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On Women's Basketball

"Let's go kick down the door"

Posted by: Tony Bleill

Friday, March 6, 2009 1:17 PM

Three days ago while chatting with reporters at the Ubben Basketball Complex, Illinois coach Jolette Law wasn't lacking confidence.

She never is, really. But this was a different sort of confidence. She had that cat-who-ate-the-canary look, like "I know something you don't know."

Maybe she does. We'll know a little more about that around 7 p.m. tonight. In any event, it was clear Law felt her team was fully capable of not just winning its opener against Penn State, but taking the whole thing and shocking the women's basketball landscape despite a losing record.

"That," Law said, "would be the Cinderella story of them all."

Got that right.

"Let's go kick the door down," she continued. "It will be the eight that thought they could. Nobody believed in us but us."

Less than 48 hours later, the Illini thumped Penn State in their Big Ten tournament opener, playing some of their best basketball of the season. Jenna Smith and Lacey Simpson were sensational, and the newcomers played their roles effectively.

"Individually, we ain't that great," Law said. "But as a unit, we can be dangerous. They're all starting to buy in, and it's momentum time. We're going to be the spoilers. We're not ready for the season to be over. That's what they shared with me."

--Day 2 has started with an encouraging crowd. Michigan State -- which was just upset by No. 7 seed Wisconsin 56-50 -- had a large turnout, bigger than what the Spartans have brought here in the past. Ohio State seems to have a slightly larger crowd, and Minnesota has a few fans, too.

Thursday's attendance was listed at 6,041, not far off last year's first-day record of 6,432. One important thing to keep in mind: For the last several years, tournament organizers have brought in a few hundred elementary school kids for the Thursday and Friday games. Now, you can probably imagine how much noise those kids make, given how excited they are to be spending an afternoon at a basketball game instead of sitting in a classroom.

--Thursday's 58-49 win was just the third for Illinois when it has scored less than 60 points this season. Illinois is 3-18 when scoring less than 60 but 7-2 when scoring 60 or more.

But that's not my favorite UI stat of the season ...

--This is: Illinois is 1-6 this season when wearing its signature orange uniforms, 6-2 when wearing the blue. If the Illini aren't wearing the blue unis when they take the floor tonight, it'll be the upset of the season in college basketball.

--Check out Thursday's in-game report for my early 2009-10 Big Ten predictions.

--We'll have an HQ chat starting at 4 p.m. and running for as long as we have questions to answer. Plus, look for our in-game report starting at about 4:30 p.m.