It’s about the mark you leave

Andy Shadid (front row, left), Jake Hurst (second from left) and the 2014 Irish.

Both times Illinois had the “best” college basketball team in the country, I was in the building to watch the Illini not win the national championship.

The first time was just some sick joke akin to being around Cardinals fans all the time. That was in 1989, when I had to watch Michigan — sort of the Niedermeyer frat guy of Big Ten sports — complete some fairytale run because the coach who led the Wolverines to a pair of resounding losses to the Flyin’ Illini inexplicably thought Arizona State was a better job than U-M. So a guy who can coach, Steve Fisher, took over in time for the NCAAs, and the gust of fresh air blew the heretofore underachieving Wolverines all the way to the title.

Not important to today’s discussion.

The second time, you all know, was in 2005, and I was  charged with writing a column off the title game. When North Carolina had won, with a rather nondescript team for its powerhouse program, and Illinois had not, with a once-in-a-generation team for its never-quite-blueblood program, regret should have been the dominant emotion.

The column, however, talked about how we couldn’t be mad at the Illini because a few shots didn’t go in.  They had come back from 13 down at halftime (pretty sure it was 13), tied it, and all-America guards had good looks from 3 in the waning moments. The shots just didn’t go in.

Now, as time goes on, regret rears its head. It’d be really nice to no longer be the “best program without a national title.”

You remember that Rashad McCants — shirtless, for some reason — had the gall to dis Deron Williams in the postgame handshake. And you know, of course,  that nary a GPA on the floor in white that night was legit, and no one is sure where McCants, Sean May, Ray Felton or Marvin Williams play in the NBA anymore, if at all.

And if you’re me, you’d rather have been 2005 Illinois than 2005 North Carolina.

This isn’t  sour grapes. I know they have the banner.  Not trying to take it from them.

I just know that Dee Brown resonates a decade later. And Deron Williams is a dream. And that 29-0 start with all that passing and all those road wins, and the record-tying 37 wins in a year, and the Arizona comeback in the regional final that  Big Ten Network still can’t replay enough … it’s all a life experience, an indelible memory, and it’s not different in any appreciable way in my brain because a bully of a program had a few more points on the final night.

Which leads this tale, at long last, to the 2014 Peoria Notre Dame football team.

Be clear, there is no  parallel of cheesiness or malfeasance in the conqueror of Notre Dame. Lemont has not sold its soul  to winning in any way resembling what we know of U-M or UNC sports. Lemont is simply a public high school from the town where Cog Hill is, that has a marvelous team and coach, and came to Peoria and proved it.

Lemont 32, Notre Dame 25. Pot’s right, as my fellow reporter Lonnie Schwindenhammer likes to declare at a poker game. Correct winner, correct score, no disputes here.

The parallel is with the fallen.  I can feel already how I’ll remember these Irish in 10 years, and the feeling is good. Much like the mark Richwoods made in three straight years of mammoth home playoff wins on Kendrick Foster’s watch,  I will remember the wins.  In Richwoods’ case, I can barely recall who beat them each year.

In Notre Dame’s, I will recall the out game, because it was the dogfight my son Tommy and I have wanted to see all year. Because we know these kids, and we knew that while a dozen blowout  wins are nice, their true excellence could not be displayed until they were pushed.

Let’s start with Andy Shadid. Can we agree he’s the greatest thing ever to happen to Notre Dame football? Do we need to scan the 27 years of the school to declare that? Please.

Tommy offered the observation on the morning of the Lemont game that Andy is still getting better. Can’t argue with that. In week two of the playoffs, he had a career high of 263 yards (I think; I’m not looking up any facts, because I’m going to act like all the other bloggers now).

The next week, the opponent is way better, and Shadid drops five touchdowns on East St. Louis. None of those scoring runs were as special as one that I know I’ll remember in my mind’s eye for years: a scamper for about 18  yards, maybe 20 some (again, specifics … don’t need ’em). It was at a point of the game when ESL had tied it and its crowd was out-cheering the home side and ND was reeling on the field.

