and skipping the Midwest final against Syracuse until his teammates talked him out of it.

“He was pretty down,” Bardo said. “But we got to talking about all we’d gone through. We told him to take it (his mother’s illness) in stride, overcome the adversity and go out and win.”

Against Syracuse, Battle returned to form (28 points), Hamilton hobbled through 18 minutes and Smith scored eight points. With Anderson and Gill playing spectacularly, the Illini had enough to reach the Final Four. And late Sunday night, Smith took the game ball, signed by everyone on the team, home to his mother in Alton.