Losing Kendall Gill for about a third of the season was, in hindsight, the best thing that could have happened to the University of Illinois basketball team this year. No one–not even Gill’s greatest admirer–was aware of how important he was to the Fighting Illini. Quick and thin, intelligent on the court, with a fine shooting touch, a sense for passing, and long, spidery arms reminiscent of the 70s star Charlie Scott, Gill remains if not the best player on the Illini then certainly the most difficult to replace. He has a sense for understanding what needs to be done on the court at any given moment, and he does it–or he gets the ball to someone else who can. That’s the sort of player a team grows dependent upon; it’s the sort of player who creates championship seasons.
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Yet all this doesn’t mean that all the Illini needed to become a Final Four team was, simply, to understand who the most valuable player was. What it means is that the Illini–historical choke artists that they are, a typical Chicago team–needed and need a little something extra to keep their minds occupied. Gill has become that thing–call it a court mojo. He went down with a stress fracture in his foot in the very game in which the Illini were laying claim to the number-one ranking in college basketball. They were undefeated when they beat Georgia Tech to go 18-0, and without Gill they lost their next game, to the then underrated Minnesota Golden Gophers. They continued their uneven play until they finally got it together enough to struggle home as Big Ten also-rans but also as a certain NCAA Tournament team, and when Gill returned–for the last two games of the year–they went about proving they were a good deal better than that. This allowed them to usurp Indiana’s birthright to a top regional seeding in the tournament, but more important it established Gill as their lucky charm. Without him, they are a normal team, but with him they are invincible. For a group as skittish and as prone to outthinking itself as the Illini, that has made all the difference. They are still undefeated with Gill in the lineup.
Henson, after 15 years of coaching Illinois, has finally matured. His laissez-faire approach this year has played both to his strengths and the team’s. Never a great bench coach, rarely seeing the strategy behind the time-out, cautious and overly thematic in setting specific offensive plays, Henson was the single greatest liability on many previous Illinois teams. What he was was a great recruiter and a fine defensive coach–two skills that don’t always match up well. Yet these talents have complemented each other this year. Having recruited as fine and as uninhibited a group of players as he’s ever had–and perhaps with the lack of a dominating center giving him the willingness to gamble on their natural abilities–he’s given them the tactics to play a tough defense and told them that’s what should set up their offense. From moment to moment, the Illinois offense is only as good as its defense, but the defense is usually strong, and once started the offense runs of its own volition.
