As we sit in the doldrums of December finals, waiting for Alex Legion to emerge from a phone booth with an S on his chest, waiting for another exciting Missouri showdown, waiting for the Big 10 season to start and the Fighting Illini to return to the tournament (all good things), my thoughts turn to last year's disappointments. To demons of seasons past, even as we hope they are soon exorcised by Coach Weber and all the excellent new recruits. So I offer in this basketball-less week of contemplation my top ten villains of Illinois basketball past. From probations, to rivals, to hideous officiating, to recruiting wars, we've certainly known a few of these. One honorable mention: Northwestern fans (for chanting "That's alright, that's ok, you're going to work for us someday" at our basketball teams in the '80s. Funny. I've had far more NU grads work for me than I've worked for.) Just like the NCAA tournament, the Wildcats of Evanston don't make my final cut. Without further ado, here are my top ten:
10. Ed Corbett, John Cahill, Verne Harris. Who are these guys? The crew in an otherwise reasonably officiated national championship game. The one not-so-minor exception? Sitting down James Augustine with five fouls in nine minutes of action, while North Carolina's Sean May crashed and banged with impunity in the lane, receiving one foul in thirty-four minutes. Here's to you, referees in the 2005 National Championship Game. Nice work, fellas.
9. Chuck Smrt. Smrt was the NCAA's associate director of enforcement when the NCAA capriciously slammed Illinois with a three year probation for perceived lack of institutional control, including one year out of the NCAA tournament and a one year prohibition against recruiting off campus. Smrt rates as a true villain for his idiotic statement that the program should have received the NCAA's death penalty. Michigan's penalty for the $616,000 booster Ed Martin provided to many of the Fab Five 1993 national finalists, while Martin was personally close to Michigan coaches and officials? The same one year probation. No death penalty, of course. This is why there's no A in Smrt.
8. Bill Walton. How can a mere sports announcer -- even the marble-mouthed Walton -- be a villain worthy of inclusion in this list, you may ask? To which my response would be, you didn't happen to watch the 2001 Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight games, did you? In the Sweet Sixteen, Illinois handily defeated Kansas, 80-64. CBS, oblivious to the silly notion of conflict of interest, had Bill Walton announcing the game. (Bill Walton's son Luke played for Arizona, the team Illinois would meet in the next round.) Rather than announce the game, Walton spent the entire game in an unprofessional and one-sided whine-fest, labeling the Illinois team a group of goons who fouled on every play, who played basketball the wrong way, debasing the game -- even though Kansas only attempted nine more free throws, as the referees apparently didn't see it Bill's way. But the lobbying would pay off for Bill and son Luke two days later. When Arizona edged Illinois in Maui, 79-76, Arizona held an eight free throw advantage (33-25). When Illinois won 81-73 in the United Center three weeks later, Illinois held an eight free throw advantage (34-26). After Bill's lobbying, Arizona would win the Elite Eight matchup 87-81, thanks to an NCAA tournament record 56 free throws, while Illinois shot 25.
7. Bill Self. A few years ago, Self would have been very high on my villain list, for stalking off to Kansas while leaving Dee Brown, Deron Williams, and Luther Head to a new coach when they were primed for a run at the national championship, and while also costing the Illini prize recruit (and eyelash-less) Charlie Villanueva. Yet having suffered through Self's inability to manage the clock well, and to diagram game-ending plays well, among other limitations, there is no doubt in my mind that the Illini would have fared worse under Self in '04-'05. While it's taking Bruce Weber several years to land the group of blue-chippers now heading Illinois' way, the sight of Mr. Illinois Disloyalty on the KU sideline no longer geeks my blood pressure. But it's still fun when Bill's Jayhawk all-stars flame out in the first round to 14 seed Bucknell, are routed in the first round by 13 seed Bradley, or lose a home game to a 2-6 UMass team, as they just did Saturday. And someday Weber's going to clean his clock in a regional final. Mark it down.
6. Eric Gordon. The karmic wheel has turned with a vengeance on this young man, for he is a Los Angeles Clipper. The Clippers are 5-17. Rather than learning his craft at the feet of Bruce Weber, Gordon is averaging 8 points a game off the bench as a 19 year old NBA rookie, for a franchise called the Bermuda Triangle of the NBA, referring to devastating injuries to luminaries such as Danny Manning, Derek Smith, Michael Brooks and Shaun Livingston. The switch from Illinois to Indiana was bad enough for the Illini, but Gordon, likely at the instance of his handlers, waited until the last moment, preventing Illinois from filling the spot with one of several highly touted alternatives. Ouch.
