Fight Scenes

A season is made up of a million little moments. Illinois hopes they add up to something special

What's it take to be No. 1? How does a team with a bull's-eye on its back keep a perfect season alive? Can a school that's never won the NCAA go all the way? To find out, we went to Champaign, Ill., with an all-access pass for a two-game, homeroad stretch in early February. We were embedded with the Illini at home and at practice, in team meetings and strategy sessions, on the ground and in the air. What we found were three guards who share their lives like they share the ball, a forward/minister who keeps his teammates humble and a dues-paying coach who's working overtime to keep the train on the track, and headed for St. Louis. This is the centennial year of Illinois basketball. The first 99 were nothing like this.

SATURDAY, FEB. 5, 11 a.m.
In Locker Room B, deep in the bowels of Assembly Hall, the Illini sit quietly in the darkness, all eyes focused on a video screen. For the next 10 minutes, assistant Jay Price, sitting on the floor, talks them through a scouting tape of the next day's opponent, the Indiana Hoosiers. "They run sets," he says. "Get up in their asses. Take away one pass, and they struggle to score."

The lights come on. Head coach Bruce Weber stands before his squad in a bright orange pullover. "We have to take care of our singles," he says, referring to the conference teams Illinois plays only once in the regular season. Suddenly, his raspy screech becomes louder than his shirt. "Remember: talent is God given; be thankful. Fame is man given; be grateful. Conceit is self given; be careful." It's a Woodenism that may as well be a Weberism.

The 48-year-old Milwaukee native spent 18 years as a Purdue assistant before getting his first top job, at Southern Illinois, in 1998. So it's no surprise he preaches a Midwestern work ethic. "I learned from my dad and Gene Keady that if you treat life and basketball with respect, life and the game will treat you good," he says, his voice bouncing off the walls. "One bad decision, one ankle sprain, one who-knows-what and it can all be taken away."

Deron Williams, the team's star junior point guard, turns to his locker and knocks on wood.

2:15 p.m.
Three miles from campus, past fallow cornfields and the school's Swine Research Center, Dee Brown plays NBA Live in the living room of the apartment he shares with backcourt mate Luther Head and team manager Brandon Smith. "Aww, Lou ain't sleeping," Brown shouts, thumping his controller. "I know when he's asleep. He ain't sleeping now."

Sure enough, Head strolls out of his bedroom, ignoring the trash-talk just outside his door, and proceeds to the kitchen for a postnap glass of water. In a sleeveless blue T-shirt, the senior's tats are on display: bulldog on the left biceps, Grim Reaper cradling a basketball on the right. "Mistakes," he calls the art. "From when I was younger."

Although some of Head's mistakes are impossible to erase, he's trying to put others behind him. Just before his junior season, he and teammates Rich McBride and Aaron Spears were implicated in an off-campus burglary. Though never arrested or charged at the complainants' request, the three agreed to pay restitution, and Weber suspended them for four games. A few months later Head was arrested for driving with a suspended license. In a meeting with Weber, Head offered to quit. "I didn't want to be a distraction," he says.

Weber called the Illini together and asked if they thought Head should go. Dee and Deron later told their teammate that it took about three seconds for them all to say no. Over the next months, Brown and Williams were an informal support squad, taking Head to the movies or bowling or setting up marathon Monopoly sessions. This fall, Brown moved into Head's off-campus apartment; Williams lives across the walkway. "This team, they're like my family," Head says.

2:30 p.m.
The streak is over. After 40 straight NBA Live wins, Brown, representing the Grizzlies, has been taken out by Smith's Sonics. "Don't worry, I'll pay you back," the vanquished baller says in a booming voice that surely penetrates the neighbors' walls. After Smith struts from the room, Brown smiles, then offers his philosophy of life. "I enjoy having fun," he says. "I could play games all night long."

3:19 p.m.
As Brown plots his revenge, the Illini big men-Jack Ingram, James Augustine, Nick Smith and Warren Carter-sprawl across couches in their campus apartment, shades drawn. College hoops alternates with Tom Green reruns on their big screen. A before-and-after shot of newly muscular Charlotte gunner Brendan Plavich is flashed, and the room goes nuts. "I think he just flexed his core in the second picture," says Smith, a rail-thin 7'2" senior. A laughing Augustine says he wouldn't be surprised, then admits that in one of the Illini's promo posters, he smushed his biceps against his body to make them look bigger. "I saw the photo and I was like, Whoa, let's use that one.' "

8:45 p.m.
In Room 108 of the Ubben Basketball Complex, across the street from Assembly Hall, the Illini convene for yet another strategy session. The players chow on Papa Del's pizza-the best in town-as they study more video. Coach Weber steps to the dry-erase board and writes down two dates: March 3 and April 4. Next to the dates in capital letters he writes COMMITMENT. The first is Senior Night. The second is the NCAA title game.

