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[NOV. 16, 2000]  Brian Cook and the U of I men’s basketball team are ready to begin a new era of Illini basketball. Under the hard-driving direction of new head coach Bill Self, Illinois will do just that in the Assembly Hall this weekend. The first game matches the Fighting Illini with the Black Bears of Maine. No one is quite sure how good the Illini can be, but look at these poll results. The AP writers tab us as the eighth-best team in the country. The coaches’ poll lists us as No. 9 in all the land, and now Sports Illustrated has probably cursed us more than it’s helped us by ranking us No. 4 in the nation. This week the LDN gives a short overview of the upcoming season. In the days ahead we’ll also give you loyal readers an outlook on the Lincoln Railers’ upcoming season as well. This is my favorite time of the year. Let the games begin!!!

Personally, this season is going to be a huge adjustment for me. I’m not just speaking of the fact that my new son will be born any day now. I’m going through Lon Kruger withdrawals! You see, I loved Coach Kruger. To me, he represented everything that is good about college basketball. I’m told that I will love Bill Self, too. I hope the jury is right about that. Right now I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Again, it’s not just all of the excitement leading up to the birth of my child. It is also the excitement leading up to the birth of our new Illini. What will they be like? Who will they look like? How will they act? These are just a few of the questions that I’ve been pondering.

I’m more than a little concerned about our high ranking. I hope it does our recruiting wonders. However, I have always been of the notion that it’s better to come out of nowhere and knock people off than it is to have a target on your back. Maybe I’m just too snakebitten by what we’ve endured in Illini football and years of Illinois sports frustrations. Maybe I should take my normal "glass is half full (or a little more in the right light)" optimism and say that coach Self is going to extract so much out of this team that a dynasty will be started with this edition of the Illini. Forgive me for only being cautiously optimistic. I want to believe. Bless my unbelief.

Actually, Illinois is returning all five starters from last year’s team. In fact, six of the Illini’s most-used eight players were either freshmen or sophomores a year ago.

A lot will depend on how point guard Frankie Williams matures in his role of quarterbacking the team. As Illinois strung off 12 of its last 15 contests, Williams averaged 4.2 assists and only 2.3 turnovers a game over that span. If he can repeat and improve on that performance, spaceship Assembly Hall will be launched into orbit.

Cory Bradford, who will be starting his junior year, has already been named by some publications as the preseason Big Ten Player of the Year! I hate those things. They’re sometimes the kiss of death. I hope it does nothing but motivate Cory and the boyz to go out and dominate their opponents.

The closest thing that the Fighting Illini have to a true presence in the post is Marcus Griffin. After honing his skills right here at Lincoln College, Marcus emerged last season as a force when he was healthy.

Sergio McClain can occasionally go inside and muscle with the big boys and still is one of the Illini’s best defensive players.

On the other end of the spectrum is Lucas Johnson. Even though he can and will mix it up, his ability to step out to the perimeter and consistently hit shots has been a big boost for Illini fortunes.

That brings us to Lincoln’s favorite son, Brian Cook. Brian was voted as the co-Big Ten Freshman of the Year (I like it when the awards come after the season) and that was in spite of getting little playing time early in the conference season. He did not put on as much weight as many thought he would. Sports Illustrated is reporting that Brian told them that he never ate breakfast and sometimes skipped lunch, too. Apparently, the coaching staff force-fed him and locked him in the weight room, for now he’s a formidable 245-pounder! If he can even equal last season’s output, much less improve on it, the Illini are destined to have a very solid year.

The bench should also be deep and may make the difference as to how far Illinois can go in 2001.