5. Gary Maxwell. I like Brandon Roy. I really do. He's smooth, classy, and a smart player. But Illinois led 53-42 in the second half of its 2006 tourney matchup with Roy's Huskies, and the (sometimes ridiculous) foul calls would not stop. Every initiation on offense by Washington led to free throws. For the first fifteen minutes, the game was officiated in a roughly even manner. For the last twenty-five, it was like Roy's mother had the pea. Washington ended the night 28-39 from the stripe, the men in orange, 9-11. Referee Gary Maxwell, at the center of this nonsense, earned great criticism earlier that year, when Duke enjoyed an absurd 37-13 free throw advantage in an 83-81 road win at Boston College, culminating in a heinous no-call on a critical Sheldon Williams block down the stretch. So ended the Dee Brown era, not as it should have, in a Final Four, or with Illinois going out to mighty UConn, but instead at the hands of controversial ACC official Gary Maxwell. Nice.
4. Sean Higgins. In 1989, Illinois was 31-4 (23-0 with Kendall Gill in the lineup), playing a Michigan team it had handled easily twice in the regular season. In the national semifinals, it was 81-81 with two seconds left. In a classic game marked by 33 lead changes, Higgins happened to be standing on the weak side, when a hideously off course three point heave by Terry Mills bounced to him, over a well-positioned Nick Anderson. (That was the genius of Steve Fisher, folks. With a berth in the national title game at stake, it's Terry Mills for three!) As they say, it's better to be lucky than good.
3. Kelvin Sampson. Do I have to explain this? After getting Oklahoma on probation, Sampson brought his unique brand of gritty X's and O's coaching, combined with a ludicrous level of disregard for rules and professional ethics, to IU. As was the case after Jerry Reinsdorf essentially caused the 1994 baseball strike, causing me to cease attending White Sox games, if Illinois had hired Sampson, I could not have maintained my fandom. Yet IU did this. And Sampson lured Eric Gordon by hiring his AAU coach and another friend of Gordon's dad, a practice that should be prohibited in any fair world. While Sampson is banned from college coaching for five years, Indiana's program hit rock bottom, and Gordon is a Clipper, the Illinois team last year was painful to watch -- lacking a blue-chip outside shooter and a free-throw making, game-closing guard. Just desserts have been served to Sampson and others, but the sting of stealing Gordon felt like someone taking the one recruiting coup that flowed from the '05 final appearance. A true villain. Speaking of Hoosier Daddies...
2. Bobby Knight. What an amazing nemesis Knight was. The 1986 game in which Knight drew a technical foul, kicked a megaphone, and screamed at IU cheerleaders. Knight's epic 1989 tantrum when his Hoosiers (15-3 Big Ten) drew a 2 seed out west, while the Flying Illini (14-4 Big Ten), who had beaten him twice, including once the week before on Nick Anderson's thirty five footer at the buzzer without Kendall Gill, got a 1 seed in Minneapolis. The 1991 game in which Knight left the court without shaking hands with Lou Henson, who called Knight a "classic bully." The 1998 game in Indiana's Assembly Hall, in which Knight accumulated not two but three technical fouls in a loss to Illinois. Knight wasn't just an enemy, he was a bitter rival over two decades during which he won three national championships -- two with Illinois high school legends (Quinn Buckner in 1976, Isiah Thomas in 1981). Knight was a worthy foe, a complex character of almost Shakespearean evil. I was lucky enough to see Knight's last Big 10 game, a loss in the conference tourney quarters on a Cory Bradford three. Glad he's gone. Stay gone, Bobby. We don't miss you.
1. Bruce Pearl. If you're young and new to Illinois hoops, you might not know the whole story. Pearl was an assistant to Dr. Tom Davis at Iowa, engaged in a life-or-death competition with Illinois assistant Jimmy Collins over highly touted but undersized Simeon center Deon Thomas, who turned out not to be worth the bother. Pearl audiorecorded calls with Thomas, purporting to confirm, with Pearl alleging and Thomas grunting along with him, that Illinois had offered Thomas cash. This appeared to violate the criminal law of at least one of the two states in which the call occurred (no one cared). Pearl never gave the NCAA the original tape, but rather, an edited version. Pearl was found in the Netherlands having contact with Thomas in violation of NCAA rules, as reported by the Sun-Times' Taylor Bell. Like Whitewater, the charge that started it all off -- in this case, a Blazer and big cash to Thomas -- was an unproven dud. Also like Whitewater, the collateral stuff got Illinois a three year probation.
For years to come, the Hall was a war zone for Illinois-Iowa. People with nooses and "Pearl Necklace" signs. I was at the Hall on January 28, 1991, during a campaign when the probation-hobbled Illini were a surprise third in the Big Ten (21-10, 11-7), and slowly ground ahead 48-36, only to see Iowa tie the game at 48, before Illini held on to win an emotional nailbiter. The building was a seething mass of boos, the angriest sporting event I've ever attended. The Hall was only two-thirds full, and it was loud and personal. A few years later, Pearl was gone but not forgotten when Andy Kauffman's wild three at the buzzer lifted Illinois to a cathartic 78-77 victory.
Bruce Weber is classy, and was right to play down the Pearl angle when his Illini faced Pearl's Wisconsin-Milwaukee squad in the round of 16 in 2005, but for me, Bruce Pearl will always be the Illini Nation's number one foe. Who is yours?
