The News-Gazette.com Weblog

On Women's Basketball

The next 72 hours

Posted by: Tony Bleill

Thursday, December 18, 2008 4:44 PM

Starting Friday morning, the UI women's basketball team will embark on a 72-hour stretch that will provide some challenges. The Illini leave at 10 a.m. Friday -- ice storm permitting -- for the Grand Strand, the parcel of South Carolina coast where Illinois will face No. 2 North Carolina. The Tar Heels are the highest-ranked team Illinois has played since it hosted No. 1 Connecticut in December 2000. (The Huskies won 97-55.) Illinois has never beaten a team ranked 1 or 2.

Immediately after the game, the Illini will return to Champaign to prepare for the Big Ten opener, which offers some neat intrigue in that its against Purdue, the team that denied Illinois' NCAA tournament bid last March on a last-second shot in the Big Ten tournament final. Jenna Smith has said often that she still watches that game, and it still provides motivation. When we asked Lacey Simpson about Purdue today, a big smile came to her face, one that said everything you need to know. The Illini will be ready.

Other random notes and thoughts:

--You might have heard that Jolette Law took away her team's practice clothes. As of Thursday, the clothes were still AWOL. Chelsea Gordon was wearing a Mercyhurt Prep shirt, her alma mater. Smith wore a pair of shorts emblazoned with the logo of a Minneapolis-area all-star game that she participated in. Siimpson wore a shirt from her old high school, Zion-Benton. She said she was ready to get the gear back.

"I'm tired of doing laundry," she said, smiling.

--Don't be too alarmed by the whole "taking away the practice gear" deal. It seems to be the tactic du jour of college coaches. Law did it for three weeks last season. Her mentor, Vivian Stringer, was notorious for taking away practice gear and kicking her team out of its locker room. Penn State's Coquese Washington recently took away her team's practice clothes.

--Law, a native of Florence, S.C., said she has 189 family and friends expected to show up for the UNC game in Myrtle Beach, S.C., about 70 miles away. "GameDay (Spirit) loves me right now," Law said. "Everything I could get that is orange, I was trying to send it. My family is so excited.

"I just told them as long as they don't walk in there with Clemson on the front of it -- that's the only orange they can get down there -- I'm OK with it."

--Illinois is playing UNC as part of the Carolinas Challenge, a two-game event that also includes Coastal Carolina taking on Stetson in the first game. The two college games are played in conjunction with a major high school tournament, the Beach Ball Classic. Organizers have told UI officials that all of the games -- including UI-UNC -- will be available on a free Web stream at www.sccoast.net/beachballclassic.