llinois' mettle deserves a medal
This was supposed to be a nice quiet week in which Illinois rested up and got ready for a triumphant finish. In this gnarly season? Fat chance.
The Illini were coming off one of their best efforts in a 65-61 loss Feb. 10 at Indiana and had a week off before their home game today against Northwestern (2 p.m., Ch. 26, 560-AM, 720-AM), a week in which they hoped to become healthier than they had been since Brian Randle suffered a groin injury in the opener that required surgery.
But late Monday, Jamar Smith crossed the center line and crashed his grandparents' 1996 Lexus into a tree, ending his own season and putting teammate Brian Carlwell in a hospital with a severe concussion.
Carlwell will be back in the fall, if not this spring. He checked out of an Urbana hospital Friday and might return for the Big Ten tournament if all goes well. All in all, a marvelous recovery.
Smith's situation isn't so clear. He's on a leave of absence for the rest of the season, and whether he returns in the fall might depend on how the questions surrounding the accident are resolved.
Was Smith impaired? Why did he drive a severely damaged car back to his apartment rather than call 911 from his cell phone on the spot? Did he have things to hide, or was he simply dazed and disoriented?
The authorities will give their version soon. And Smith, who has hired an attorney, will give his response.
If the explanations are good, maybe all of this will go away. In this gnarly season, don't bet on it.
More likely, coach Bruce Weber and the university will face a difficult situation. In the fall, Rich McBride was suspended for four games for driving under the influence. In the fall of 2003, McBride, Luther Head and Aaron Spears received similar suspensions in connection with a burglary in which the extent of their roles never was definitively determined.
This time, depending on how the evidence unfolds, Weber might be under pressure to take a tougher stand.
That's down the road, though. What Weber and the Illini are trying to do now is salvage their eighth consecutive NCAA tournament bid from a season that been more of a forced march than anything else.
''If we hadn't dealt with adversity, I'd be more worried,'' Weber said of the Smith-Carlwell wreck, which has frayed the nerves of a team already on a white-knuckle ride. ''Don't get me wrong, I'm still worried. It's just that we've dealt with stuff all year. I think our kids can deal with this.''
If they can, another NCAA tournament trip is within their grasp. Illinois (18-9, 6-6 in the Big Ten) is squarely on the bubble by most projections. Depending on where you look, the Illini are either one of the last teams in or one of the first teams out.
But their RPI (39) and strength of schedule (20) give them a chance. So do their two remaining home games -- against NU and Michigan.
The game Wednesday against the Wolverines will be the Chief's last dance. Under an announcement made Friday, Illinois has capitulated: Chief Illiniwek is gone. That frees up the Illini to host a National Invitation Tournament game if they don't reach the NCAA tourney.
The trouble is, the NIT will be such a tough ticket to sell -- especially without the Chief's halftime dance -- that Illinois quietly might request an away game if it comes to that.
Nobody wants to go to the NIT. Nobody wants to be on the team that ended Illinois' streak of seven consecutive NCAA tournament appearances.
''You just have to stay positive,'' Weber said. ''We still have each other. And our RPI and schedule rating are high.''
If Illinois can win its home games, it will go to Penn State on Saturday with a chance to lock up at least a 9-7 Big Ten record before finishing the season at Iowa, where it could get to 10-6.
Weber thinks nine victories should be enough.
''Even at 8-8, we're still going to be in consideration,'' he said, counting on Illinois to continue its United Center success to put itself over the top in the Big Ten tournament. ''We'd have to have some good things happen in the Big Ten tournament.
''But I feel good about our position. We just have to focus on ourselves right now and see if we can overcome some pretty difficult times and add a great finish to our season.''
This season has unfolded strangely, to say the least. Smith and Randle, who were expected to be anchors, have experienced all kinds of trouble. And Warren Carter, Chester Frazier and Shaun Pruitt, all of whom came into the season as question marks, have overachieved.
But now this team will determine how it stacks up. Maybe it won't be good enough. But with all it has been through, it figures to be tough enough.