[to top of second column in this section]

The schedule

In a word, absolutely-totally-brutal! (OK—so I can’t count—send me to Florida if you must!) Of all the great things that Lon Kruger did for Illinois basketball, the one thing he did not do for coach Self was to leave a cupcake schedule. We’ve gotta play Duke,

Seton Hall, Texas, Missouri and possibly Arizona twice, not to mention other possible tournament matchups, all…before Christmas! If we were the Lakers, I’d say bring ‘em all on…but, since we’re not…I hope it doesn’t rattle our confidence. There I go again with my cautious optimism. Someone please tell me to take two aspirin and that everything will be all right in the morning entering the Big Ten portion of the schedule. I’m so rattled right now; I’m going to save my Big Ten review for you until after the holidays.

No team in the country may be better equipped for this critical area than the Illinois Fighting Illini. As I mentioned earlier, my friends in the know say that we’re going to love coach Self. Chris Widlick of Channel 3 TV in Champaign told me Saturday that we’re going to love him and that he’s going to make a difference for us. I hope that he and all the other prognosticators are right. I would love to see a "special" season in Chambana!

Another intangible in our favor is our crowd, when it shows up. I don’t mean just their physical presence in the Hall, I mean when they show up to do battle. I thought we had learned our lesson well a few years ago when we magically stole a Big Ten title. I’ll never forget the raucous crowd the night we completely destroyed Michigan State. I told Coach Izzo, who is a friend of former Lincoln resident Craig Zastrow, that he could expect more of the same every time he comes calling on us.

In case you’ve been off the planet for a while, I’m a lot like Z-93…I’m all Illinois…ALL the time (as a matter of fact, wherever I am in the world, even when I was in Africa…I am ALWAYS on ILLINI time).

So, once again I implore you wonderful, faithful Illini fans to come out in full force and back the greatest team in all the land! The more a raucous environment rules the day, the better chance there will be of the Assembly Hall becoming such a hostile atmosphere that no one will ever want to play us here. It’s still a long way from that right now.

If I were forced to give a prediction (which I hope I’m never held at gunpoint to do such a thing), I would say that the Illini, in spite of a tough schedule, might still make a run at a 20-win season. Learning a new system with a new coach, I will go conservative and predict that we will be somewhere around 18-10 going into the Big Ten tournament in March…but you won’t want to play us in the Big Dance!

[NOV. 16, 2000]  At one point earlier this season, the Lincoln Christian College women’s volleyball team had a record of 10-6. It did not appear at that point that the Angels were going to make a serious bid at another national title. However, an incredible metamorphosis took place, and LCC put together an amazing run that resulted in a 30-9 record, a second-place finish at regionals, an at-large bid to the national tournament and a trip to have some fun in the sun in Redding, Calif.! The LCC ladies became a true epitome team with different stars and leaders showing up on different nights. I met with LCC coach Kevin Crawford (who the LDN believes is one of the best small-college coaches of any sport) in my office as he was shaking off the effects of jet lag.

[click here for Part 2]

A. To us it’s always enjoyable to beat Moody. We beat Moody at regionals. I believe, in the last two games of the match, that we outscored them 30-5! That’s always a good win, as they are a fierce rival. Some of the upper-division schools that we beat — like Knox, Marycrest International, MacMurray and Greenville — we had to play good matches to upend them. Those schools are very good to pick off! We also played UIS very tough.

A. That’s hard to do. In fact, I really don’t like to compare one team to another. I think this year’s team felt that they were in the shadow of our ’98 national championship team. I tried not to put them in a situation or put them under pressure in that way. They were different. I don’t know what would happen if they played each other. In ’98 we had a team of stars and not much of a bench. On this team, we had no stars but a deep bench. Amazingly their stats are very similar. In ’98, if would have had an injury to a key player, we would not have won it all. This year, obviously, that was not the case.

A. You ask tough questions (ed. note: the LDN is loaded with tough, hard-working journalists all trying to put out compelling reading for our loyal followers). I don’t know if I have a secret to do that. I think the whole process may start in our summer volleyball camps. We get to meet these girls while they are very young, and you start having a relationship with them. Then you go and see them play when they are in high school. Usually you talk to them during the off-season, either by phone calls or by letters that you send them. We then have them come to our open gym practices, and they get a chance to meet my players. Those girls are as much a part of selling the program as anything.