Andy was down after about 2 yards. But no. Ran backward for a few steps, then gang-tackled after a gain of maybe 8. Only getting started. Now he breaks free and is re-engaged by two tacklers, and with the ball threatening to pop out, carries them several strides down his own team’s sideline.  I don’t know if a foursome of ESL tacklers ultimately got him to the ground or he decided a fumble would be too critical then so he lived to fight another down.

That’s half-facetious on the going down on purpose. But it’s possible. Because in addition to being the most talented player on every field he ever ran out on, Shadid is that special star athlete who is more locked in mentally than anyone else, too.

His run against ESL changed the mood in the entire stadium. Soon, ND had a 35-point second half and a 22-point win.

Against Lemont, he went to his coach and demanded he get the ball after a fumble by a teammate left Notre Dame in a 19-7 hole while its star had far less than his  proper share of touches.

Next series? Seven straight Shadid runs — 8, 8 and 8 yards to start. Suddenly an Irish O-line that wasn’t moving a stellar Lemont front was able to produce holes. This time Shadid had changed the mood of the huddle first, then the stadium.

A Mount Rushmore prep athlete for me, and I’ve seen 40 years of them. A lifelong mental image of Shadid’s unique, into-the-middle-of-the-field cuts (everyone else seeks sidelines) is augmented now by this ESL run, this Lemont series and his interception with 1:31 left that gave his team a chance to overcome  a two-touchdown deficit over the last 3 minutes.

They didn’t quite do it, and I know it matters to them, because they wanted to win state. But it doesn’t matter to me.

Because I remember running into Darren Hurst at Haddad’s (the grocery) four-plus years ago, and him making sure Tommy was going to Notre Dame and going out for football. Because we have a special group, Darren said, too classy to point out that his son, Jake — the single best linebacker I have seen in Peoria, save possibly his cousin, Nick Mangieri — was a cornerstone of that special.

Jake was unforgivably snubbed this week when the all-state teams came out. Tommy told me he gave Jake sort of, what, condolences? And Jake said, “I’m not worried about me. I just feel bad for Andy.”

Unimaginably, Shadid was left off an all-state team for which he is the obvious captain.

Team after team drops the cliche that they’re not worried about who gets the credit. Hurst’s words — and I know him enough to know there was nothing fake about  them — are living it.

They are why this Notre Dame team is burned in my lifetime tapestry of sports watching. Brandon Vonachen, David Shadid and DeMarco Washington would be a very righteous trio of three best players on a team.  They fell in line behind the legendary (and they will be legendary; give it time) Shadid/Hurst duo.

Guys like Austin Swanson, Ben Barkley, Jordan Thierer, George Rothan, JT Jackson-Hohmann, Jack Fiddes and Forbes meant that Darren Hurst, who always knows what he’s talking about, by the way, knew what he was talking about in the coffee/cereal aisle in West Peoria on some 2010 day.

So trailblazing was the Class of ’15, in fact, that Notre Dame was a victim of its own success. A school infamous for never being able to have football remotely keep pace with soccer and cross country in the fall found itself in Class 6A because success from the previous two seasons, with these kids a major part of it, made the IHSA multiply ND’s enrollment to the max. They do that to football “powers,” with no regard for irony.

Whine if you will about private  schools’ advantage in football playoffs, and the evidence is ample. But non-recruiting Notre Dame and its 787 students just lost to a school of 1,401.

CLICHE ALERT: They didn’t really lose. They ran out of time and downs, didn’t advance. I realize they keep score at these things, and Lemont deservedly is headed to Champaign.

But I remember Haddad’s, and theorizing with Darren Hurst that this class could do something special, something Notre Dame  has not seen.

We can all agree that box was checked.

They went there wanting to be memorable. They’re done now. And they achieved indelible.

— Bill Liesse

CST’s Winter Playhouse: Think inside ‘The Box’

Peoria has a playhouse that for years has staged Tony Award-winning shows, for about the cost of a movie.

And it feels like it’s a secret.

The Corn Stock Winter Playhouse is an intimate space, and indoor space, and that itself seems to be widely unknown. So famous is Corn Stock for staging its summer plays under a tent in Upper Bradley Park that far too many casual theater-goers, when told of, say, a February production at the Winter Playhouse, react by asking, “Isn’t it cold in a tent in the wintertime?”

