Guards Can’t Save Illinois

Even as North Carolina’s Raymond Felton stepped to the line and turned a three-point lead into five, the Illinois players still believed.

“Ten seconds on the clock and they were shooting free throws, and we still thought we could make plays at the end to win the game,” guard Luther Head said. “It was tough. I mean, we never gave up.”

The Illini were down by 15 early in the second half. No problem, they thought. They had been down 15 with four minutes left against Arizona and won.

“We just talked about going down fighting,” Illinois Coach Bruce Weber said. “This is a game they’re going to remember the rest of their life. If you go down, the regret that you would have is if you don’t fight. I said, ‘Fight, battle, play hard, don’t play not to lose, don’t play timid.’ ”

Illinois fought back with a hail of three-pointers until Luther Head tied the score, 70-70, on his fifth three of the game with 2:40 to go.

They were that close to a national championship and a 38-1 season. But the three-pointers they lived by failed them down the stretch of a 75-70 loss to North Carolina. Illinois missed five in the final two minutes and 10 of their last 11, including an open look by Head trailing by three with 16 seconds left.

“I was wide open,” Head said. “Coach ran a great play, got me open, had a great look. Just missed it.”

The ball bounded off the back of the rim and high into the air

“Who knows? It was a great look,” Head said. “I put a little too much on it.”

Head was one of the star trio of guards for a team that finished 37-2 and didn’t lose until the final game of the regular season, to Ohio State.

His 21-point performance in the NCAA championship game -- five for 16 from three-point range -- wasn’t enough, and he’ll have at least two plays to replay, again and again.

The other came with him driving the lane with 32 seconds left, trailing by two. Head tried to kick the ball out to Deron Williams on the right wing for a shot, but it never got there.

“It looked like he was going to hit me,” Williams said. “Felton came out and got a hand on it and just stole it.”

In the end, the team that was so often scintillating from three-point range went down flailing, taking 40 and making 12.

“We had open shots,” Weber said. “But our kids played themselves to exhaustion. You shoot all those threes, maybe you don’t have legs at the end. Luther got us back in the game. I hugged him, I cried. He cried. I mean, it’s just, he’s come so far.”

Williams, three for 10 from three-point range, used the word “proud” too. “It just hurts right now,” he said. “We just lost the national championship game.”