It’s interesting…in my early years here, our players were not open to having new players come in, because it jeopardizes their role. Now our team is comfortable that they want new players that are skilled to come in. We had one player come in, and she was going to come back for another college day. The first time she came in, she practiced with us during the spring. Three people immediately said that ‘She could stay with me,’ when they found out she was making a return trip. You can’t buy that. They want quality players…they actually help pick out players. They will let you know whom they feel comfortable with and whom they don’t.

[to top of second column in this section]

When you look at our team this year and how well they got along and how much they enjoyed the whole experience, you never saw the same group of players with each other. Even in warm-ups they’d warm up with different players. When we’d go out to eat, they’d sit with different people, and I never saw them get upset with each other.

There were times when we struggled, like the loss to Clearwater. We had a team meeting and went over what they were feeling at the time and re-evaluated what we were doing, and they all contributed to that.

I wish I had a secret. I could write a book and…(laughter). I think it’s basically the way we treat them.

Q. What does the future of Lincoln Christian College volleyball look like?

A. We’re definitely losing our team captain, Tracy Nolan, and possibly our defensive specialist, Kim Hageman. Prospects coming in are a 5’10" girl from Streator, Illinois, by the name of Amanda Cole, who could be an impact player for us. At this point, everybody else is coming back.

We’re looking for an outside hitter, and we’d like to pick up another setter. Setters are sometimes hard to find at our level. We’re very interested in LCHS sophomore Kari McFadden (by the way congrats to LCHS!). We would be interested in many of their players, as well as many area players, but they have to want to come to a Bible college. Darcy White would be an excellent one to pick up also. She’s a real sweet girl, and I have known her since she played ball at West Lincoln. She would be an excellent addition to us…I don’t know if she is interested in us or not. Hopefully we can attract Kari, as both her mom and dad went to LCC. We’re also looking at some girls from Hartsburg and from Illini Central. Some girls are even two-sport athletes. I never discourage them from playing more than one sport.

A. They had the attitude that they would never give up. Even during our final game (a loss to Mid-America Bible) you could see that they played every point as hard as they possibly could. Even the final point — as the ball hit the floor, three players went diving for it. That’s what I’d like to have as a coach, a team that never says die. Even at nationals, when we lost the first game of every match, although they were making me a lot older, maybe they needed that as a challenge. It’s certainly not what we teach, to lose the first game of the match, but they worked very hard for all the success that came their way all season long.

In closing: 

Kevin, a 30-9 season, a runner-up spot at regionals, some postseason awards for the girls, a trip to the Elite Eight in sunny Redding, California…I know it didn’t finish the way you and the girls had dreamed that it would, but there are thousands of us who have never advanced to nationals in anything. On behalf of the LDN and our community, congratulations to you and the ladies for an outstanding season!

[NOV. 15, 2000]  At one point earlier this season, the Lincoln Christian College women’s volleyball team had a record of 10-6. It did not appear at that point that the Angels were going to make a serious bid at another national title. However, an incredible metamorphosis took place, and LCC put together an amazing run that resulted in a 30-9 record, a second-place finish at regionals, an at-large bid to the national tournament and a trip to have some fun in the sun in Redding, Calif.! The LCC ladies became a true epitome team with different stars and leaders showing up on different nights. I met with LCC coach Kevin Crawford (who the LDN believes is one of the best small-college coaches of any sport) in my office as he was shaking off the effects of jet lag.

(Part 1 ended with this comment from Kevin Crawford, the LCC volleyball coach: "Even though we did have a couple of All-Americans, we really don’t have a star.")

A Well, the last four years we had an All-American in Stephanie Nangle, who averaged six kills a game. We counted on her so much that the others even backed off and let her take over. It really forced some of the younger players to grow up and take a leadership role. People were counting on them. Even though we finished third in the country last year at nationals, our stats and our record was much better this year. We played a tough schedule this year, and we were ranked No. 1 in the nation in the power rankings for six weeks during the season.