No, Central Illinois. You should know that Corn Stock has long since had a building in the park. It houses a 40×40-foot square theater, roughly 45 seats on each of four sides, from which patrons could literally reach out and touch the performers (but we’d rather you refrained).

It is theater in the round (perhaps the only similarity to Tent shows in the summer), inside a cozy, little box.

It provides a theater-going experience that no place else in the area can provide. The play-selection committee consistently finds edgier, racier and deeper material than you get in your typical musicals at Eastlight, Peoria Players and Corn Stock outside.

Often, touchy subjects are addressed, and addressed well. This is why these plays win Tonys and Pulitzers. It might be mental illness. It might be homophobia. Family strife. Even bestiality and the limits of societal norms.

The subject matter lends itself to audience reaction, and as such, Corn Stock offers “Talk Backs” with directors, cast and even visiting experts after most of these shows.

This is theater that makes you feel. You will definitely be made to think. Inside “The Box.”

Predominately straight plays are staged at the CST Winter Playhouse, for a cost of only 10 bucks. Musicals are a few dollars more, and you can expect one per season. The two most recent — “Next to Normal” and “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” — are both triple Tony winners.

Of the last 23 Tony winners for Best Play on Broadway, more than a third have been staged over the last half-dozen seasons at the Playhouse. Myriad other Tony-nominated shows dot the bill, with titles you know such as “Frost/Nixon” and “The Rabbit Hole.” Another, “Lieutenant of Inishmore,” is on this season’s card (March 20-21 and 26-29).

Give it a try. The season runs from the fall to the spring, breaking for the holidays. Comedy, drama, musical? All on the slate.

And there are cookies!

 

Consider Yourself Lucky if You Catch ‘Oliver!’

A guy is doing pretty well if he can, say, bench press his own weight.

Meet Jake Trueblood. A 12-year-old who looks a couple years away from needing a bathroom scale with three digits, little Jake entered “Oliver!” in Scene 5 and immediately lifted a packed Peoria Players Theatre on opening night. For a little while — the duration of “Consider Yourself,” at least — this delightful Dodger seemed to carry the show on his tiny shoulders.

This is not rare in any staging of one of musical theater’s most enduring classics. Nor is it to say the first four scenes were lacking in director Bryan Blanks’ presentation of these Dickens characters. Many a stage has been stolen by the Dodger in the 54 years since Lionel Bart first set Dickens’ dark and melancholy Oliver Twist to music. And the swift-moving Trueblood, with his booming if not-yet-changed voice and comedic instincts beyond his years, was as artful as you’d ever want to see in portraying a character whose name is entrenched in our culture’s lexicon.

With the play’s energy level so distinctly lifted, the Dodger threw it over to Fagin, perhaps an even more iconic character in theater history. Chip Joyce, once a prodigy in these parts along the lines of Trueblood and Julien Rousseau, who played the title character, had his own grand entrance. Soon the excellent choreography of “Consider Yourself” was being matched, maybe topped, in the show-stopping “Pick Pocket.”

At this point, you knew you were attending a truly top-shelf local production.

Fagin is one of literature’s all-time creeps, a criminal who has young boys do his dirty work and rewards them, at times, in gin. He can be portrayed to have no redeeming qualities, or more as an almost lovable, two-bit con artist who carries some affection for the dozen or so kids he harbors in his lair.

Joyce went the latter route. A benevolence ran through his performance amid nefarious words and actions, and his fondness for Oliver was palpable from the start. He was in good voice, lost within exceptional makeup work by Amy Williams, and was impressive physically as well, with something of a pirate’s limp and unfailingly hunched shoulders.

Dickens made Fagin Jewish, despite a fairly well-supported theory that the character was based on a black Londoner who in 1832 made the newspapers after his arrest for harboring young pickpocket boys. Dickens, famed for basing characters on people he read about in the police blotter, later regretted the Jewish characterization. Joyce eschewed it altogether, which was just as well.

