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player ready...REASONS TO ROOT FOR ILLINOIS
1. The Illini are a team of old-school stripe. They pass the ball. (Two of every three Illinois baskets this season have resulted from assists, a staggering ratio.) They defend. They don’t care who scores. “The open man gets the open shot,” guard Luther Head says.
2. Bruce Weber is unassuming in a way neo-coaches never are. He spent 18 years as Gene Keady’s assistant at Purdue, a time in which he was repeatedly advised to go out and get a head-coaching job before it was too late. “I’m not sure I deserve to be here,” Weber said Friday. But he absolutely does.
3. Illinois winning is the better story. Who can’t help but get misty-eyed over an unassuming coach whose devoted mother died March 11 and his continuing pursuit of a championship? (Dawn Weber was attending the Big Ten tournament when her aorta ruptured.)
. . . AND AGAINST
1. Orange. Yuck.
2. An Illinois victory would strike a blow for team basketball and therefore set an unsettling precedent for a sport that has all but forgotten what a team really is.
REASONS TO ROOT FOR NORTH CAROLINA . . .
1. None I can think of.
2. Wait. Here’s one. Sean May is a student of basketball history on the order of Georgia Tech’s Jarrett Jack. Scott May, Sean’s father, was the leading scorer and Final Four MVP for the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, the last undefeated champ. Sean May carries a video of Indiana’s victory over Michigan in the title game and planned to show it to his teammates this weekend. “I just want to show them the last five minutes and the celebration my dad’s team had,” May said.
. . . AND AGAINST
1. The brooding Rashad McCants thinks rather highly of himself. He has the habit of writing “P.O.T.Y.” on his sneakers–player of the year. Reality check: McCants was voted only third-team all-ACC. On Sunday he was asked about Illinois’ Deron Williams. “I really don’t feel any defender out there is going to bother me,” McCants said. And then: “When I come ready to play, it’s usually not pretty for whoever’s guarding me.”
2. A Carolina victory would send the message that a bunch of McDonald’s All-Americans can decide they hate their coach and contrive to get him ousted–as happened when the pouty Heels rebelled against the rough-and-ready Matt Doherty two years ago–and turn around and win a national championship. Things like that are supposed to happen in the NBA, not in the dignified ACC.