Illinitalk

Some great articles on the Illini today.

The Chicago Tribune has a story about how Deron, Dee, and Luther could each be considered the team's MVP. There has been a lot of discussion on this topic lately but the Tribune article features some excellent and insightful comments from Michigan State, Tom Izzo. He is one classy guy. The article also points out that Illinois' sports information office will be promoting all three guys for national postseason awards as well as Coach Weber for Coach of the Year. Illinitalk feels it is very appropriate to promote all three guards equally--they are all very deserving.

ESPN's Andy Katz addresses whether his pre-season questions have now been answered in an article on ESPN.com. With regards to the Illini, he had asked if a lack of an interior would hurt Illinois? A summary of his answer: Not so far. This argument is moot to this point. This team keeps winning because it is a selfless squad that gets everyone involved, including the inside players. You will find his questions about Wake Forest and North Carolina have not been answered quite so definitely.

Finally, Herb Gould of the Chicago Sun-Times has an outstanding article on how Dee is the Illini's anchor. I could quote the whole article--it is that good. Seriously, it is tough to pick a favorite part of the article but I think it is the following. Dee--"We're what teams should be. Nobody's jealous of each other. You usually hear about someone shooting too much or [complaining] about playing time. With us, sometimes people get mad at players for not shooting the basketball. That's unheard of. Here, everyone shares the ball. Everyone plays the game with an unselfish attitude.'' And later, he answered a follow up question by saying, "A lot of teams would be better than they are if they would stick to team-oriented. When they stick to 'I,' they never play good.'' As the article says, that's old school. That's Dee. I love it.