A third stellar entrance ensued in PPT’s Oliver when Ayana Pankey appeared as Nancy, who seemingly sings you through the middle of the show. A tragic figure in how she is abused by Bill Sykes, an implied graduate of Fagin’s lair, Nancy is nonetheless effervescent. She shows it in “Fine Life,” which she comes out singing, and the renowned drinking song “Oom-pah-pah” to open Act II.

When those two were finished, Deric Kimler brought all the required menace to Sykes in “My Name.” It was back to Pankey, resplendent in red, for her big solo, “As Long as He Needs Me.” When her spirited effort elicited perhaps the evening’s biggest ovation, it was readily apparent Blanks knows how to cast or he knows how to pull the most out of his performers.

Or, most likely, both.

Rousseau, for me, was an acquired taste. He acted well from the start, often wordlessly in the beginning. He did fine with “Where is Love,” but solos by 11-year-old boys are seldom awe-inspiring. Then, as he moved through this script, and the infamous bumps in Oliver’s road from two forms of glorified slavery to Fagin’s dank clutches, from being arrested to saved, this young boy from Ridgeview Elementary really understood the subtleties of the character.

Oliver has spunk, but it gets so drown by the Dodger’s that Oliver’s naivete takes over amid Fagin’s intimidating kitchen. He’s willing to learn their illicit methods, but you never get the sense it’s by choice. You see Oliver as ultimately good, and you’re right. There’s a reason everyone else onstage is drawn to Oliver, and if Rousseau were not so genuinely appealing, it wouldn’t work.

Blanks’ thorough immersion into virtually all his projects is evident here. For me, oddly enough, it showed up in the props. Blanks and prop manager Julie Lonteen filled this mid-19th century set with a huge stream of appropriate beds, trunks, baby carriages, lanterns, walking sticks, you name it. It complemented Dawn Kocher’s exhaustive costuming work and gave the whole production an air of completeness.

Oliver! is well cast, up and down. The reliable Curt Rowden is solid as Mr. Brumble. You even get PPT president Jim Babrowski in the funny doctor’s role. Joyce, Pankey and Kimler are terrific.

But the kids make the show.

— Bill Liesse

Winter season stays hot with “Red”

Clark Rians, as abstract impressionist Mark Rothko, begins and ends “Red” in the Adirondack chair in his studio.

By Bill Liesse

Photos by Blake Stubbs/Greenroom Photography (greenroom-photo.com)

Mark Rothko sat in an Adirondack chair, looking upstage at his own paintings, house lights still up, as audience members found their seats.

That was in the spring of 2010, at the Golden Theater in New York, when the Tony Award-winning run of “Red” was unfortunately short because star Alfred Molina was obligated to the infinitely less fulfilling, one would guess, task of filming one of the “Law and Order” series that summer in Los Angeles.

The Rothko in Peoria’s version of Red, Clark Rians, has no such Hollywood calling. Alas, Corn Stock Winter Playhouse’s staging of the show also will be too brief, a sensation local theater lovers have had before during a stellar season brewing at CST’s indoor space in Upper Bradley Park.

Director Victoria Kapanjie  recreates the original’s opening by having Rothko enter the intimate center space with the lights still up, and sit in the Adirondack.  One can only guess if the twentysomethings who trod the performance area after Rians was seated — including one man who left and returned with two coffees — were part of Corn Stock’s ample planning for this show, or just a lucky coincidence.

In any event, Rians demands your full attention without saying a word, fake smoking a fake cigarette while his 1950s-era phonograph plays. For roughly 80 minutes of performance time, Rians never lets go.  You hang on every word he says and hears from  the play’s only other character,  Rothko’s assistant, Ken.

Which leads us to the apprehension  you might have about Red. It’s two guys in a straight play, talking about art. How interesting can it be?

How about enrapturing? How about, for one viewer at least, it creating a palpable adrenaline rush by how doggone interesting it is?

That is Kapanjie’s Red. The first-time director let her actors simply be Rothko and Ken, and be them they were.  Cliche as it might be to say, you’ll forget their acting. You start with a 99.9995% mastery of a massive dialogue challenge, but it’s much more than that.

