Posted on 04/04/2005 8:28:04 PM PDT by TheBigB
Roy Williams gets that National Championship! North Carolina Tarheels win!
It was an amazing two games (the semi-final and the final).
We were incredible.
An interesting irony, eh?
Illinois put a very excellent basketball team on the court this year... either of those two teams obviously had an equal chance to win.
But the UNC team that played last night will probably ultimately be recognized as one of the finest college basketball teams to have ever played the game.
There are six, maybe seven, on that squar who will play in the NBA.
The '82 UNC championship team only had three... Worthy, Perkins... and yes, Jordan.
Yeah, but you guys are likely going to get a chance to go to the Final Four again in three years. As an Illini fan, I'll be happy if we go over .500 next year, and I also understand that the odds are that I'm going to be old enough to have a child at UIUC before the Illini actually make it back to the FF. All I want is one lucky break, one championship and I'd go to my grave happy (like a Red Sox fan). UNC is an Elite program; we aren't and are never going to be one. We're never going to get pedigreed, uber talented players ala Sean May, etc., etc... I don't think that being an Illini fan and pitying the fact that we lost probably our only shot at a Nat'l championship in the next few decades to UNC, a school with a gazillion championships already is that bad.
I can definitely relate to that. As a Syracuse fan, those were my sentiments exactly, until a couple years ago when the Orangemen finally did it. Winning a championship does change your whole perspective. Losing to Vermont in the first round this year would have been an absolutely crushing loss pre-2003 (akin to Richmond, Navy, Rhode Island, Keith Smart's jumper, your Illini in the '89 regional final, the Arkansas OT loss, Kentucky in the '96 title game, and on and on with all the heartbreaking tournament moments). Now, while it's still a disappointment, it' doesn't hurt near as much (though I still hate that Hakin Warrick's career ended like that).
They should be better than that. ESPN's Andy Katz has Illinois ranked #24 in his 2005-06 pre-season poll.
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