A. The big thing that I will take away from this season is that we had a lot of people step up their level of play. We had a lot of sophomores who will be leaders for us in the future. It was also satisfying to watch senior Tracy Nolan, who was a role player on our national champion team in 1998, come out and become an All-American this year. And she was very deserving of the award. She was on the floor and always hustling for every ball that she could get. We had a match before we went to the national tourney, and she sprained her ankle in it. She sat out one practice and was back in there the next day! In fact, you would never have known that she was injured.

A. I think it would start with Tracy. She had progressed from being a defensive specialist her freshman year to being an outside hitter and an All-American her senior year. She simply made a lot of progress and put a lot of hard work into it. Even in our spring practices she was very much a leader both on and off the volleyball court.

Another girl would be Heather Brock. She is about 5’10" and that’s about what she brought as a freshman. I thought that Heather would end up having about four years of just being a really nice practice player for us. But we had an injury last year and she had the opportunity to move over to weak-side hitter, and she made that her position. You had to almost kill her to get her out of there. She came along and led the team in digging, receiving and blocking.

Those types of players…you really can’t coach them or make them that way. They have to come with that kind of determination that if you’re going to give me an opportunity, I’m going to make the most of it. That’s what’s really neat about those two girls.

Breanne Prunty was the same way. She was an outside hitter that we moved to middle blocker last year, and she made the all-regional team. This year she made all-regional and All-American and was the No. 2 player in our region. She worked on her vertical jump during the summer and increased it by 5 inches!

That’s what makes this team special: how much they will work on things during the off-season. They worked to improve from last season to this one, and they stayed with the program for the long haul.

[to top of second column in this section]

In the early years we’d have a player for one or two seasons, and then we would have to go out and recruit six or seven players every year. That gives you no continuity whatsoever! Now, we’re down to where we only have to go after two or three players each season. Lots of times they are now making as big an impact on the team as the veteran players are.

Another player that I should mention is Sarah Allen. I know she felt bad when her sister was injured, but she went in and took her place. One thing that Sarah can do better than anyone else on our team is that she can hit the ball right down the line. She has kind of a buggy-whip arm and she doesn’t care…she just goes up and hits the ball as hard as she possibly can, every time. In the past, she’d hit it long, she’d hit it in the bleachers or she’d knock it off the back wall. This year she came in focused and wanting to play.

The turnaround in our season was our tournament when we had to play Faith Baptist of Ankeny, Iowa. Faith had only lost one match all year and that was to us earlier in the season. They were out to get revenge on us, and Sarah beat them all by herself! That’s why she was named the MVP of that tournament!

I’d also like to mention Tasha Brock. Tasha was not a big contributor statwise, but she really took on a servant’s role. She came in and did all the ankle taping and functioned as the team trainer. When players weren’t feeling well, that’s whom they’d go see. She was the team’s biggest cheerleader on the bench. When you have players that sit the bench and don’t mope about their lack of playing time…everyone on the team respected them for what they do.

Tasha played the first two weeks of the season and saw that there were people that were ahead of her. She decided that it might be better if she got off the team. She found that she really missed it, and about 10 days later asked if she could rejoin the team. Everyone on the team wanted Tasha back!

Those kinds of players you don’t get to see very much. They don’t get the awards, but she has a huge impact on the team! She’s like the heart and soul of our ballclub. She has a really sweet spirit. You want players to accept their role, but you don’t want them to always be satisfied with that role. You’d like to see them progress as they accept their role. They know that they come in at certain times and in certain situations. They can deal with that and still be a motivator and a cheerleader on the bench…that’s great. That’s pretty much Tasha. She maybe played in three or four matches this year.

A. Yes, it was. At one time early in the season we were only 10-6 (which means the Angels went 20-3 over their last 23 and were 20-1 going into their last two!), and then Rachel Allen went down. We went through a period of mourning where we lost three matches in a row. We went from 10-6 to 30-9! It’s pretty hard to be upset about that kind of season. When we were 10-6, if you would’ve told me that we were going to make it to nationals, I would’ve been pretty excited. If you would’ve told me that we would be eliminated in the quarterfinals, I would’ve been pretty disappointed. Overall, I am very pleased.

