One Net in Hand, Ayo & Illini Set Sights on Big Dance

Peaking at right time, Illinois emerges as popular NCAA tournament pick. For many good reasons.

The Fighting Illini are getting a lot of love from experts around the basketball nation. I do not disagree, with this caveat. . .

The thing that makes the NCAA tournament the most wonderful time of the sports year is the same thing that often makes it gut-wrenching for teams with great expectations. March Madness also is one of the most unpredictable times of the sports year.

That said, the case for Illinois is very, very good. So...let’s make it.

It starts, of course, with Ayo Dosunmu. He is a wonder with the ball. He has exceptional speed and a brilliant ability to score.

And as the season has progressed, he has matured nicely. A little less magical experimentation; a little more eyes-on-the-prize. Maybe the stat geeks will back up my eye-test impression. Maybe not.

Point is, Dosunmu is very locked in, focused, intent. Choose your over-used sports word.

Here’s another thing to like about Illinois’s chance to win its first NCAA championship: The Illini notched their biggest win of the season without Dosunmu.

With their star sidelined by a broken nose, the Illini throttled Michigan 76-53 in Ann Arbor on March 2 behind 22 points from Trent Frazier and 17 from Andre Curbelo. It was their third straight win without Dosunmu, including a hard-nosed road win at Wisconsin in which Kofi Cockburn had 19 points.

That Ayo-less three-game stretch was more than a key component in the top-shelf finish that saw Illinois win 14 of its last final 15 games.

It showed that Illinois’ so-called supporting cast was capable of starring roles. More importantly, when Dosunmu returned, the whole thing meshed. Ayo did his thing. But the players around him seemed better able to do their things.

During the year, when Illinois had problems playing consistently-strong complete games, some experts were critical of the players around Ayo. I sort of thought it was on him to get his teammates more involved.

This wasn’t merely an issue in early games that Illinois lost. It also was a concern in games where Illinois started slow, or let teams turn blowouts into nail biters. It was troubling for the realists in Illini Nation.

That was then. Illinois now heads into this NCAA tournament looking very much like that issue has been resolved.

Everyone in the rotation seems to be fitting together nicely. That’s exactly what a team needs to survive and advance in the Big Dance.

Frazier is capable of taking over a game, as he showed at Michigan. Curbelo is a fine all-around contributor/agitator/spark plug—one of those rare mature freshmen who plays with the savvy of a seasoned upperclassman.

Cockburn is an old-school big man—what Al McGuire used to call an “aircraft carrier’’—who can gobble up teams that don’t mind their business in the paint. That threat can be minimized in today’s game, but the threat is there.

Cockburn’s backup, Giorgi Bezhanishvili, is an excellent counterpoint who can range away from the basket, who can pass and move—and who brings an enthusiastic energy that can change momentum.

And while Adam Miller has had a very uneven freshman year after showing some flashes at the start of the season, he looks like he’s going to have a nice college career. Wouldn’t expect him to explode this month. But stranger things have happened.

And then there’s Da’Monte Williams. Seeing him on the floor with that almost-laconic gait that quickly turns into a sneaky burst, I am reminded of his father, Frank, who was the 2001 Big Ten player-of-the-year point guard. Frank had a loose-but-driven approach to things that reminded me of Bears QB Jim McMahon.

That was back in the day when I was on the Illini beat. It was an exciting time, to see Illinois go from a bottom-feeder playing a ton of Lon-Kruger-recruited freshmen to becoming a league champion when they added Frank and his Peoria pals, Sergio McClain and Marcus Griffin, to becoming a national phenomenon when Bill Self brought in Deron Williams and Dee Brown.

It was fun and fascinating to watch the program grow as those waves of players gained experience.

In a way, this year’s roster has gone through that kind of process, only in a more compact way. Frazier and Bezhanishvili, who had to assume much larger roles, have adjusted well to being complementary players. Dosunmu seems more adept at taking care of the ball—and taking care of his teammates.

Illini even has a chip on its shoulder, in the form of Michigan being awarded the regular-season Big Ten title on win percentage even though the Wolverines (14-2) and Illini (16-4) finished in a tie on the traditional games-behind measure.

When athletic director Josh Whitman started whining about that, I shuddered a bit. Even if he had a point, everyone, including Whitman, in the Big Ten had agreed on win percentage being the measure. Whitman's grumbling wasn’t going to change anything; it was sour grapes that diminished, in a way, what Brad Underwood and his players had accomplished.

But then the Illini played like men on a mission as they rolled to the Big Ten tournament title. Clearly, the disrespect from the regular-season snub had lit a fire.

Now we’ll see if they can keep that fire lit in the NCAA tournament. I wouldn’t bet against it.