Polls: Tennessee took the top spot back from Florida after they beat South Carolina and the Gators fell to Arkansas on Saturday. One-loss Temple is now No. 3.
Awards:
Horizon League Player of the Week: PF #42 Justin Mansell, 6'9" sophomore, Loyola-Chicago (23.5 ppg, 16 rpg, 4 bpg)
Horizon League Freshman of the Week: PG #11 Rashun Cooper, 6'1" freshman, Illinois-Chicago (11 ppg, 4 apg) Rashun’s second time winning. Must have been a slow week.
National Player of the Week: SF #33 Matt Henderson, 6'8" junior, UNC-Greensboro (32 ppg, 14 rpg)
National Freshman of the Week: SF Billy Harris, 6'8" freshman, Drexel (24 ppg, 12 rpg)
News: Big loss for Butler — SG DeLawn Mydra tore his ACL now, of all times.
Game 28 Report
Illinois-Chicago (15-12, 7-7) at Loyola-Chicago (9-18, 5-9)
Thursday, February 27, 2003
The Ramblers lost starting point guard Dante Caskill a few weeks ago, so they're without by far their best ball handler. So what did we do? Press, of course. On our end, our first two shots were blocked, but we got one back for a bucket. After that, we gave up four consecutive baskets before a flagrant foul on Cooper sent him to the bench for a couple minutes to chill. Four and a half minutes in and we’re down 11-2. Three more minutes went by, and we’d already committed six turnovers and had four shots blocked. Also we’re trailing 16-6. Let's not go into the paint for a while.
Jefferson came off the bench and got us six points to help us get closer lest this game get away from us in the first 10 minutes. We got it to 23-17 with eight minutes to go in the half, but the Ramblers went to their bench and didn’t miss a beat, extending the lead back out to 12 points. In a new development for us, it was our free-throw shooting that kept us in it, and Jefferson hit a 3-pointer to end the half, though we still trailed, 36-29.
Jefferson led us with nine points. The Ramblers’ Justin Mansell blocked five shots in the first half. Chris Paulding had nine to lead them.
The second half started, and it seemed evident that Miller didn’t quite have his legs back after his injury layoff. Nathan Clay lit him up for nine points to start the second half, and he tired quickly. We’d managed to pull within 44-40, but Clay’s run continued and the Ramblers pushed the advantage back to nine. I’m getting the feeling this won’t be our night, but there’s still plenty of time.
Jefferson kept us in it almost by himself, hitting two threes in less than a minute, and a Jones putback got us to 66-59 with seven minutes left. But Cooper committed another flagrant foul, clearly frustrated that nobody can stop the red-hot Clay. With 1:51 left, it was 80-69, and we only made one shot after that. 87-72 loss.
Clay was the difference, scoring 16 points in the second half to finish with a game-high 24. Paulding added 18. Jefferson came off the bench to lead us with a career-high 23, but our starters were dismal.
Game 29 Report
Illinois-Chicago (15-13, 7-8) at Butler (16-12, 10-5)
Saturday, March 1, 2003
The Bulldogs lost at home to Montana State on Wednesday. They can’t be happy. And unhappy Bulldogs can’t possibly make us happy. Here’s the setup: a win gives the Bulldogs the regular-season conference title, while a loss may hand it to Wisconsin-Green Bay. The best we can do is finish tied for fourth with Wright State. And considering they beat us by 33 on our court…
…then we probably shouldn’t have been too surprised that they made their first three shots and that Cooper got called for two quick and questionable fouls. Two and a half minutes go by and he’s already on the bench. Four minutes later, Miller picked up his second foul, and we ditched the zone we’d put in just for this game — it wasn’t working (Butler was shooting 75% at this point), and we’d just lost our starting backcourt to fouls. We were trailing 18-12 at this point in the game, and had taken more jumpers than usual as part of Mills's "keep the ball outside and away from Ichaki unless absolutely necessary" strategy.
After switching to our usual help defense, Butler hit a cold spell and Ichaki started picking up fouls. He had three at the nine-minute mark of the first half and went to the bench. We brought Cooper and Jones back in and tied the game at 23 with 9:40 left in the first half on a 15-footer by Muhammad. From there it was nip-and-tuck for a while, as we were able to stay within striking distance, but couldn’t quite grab the lead.
Cooper got his third foul on an even worse call than the first two with four minutes left in the half. Butler took advantage of his absence to pull away a little, leading by eight at one point. Correa hit a three late in the half, and we went into the locker room down 45-40.
Correa led us with nine points at the break. Marlon Jackson (Mydra’s replacement in the starting lineup) had a game-high 10 for Butler. Ichiaki only played eight minutes in the first half with the three fouls. Cooper and Williams have three fouls for us, though. 13 to 4 was the foul call advantage. Hideous.
We somewhat reluctantly started the second half with our starters, since the bench guys needed a break. Mills also changed things up, telling the guys to attack the post. “Make Gabriel work,” he said. “Make him play you instead of the ball.”
Eventually, it worked as Cooper drew a fourth foul on Ichaki after three and a half minutes, sending him back to the bench. But Jerome Betts came back down and hit a three-pointer to stretch Butler’s lead to 53-45. We got it to 53-49 before both teams turned into masons, throwing up brick after brick after brick. Our bench players would be the ones to bring us back, as two Fields free throws cut the lead to 59-58 with 9:12 to play. To this point, we had not committed a foul in the entire second half.
Ichaki’s replacement, freshman Craig Raymond, doesn’t have his presumed mentor’s defensive skills. But he can score a little, and he’d been keeping things up for the Bulldogs on the offensive end, along with Betts and Jackson. But if you can’t hold on to the basketball, it doesn’t matter, and a Muhammad steal led to a Jefferson jumper which gave us our first lead at 60-59 with 8:49 to go!
With 7:42 left, we were finally whistled for a foul. Jones, White, and Williams returned to the floor with a three-point lead to protect. Butler’s Gerald Williams hit a three over Jones to tie it, but Jones came back with a runner to break the tie. Damon Williams picked up his fourth foul with five minutes left, and he went to the bench as Cooper and Miller returned. Damon re-entered the game with 3:46 left and with us up 70-69 — at the same time that Ichaki did.
A key play occurred with 3:03 left when Cooper was fouled by Betts — it was the Bulldogs’ seventh team foul, putting us in the bonus situation. Cooper sunk both shots to give us a 73-71 lead. Ichaki hit a running bank shot with just under a minute left to give the Bulldogs a 76-75 lead, but a White dunk put us back on top. We milked the clock on our next possession, but Cooper lost the ball out of bounds.
Twenty seconds left, Butler’s ball, they’re down by one. We had three fouls to give, and we gave all three, putting Betts on the line. He made both shots, and they’re up one with 15 seconds to go. We called time.
Now, we wanted to stay away from Ichaki, because a blocked or otherwise altered shot at this point could end the game. The ball ended up in Miller’s hands…
…and he missed. 78-77 loss in the finale; Butler wins the regular season title.
White led us with 16 points. Correa led the valiant bench troops with 12, while Cooper added 11. Butler’s Betts led all scorers with 20 and added nine assists. Jackson contributed 16 points to their win. This game wouldn’t have been close at all if Ichaki hadn’t been in foul trouble all day. Butler really missed him on the glass; we outrebounded them 39-18.
What does it mean?
Basically that the rest of us are playing for second.
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