I haven’t made posting a priority for a while, so I thought I’d get caught on discussing the Illini. First of all, I’m glad to see we are back at “full strength”. Chester Frazier and Shaun Pruitt are nursing some injuries and Brian Randle and Jamar Smith are going to need to get back into playing full games, but everyone, with the exception of Richard Semrau, is back.
We had some tough losses against teams that we could have beaten. And in both of those games, we showed how we can be beaten. We tend to have stretches during the game where we don’t keep up the same intensity. We let Maryland back in the game just like we let UIC back in the game this past Saturday. Warren Carter, possibly our best player, has a bad case of Frank Williams-itis. Also, we need to stay out of foul trouble, which seems to be an issue every year, and keep the mistakes to a minimum. I’m not sure Weber has figured out exactly how he is going to rotate guys in and out since he has been playing short-handed. Have you seen that four guard lineup he has played a few times?
I think the ceiling for this team is a birth in the Sweet 16. I think we have a lot of strong role players on this team, but we don’t have that one guy or those two guys that the team can look toward. Maybe that is a good thing, but every championship team has NBA caliber talent. I think we have some talented and tough players, but I’m not sure if we have one or two guys that are going to step up and be that guy. The best player on the court changes every game. This team will be fun to watch and they have an upset or two in their system, but they are going to need to put it all together to make a real championship run. I’ll keep rooting for it…
