Illinois coach Theresa Grentz was asked a couple of questions last Sunday just after Tauja Catchings’ buzzer-beating basket defeated Penn State and advanced the Illini into the Big Ten women’s tournament title game against Purdue.
Is Illinois, Grentz was asked, like Purdue was one year ago? And if so, could Illinois next season be like Purdue has been this season?
There seemed to be some basis for such a comparison. The Boilermakers returned every player from the team that won the Big Ten tournament last year. Illinois loses only one starter this year, Alicia Sheeler. Returning will be Catchings, 6-foot-2-inch team scoring leader Susan Blauser, Melissa Parker, Lisa Guarneri, Dawn Vana and the tournament’s freshman sensation, 5-9 Allison Curtin from Downstate Taylorville.
“I don’t compare teams,” Grentz said. “And you can’t compare these two teams . . . because Purdue has Stephanie White-McCarty.”
Twenty-four hours later there seemed even more reason to draw a comparison between the ’98 Boilers and the ’99 Illini. The nation’s No. 1 Boilermakers prevailed 80-76, but only because White-McCarty, whom Grentz called incomparable, had taken over at crunch time.
White-McCarty hit a three-point shot, snared the key rebound and sank four free throws in the closing seconds before a pro-Purdue crowd of 6,459 that hiked tournament attendance to a record 29,808 for five sessions.
Illinois, however, battled the Boilermakers to the wire with a cast that will return and could be strengthened by new players.
The Illini even played some effective defense in the second half. Before the game Grentz had cracked: “We won’t press. We tried pressing at Notre Dame and held them to 101 points.”
Catchings was unstoppable in the title game. She slashed to the hoop for a career-high 26 points against a defense stacked to stop her pet right-to-left move. Curtin, joining Catchings on the all-tournament team, provided an eyeful for the coach of any Illini opponent in the NCAA tournament.
Curtin crashed through the slenderest of gaps to the basket as she had before in the tournament, and she also went 4 for 4 from three-point range. She scored 20, 23 and 24 points in the Big Ten tournament.
“You’re still a scorer, not a shooter,” Grentz cautioned Curtin after the Purdue game. “You still have to work on your shot over the summer.”
If all this were not enough, the Illini should benefit next season from some new faces. Highly regarded 6-2 Cindy Dallas from Pittsburgh, sidelined by injury as a freshman, should be healthy.
Illinois’ freshman class of 1999-2000 will contain 5-7 Glenbard West guard Kristy Faulkner, who Grentz said plays with an “effervescence.” Grentz also has lauded the work ethic of incoming 6-3 Palatine post player Karen Hagberg.
“I’m extremely proud of my team,” Grentz said after the title loss to Purdue. “They were absolutely magnificent. I can’t be more proud. Now it’s move on into the NCAA tournament.”
And one year from now, maybe somebody will ask a coach (such as Jane Albright-Dieterle of Wisconsin), “Do you think your team now is where Illinois was one year ago.?”
Tournament front: Look for seven Big Ten teams to go into postseason play: 28-1 Purdue, 21-7 Penn State, 18-11 Illinois and 17-11 Ohio State into the NCAA tournament, and 17-11 Michigan, 15-13 Michigan State and 14-13 Wisconsin into the NIT.
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Ohio State and Michigan would appear to be on the NCAA bubble, but the selection committee isn’t likely to limit a power conference such as the Big Ten to three schools. The Buckeyes, because of their higher RPI rating, would be picked before the Wolverines.
The NIT is a different story. As with the men’s NIT, the ability to pull cash customers through the host turnstiles means more than won-lost records.
Michigan State ranked 43rd in the nation in attendance, averaging 1,923 fans per home game. Wisconsin ranked No. 4 with 8,469 per game in the Kohl Center.