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The Illini comeback, the day after

Posted by: Paul Klee

Friday, February 13, 2009 1:34 PM

A few notes from the day after...

- A different kind of game called for a different kind of bus ride back to C-U late last night.

"The whole way home, usually they are pretty quiet and fall asleep," Weber said this morning on a conference call with reporters. "They were hyped up, just talking, jabbering the whole way back."

Most times, the Illini will watch a movie or just chill out. But Weber said the team watched a tape of the 60-59 comeback win against Northwestern in its entirety.

"We watched the whole thing on TV. The kids asked to do it," he said. "They were hooting and hollering the whole time. It was fun to watch, a little bit of a different (view) as a fan, to enjoy it. Now we don't have to come back and watch the game today. We can move forward and focus on the Indiana game."

- Weber and Jerrance Howard, among others, drew parallels to the comeback against Arizona in '05. The main similarity, the head coach said, was the energy in the crowd.

And you know it's loud when Weber says this: "The crowd was spectacular. It was so loud in that place they couldn't hear me."

The 8,117 in attendance, some of them standing in the upper concourse, was Northwestern's third sellout this season at Welsh-Ryan Arena, and the final five minutes were downright chaotic. I'd say it was 65-35 orange-purple, give or take a few percentage points.

"The one time they didn't reset the shot clock, the officials couldn't hear me," Weber said, adding, "It was definitely one for the memory books, there's no doubt about that."

- The MVP of Illinois' two Big Ten road wins has been Trent Meacham. In the win at Purdue on Dec. 30, Meacham made the tough pass to Mike Davis for the go-ahead bucket at the end of regulation. At Northwestern, he scored 12 of his 15 points during a 17-2 run to clinch the win.

"He made the big plays down the stretch (in both games)," Weber said. "Took the ball to the basket, made the pass for the (shot) that put us ahead (at Purdue)."

- Earlier this season, the Illinois (20-5, 8-4) coaches set a goal of 24 wins. "I hope we can even surpass that," Weber said.

- And once again, Chester Frazier shut down the opponent's top scoring threat. He helped limit Northwestern guard Craig Moore to eight points on 3-for-8 shooting. Moore came into the game averaging about 20 points in his last four games.

The coaches' initial plan, in fact, was to put Frazier on Kevin Coble. But Weber said Frazier approached the coaches and said it might be a better idea if he guards Moore.

"(Frazier said) he's the guy that's been hot. When you look at the stats, he was probably right," Weber said.

- I write alot about scouting reports, probably too much, mainly about their importance, and how these relatively limited Illini depend greatly on advanced scouting to win games. Last night at Welsh-Ryan was a great example. That Meacham was well-prepared, through film study and Jay Price's scouting report, was a great help on the defensive play of the game, in the final 20 seconds.

With the shot clock winding down, Juice Thompson waved his left hand to clear out space. (I think the isolation play is usually called "thumbs up.") Meacham knew the point guard likes to create in that situation, and he was able to knock the ball away from Thompson. Illinois regained possession with 13 seconds left. You can see it here (at the 7:10 mark). Actually, Chester was defending Thompson, but Meacham took over on a switch.

- Another example was Wayne McClain's handiwork on the diamond press. He deserves a lot of credit for reversing the momentum. The assistant coach told me the press Illinois used last night was "the exact same thing" he used in winning three state titles at Peoria Manual. Here's how McClain described the decision to pressure, another example of advanced scouting:

"With some of the other scouts this year, some of the other teams have been using it (against Northwestern). I knew, basically, our guys have seen it," McClain said. "Chester's always asking about it: 'Hey coach, when are we gonna press, when are we gonna press?' As you can see, it was a situation where we had to gamble. I think our kids did such a great job of not fouling in the press, that it gave us a chance."

- Here's what St. Joe's coach Gene Pingatore told me about McCamey's final shot:

"The thing about it is, he wants the ball in those situations. It looked like no one else wanted to do it," said Pingatore, who coached McCamey in high school and sat behind the UI bench last night. "And you knew he was going to do it. You just knew he was going to do it."

- Illinois has learned it will host Michigan State at 3 p.m. on March 1 (a Sunday). The game will be televised on CBS.

Off to practice.

pklee@news-gazette.com