9:30 p.m.
The managers clear the pizza boxes. "Take the leftovers," Weber tells sports information director Kent Brown. "You have to do the cooking at home."

Before the Illini started their dream season, Brown suffered a nightmare. Last August, his wife, Robin, died of breast cancer, leaving him to raise 10-year-old Nicholle and 6-year-old Ty alone. Well, not exactly alone. "I couldn't do this without my parents and in-laws," he says, "and the 20 people around town who pick the kids up, watch them and provide the occasional meal. Coach Weber has been unbelievable, and the players are great around the kids." Power forward Roger Powell Jr., a licensed Pentecostal minister, called the day after Robin died to offer prayers. "The kids are adorable," Powell says. "And Kent is one of the most positive guys I know." Weber still does little things like drop envelopes full of fast food coupons on
the SID's desk.

His kids seem to be coping well, and Brown's family game plan sounds like championship advice for the Illini. "We just have to trust each other."

10:30 p.m.
The night before games, Head sometimes lies awake past 2 a.m., as scouting reports, film sessions and imaginary ball fakes buzz through his brain. To get through tonight, he pops Friday Night Lights into the VCR and leans back in bed with a mason jar of ice water. Consumed by the flick, his fingers absentmindedly tug at the gray hairs popping up in his mini-Afro; his teammates insist he doesn't get it cut for fear of jinxing their winning streak. Head watches silently with one exception: when a character faces a horde of reporters, he says, "I know how that feels."

SUNDAY, FEB. 6, 8 a.m.
The groggy players gather at Assembly Hall for a shootaround and breakfast. Weber says today's noon game-the earliest of the season-is good practice for the first round of the Tournament, when top seeds sometimes tip off just as early. Whatever, Coach. At 9:30, most of the players slink home to get some more rest. Williams simply grabs a blanket and catches some Z's on the locker room floor.

11:30 a.m.
The Illini are out on the floor warming up when Price enters the locker room with news: the Hoosiers, forced to juggle their lineup because of an ankle injury to star guard Bracey Wright, will start little-used freshman James Hardy up front. Weber, diagramming plays on the dry-erase board, turns to assistant Gary Nottingham and says, "What do you think, Gar, go inside early and often?" Augustine, going straight at Hardy, will score eight of Illinois' first 10 points …

2:15 p.m.
… and that will be the team's offensive highlight of the game. They finish with a season-low 60 points. But at least they followed the defensive game plan, taking the Hoosiers out of their sets, and holding them to 47. Aesthetically pleasing? No. But a W all the same. In the locker room, Weber provides a succinct assessment of their performance: "Today we put on a reverse clinic."

7:30 p.m.
Powell is enraptured. Sitting in a friend's kitchen, his eyes fixate on the living room TV. Joel Osteen is delivering a sermon on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. In another part of this apartment complex, some teammates are gathered at Head and Brown's place to watch the Super Bowl, but the game barely registers here. Powell and four buddies from his Get Free Ministries youth group check the game only when Osteen takes a breather.

Powell prays at 5:30 each morning, teaches Sunday school and leads the team in prayer before games. He scrawls Bible references on his kicks. This August, he'll officiate his first wedding.

He was steeling for a different path when he declared for the draft last April. But then the 6'6" forward came down with mono and his mom, Cherry, had surgery to remove fibroid tumors. "I got depressed, wondering where my life was going," he says. Tormented one night in June, Powell prayed until dawn asking for a sign. When he got off his knees, he grabbed the remote. THE CALL flashed across the screen. On the next channel, a woman asked, "Why are you running from God's plan?"

"That was all she wrote," says Powell, who's been a licensed minister since October. "I don't worry about the NBA or about streaks or anything else anymore. It's all His will."

MONDAY, FEB. 7, 3:03 p.m.
The Illini file into their "classroom" next to the locker room at Ubben, for a postmortem of the IU game and a preview of Michigan. The players always take the same seats for these short sessions: bigs in front, guards in back. Today, they barely say a word, although they do all chuckle about an air ball Powell heaved from three on Sunday.