(To be continued)

[NOV. 9, 2000]  At one point earlier this season, the Lincoln Christian College women’s volleyball team had a record of 10-6. It did not appear at that point that the Angels were going to make a serious bid at another national title. However, an incredible metamorphosis took place, and LCC put together an amazing run that resulted in a 30-9 record, a second-place finish at regionals, an at-large bid to the national tournament and a trip to have some fun in the sun in Redding, Calif.! The LCC ladies became a true epitome team with different stars and leaders showing up on different nights. I met with LCC coach Kevin Crawford (who the LDN believes is one of the best small-college coaches of any sport) in my office as he was shaking off the effects of jet lag.

A. The national tournament was held at Simpson College in Redding, California. It’s a three-day format, where the first day, Thursday, is all pool play. Friday concludes pool play in the morning, and then, based on your pool-play record, you are then seeded for the quarterfinals on Friday and the semi-finals on Saturday.

A. There are eight automatic bids and two at-large bids. You get an automatic bid by winning your region. We played in the championship match of our region, and we lost to Northland Baptist. We ended up getting an at-large bid, and that’s how we qualified for the national tournament. When they seeded the 10 teams we were seeded No. 2. That was probably the highest that we’ve ever been seeded. If we would have won our region, we would have been seeded No. 1.

A. Our first match was against the No. 10 seed, Johnson Bible College out of Tennessee. They beat us in the first game 8-15, and we had to come back to beat them, 15-13 and 15-8. They came out really loose, and they were having fun playing. We were the No. 2 seed and knew that we should thump them…so, it put a lot of pressure on us. I think getting that one out of the way helped. That took us into a game with the No. 8 seed, Baptist Bible from Missouri. Unfortunately, we came out and played pretty much the same way, where we lost the first game 12-15 and had to come back to win the next two, 15-7 and 15-7. Then we got to play the No. 6 seed, Northland Baptist. They beat us in the regional, but we had beaten them earlier in the year. Again, we lost the first game of the match, 9-15. That’s when we finally got determined that we were going to start playing. We played much better after that in the next two games, and we were able to beat them 17-15 and 15-8. So, all in all, it was kind of a struggle on Thursday.

[to top of second column in this section]

Q. Did the format change on Friday or what happened?

A. No. We had one more match in pool play. That game was against the No. 4 seed, Clearwater Christian (the eventual national champions), who have advanced to the championship match in each of the last five years! That was the first time that I felt like we came out too overly concerned about an opponent. We lost 9-15 and 2-15. We might have been scared. They have a mystique about them; they also have the No. 1 player in the country, Julie Hubbard. She is an outstanding middle blocker. We played tentative, and it was our worst match of the tournament. That made us 3-1 in pool play, and we got a No. 2 seed out of our pool. That pitted us against the No. 3 seed of the other pool in the quarterfinals, which was Mid-America (Okla.) Bible College. They are a really streaky team. They have three girls that are 6 foot or better, including a girl Sara Nailor, who is a junior that they just picked up who is outstanding. We couldn’t match up with Nailor. She is on a much higher level than we are. We lost 8-15, 3-15, 15-7 and 14-16.

A. Yes, I did. I really thought we had a good chance to win it. But, if you look at the whole season and if you look at who our team is made up of, we did not have a star on our team. We had people that could play two or three positions, and they did. We had Rachel Allen, who may have been our best freshman, go out with an injury (a torn rotator cuff). In comes her older sister Sarah, who had been a practice player the previous two years, and she wins the MVP of our tournament and she makes the all-regional tournament team! When we get to nationals, Sarah’s down with some kind of a virus (and had to go to the hospital) and in comes another freshman who plays very well for us. Even though we did have a couple of All-Americans, we really don’t have a star.

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