The Fighting Illini 09-10 Basketball season tips off tonight against SIU-Edwardsville. Coach Weber has four freshman to incorporate, three of which have already proven they will play (and Joseph Bertrand might be in that mix too if not for a knee injury), and his top three returning scorers in McCamey, Davis, and Tisdale. Illinois has three more talented players coming in next year, and Weber deserves a lot of credit for his recent recruiting success.
But if the football team has taught us anything, it’s to be wary of the local hype surrounding the Illini. Don’t get carried away with lofty prognostications. That said, we’re optimistic about this year’s hoops team. They will be fun to watch with young athletic players and depth on the bench. The days of low-scoring milk-the-shotclock-and-hope offense should be behind us, and we won’t see many more games in the 40s and 50s (let alone that nightmare Penn State game in the 30s).
Last year’s team overachieved its way to a 24-10 record behind the grit of Chester Frazier and the scoring of the now-junior class. So what do we see for this year? Five points in the pentagram…