5:30 p.m.
The blue-hairs at The Ribeye steak house turn their heads as the Illini lope to three banquet tables in the back. A man stooping at the salad bar says to his wife, "See? They eat here too."

And why not? The crew is hungry after a walkthrough. And they don't have a lot of time to spare--their charter to Michigan takes off in about an hour. Faster than Brown leads the break, the players overstuff their plates at the buffet line, as Weber jokes with teenage daughters Christy and Emily. Head trainer Al Martindale's cell phone rings.

"Well, what's the visibility? Okay … Okay … "

Fog has held the plane in Indianapolis, and it looks like their 6:30 flight will be delayed at least until 11. Shoulders slump around the tables. "Can't we get on a bus?" asks Williams. "It's a seven-hour drive," Weber says. "We'll fly in the morning."

7:30 p.m.
The flight is canceled, but that doesn't mean the Illini get the night off. The crew gathers in the film room at Ubben for assistant Tracy Webster's detailed scouting report, which was supposed to go down an hour-and-a-half later and 280 miles away. "They'll do a lot of three-out, two-in motion, some four-out, one-in motion," he says. "You need to communicate; they'll try to backscreen you."

Everyone looks up as Webster's tutorial morphs into a rallying cry. "We need to break their spirits," he yells. "If we jump out, they will quit. We need to let them know they shouldn't even be out here with us."

"Dang Coach, you need a towel?" says freshman Calvin Brock.

TUESDAY, FEB. 8, 8:30 a.m.
The players board the plane, many muffed by oversize headphones that blast personalized soundtracks. Smith drapes his lanky frame in the exit row. Walk-on forward Fred Nkemdi pulls out a textbook. The rest of the players pull down the window shades and nap while the coaches up front eye the sports pages.

12:50 p.m.
The Illini have come to Crisler Arena straight from the airport, the first time this season they have traveled day-of-game, but Weber isn't sweating. Asked if it would have been easier to stay home and take the forfeit loss, he laughs. Now with the shootaround just ended, some players hang out to launch bombs. When Head nails seven straight from the bench, Nottingham says, "That's our new out-of-bounds play."

6:20 p.m.
In the cramped visitors locker room, the team sits facing the dry-erase board. Coach Weber, as he does before every game, has neatly written down each opposing player's name, height, weight, year in school, stats, and whether he is left-handed.

The coach waits with his hands clasped in front of him as the room comes to order. On the board behind Weber, above the mish-mash of half-courts covered with squiggy lines, he has jotted, "Last Time Michigan Played #1 in Crisler: U of M 81, Duke 73." Deron looks up at Weber and says, "You nervous about the game, Coach?"

8:20 p.m.
The Wolverines are proving to be a feisty bunch tonight. Even after the Illini make a minisurge midway through the second half, the Wolverines hold a four-point lead going into a media time-out with 9:47 left. During the break, Weber pulls his chair onto the court in front of the players. He waits quietly for 20 seconds or so, then diagrams a play against man, and another against zone. Finally, he looks into the players' eyes and says, "Now's the time to take the lead. But somebody's gotta make something happen."

Brown is that somebody. Trotting upcourt after a failed fast break, Brown bumps Michigan guard Ashtyn Bell hard enough to knock him forward a step. "I'm about to turn it on," he says, glaring and gnawing on the orange mouthguard that hangs out of the side of his mouth. Over the next 113 seconds, he makes two steals, scores seven points and gives the Illini a 42-41 lead. They win 57-51.

9 p.m.
In the locker room, Weber, suit jacket off, vents his frustration. "I'm not worried about going undefeated," he booms. "I want you to be good in March and April. That's when you need to be undefeated."

11:41 p.m.
Bad weather again. And the squad's plane out is 80 minutes late; they won't land until 1:25. Stuffed into a tiny airport lounge just outside of Ann Arbor, most of the players turn to their two-ways and iPods. Powell thumbs through the spiritual selfhelp guide The Bait of Satan, Brown sits with a couple of assistants, recounting a friendly exchange he had with a ref over a shaky call. When he deplanes several hours later, Brown, still wired, will say he's consumed by two tasks: getting to a 9 a.m. kinesiology class, and taking care of business in four days against Wisconsin. (He does, and they do.)

The Illini will rest in May.

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