How about one roster spot for a tough guy?

Posted In: Herald & Review Mark Tupper Illini
Date: Monday, December 21, 2009

Just posting my column a little early. I’m serious about this. One out of 13 roster spots should go to a basketball player with a football mentality, a tough guy who generates a culture of toughness at practice and in games. Not a goon, but a basketball player with a football sense of physical combat.
Here ’tis:
CHAMPAIGN – To use an automotive metaphor, everyone in college basketball is looking for the next Ferrari.
Fast, sleek, dynamic to drive, breathtaking to watch.
Park a few of them in your basketball garage and you just might have what it takes to compete for a national championship.
Illini basketball fans are excited about the four freshmen coach Bruce Weber brought into the program this season and with two of them starting, it’s possible Weber has wheeled in Ferrari-like athletes to get Illinois competing on an elite level again.
With Jereme Richmond, Meyers Leonard and Crandall Head on the way next year, the Illini are due to take delivery on three more sleek machines.
But as we were reminded Saturday night when Illinois got knocked around and lost to Georgia, it takes more than just Ferraris to win at this level. Although not nearly as sexy, there’s still a spot in this game for a stubborn bulldozer, a big, old, hard-to-move scrapper who doesn’t mind a good brawl and isn’t afraid to scratch the paint.
Illini forward Mike Davis is an outstanding athlete and leaper who is averaging 9.5 rebounds a game. But he’s thin and his success on the glass is built on quickness and finesse, not on muscle and might.
Illini center Mike Tisdale is 7-foot-1 and he has worked hard at being a better rebounder. But his unique ability to shoot the ball takes him away from the basket, and he’s not always lurking around the hoop. On a night when Georgia outrebounded Illinois 37-29, the Illini could have used a genuine brawler.
During his 18 years as an assistant coach at Purdue, Weber was around a lot of Gene Keady-led teams that seemed to recruit their share of roughneck farm kids with a nasty attitude who couldn’t jump especially high but who had an appetite for loose balls and physical defense. When you pushed them, they pushed back.
The poster boy for that Purdue toughness was Steve Sheffler, a 6-9, 250-pounder from Grand Rapids, Mich., who could have played football for the Michigan Wolverines, but who instead opted to play basketball for Keady.
Sheffler was tougher than a two dollar steak. He made himself into a terrific inside presence who ended up setting an NCAA career field goal percentage record with .685. Eventually, he found a spot in the NBA.
Even now, as Weber dispatches assistant coaches like Jerrance Howard in search of the next Ferrari, he has asked his assistants to be on the lookout for rugged, role-playing tough guys who might give Illinois another, missing dimension.
“I’ve asked Jerrance about it,” Weber confirmed Monday. “As a young coach you think you can never have enough talent, but you need other things, too. The thing is, they don’t know where these players are.
“People criticized Chester (Frazier) but his toughness went a long way. And while it’s always nice to get big, physical strong guys, you could use a strong guard, too.
“The one thing we don’t have is somebody who has played football. If you look back on the great Michigan State teams, Mateen Cleaves (point guard on the 2000 national champions) played football. Charlie Bell played football.
“Through our years at Purdue some of those guys played football. Chris Kramer on Purdue now is the toughest player in the league and maybe one of the toughest in the country and he’s a football kid.”
Ironically, the one football star Weber did recruit to Illinois turned out to be a washout in both basketball and football. That was C.J. Jackson, who was a highly recruited defensive lineman out of Georgia. He turned down his college football overtures and came to Illinois to play power forward.
But he never amounted to anything as a basketball player and when he tried to play football for coach Ron Zook, he couldn’t cut it over there, either. So the formula is not foolproof.
But remember: Dee Brown was a former football player and although he arrived in a small package, he had a big taste for competition.
On a roster that has 13 slots, there ought to be one for a guy who doubles as the bouncer at the campus watering hole.
I hope Jerrance Howard tracks down the next high-flying forward or the next jet-quick guard. But I also hope he wanders into some place like Meridian High School and takes a chance on someone like Dakota Getz.
Each Illini team should have one roster spot, endowed by Lucas Johnson, reserved for a battler who arrives each night with an edge and an attitudel. This team is missing that, and it shows.

(Read More ... )