John Logan’s script is about  Rothko’s relationship with Ken, yes, but it’s mostly about Rothko’s thoughts on all things Rothko: his paintings, to “whom” he continually gives human characteristics;  his worthy audience, or lack thereof; his place in history as they spoke, which was the late Fifties as Rothko worked on his famed commission for the Four Seasons restaurant; and, of course, his legacy.

Sometime before declaring, “This is all about me,”  Rothko gives the not-so-wide-eyed Ken the obligatory opening salvos. I am not  your  this or your that, father, friend or teacher, etc. He is certainly self-obsessed, and one of Ken’s increasingly challenging retorts points out Rothko’s lack of interest in anything Ken.

Yet Rians said he was determined to reflect an undertone of warmth to Rothko, a trait Rians is convinced the artist possessed, even if he might be slow to admit it. To say Rians succeeded in that goal and all other aspects of his portrayal would be an  understatement as tragic as Rothko’s outlook on life. (“There is tragedy in every brush stroke.”)

You watch Red knowing you are seeing an artist who would end his own life a dozen years hence. Logan’s words and Rians’ passion exude that subtext well before (and after) Rothko ever utters the words “When I kill myself …”

An average or less actor opposite Rothko would, at best, make Ken a foil and at worst take away from Rians’ brilliant lead. That is part of the reason Andrew Jon Rhodenbaugh is so impressive as Ken. As was intended by Logan, Rhodenbaugh makes Ken a young man of his own convictions, a few of his own demons, yet a little uncertain of his life’s direction.

Little more than an endentured servant, Ken challenges Rothko, but never in a manner you wouldn’t believe. He turns the tables on the “I am not your teacher, etc.” speech  by never particularly viewing Rothko as a mentor. In fact, while clearly wanting the great artist to embrace him a little more, he seems to want this  first for the character of his elder.  Ken wants Rothko to be a better Rothko, and you might conclude that he succeeds.

You should have no doubt that Rhodenbaugh understands every beautiful layer of text and subtext.

You needn’t know the work that went into Red to find it gratifying, but it’s all the more so if you do. In a new twist on method acting, Rians spent months preparing the massive canvases for the set. Someone had to; they are virtual characters in the play.

The promotions arm of CST put together an art show to accompany the play, with smashing results.  Some 20 local artists have works of all kinds on display,  much of it for sale.  It is worth your time to arrive well before the 7:30 curtain time (2:30 on Sunday) and peruse the scores of works in the Winter Playhouse’s dance studio.

Or, given the relative brevity of the play — it was presented as a single act on Broadway, and doesn’t really need the 15-minute intermission it gets here — check out the art afterward. Coffee donated by the new Broken Tree Coffee house (Sheridan and Main in the old Running Central building) is available along with other treats, and the director and actors are happy to mingle and talk about what makes “Red” great.

Hint: It’s them.

Eastlight brings “Les Mis” home

Courtesy of Eastlight Theatre

If you had to pick a local venue for the regional community-theater premier of Les Miserables, Eastlight would be it.

The technical superiority of the operation housed inside East Peoria High School is consistent and sometimes vast. While Corn Stock is the only site to offer theater in the round, Eastlight does not battle the limitations of CST’s outdoor space. While Peoria Players’ stage has great height and depth (and that fun trap door which PPT often uses well), the high school’s perfectly proportioned auditorium is more comfortable and offers more bells and whistles.

Mostly, though, Eastlight has Steve Cordle. The technical director behind every show east of the river, Cordle is tireless, extremely talented and thinks big. And few shows require one to think bigger than Les Mis, the epic’s epic, the most successful show in the history of Broadway and the West End by a number of definitions.

Eastlight took on this daunting endeavour (English spelling, thank you) starting  June 22. The first weekend continues with a Saturday night show and a 2 p.m. Sunday matinee. The run picks up with 7:30 p.m. shows Wednesday through Saturday, June 27-30.

Seven performances. You’ll probably wish there were more.

Your author and his wife were privileged to attend a sneak preview of the final dress rehearsal on Thursday. The overwhelming takeaway was “What voices!” In a world in which you may choose among myriad renditions of this classic at your local record store, you’d be delighted to have this company on CD in  your car for as long as cars still come with disc players.

The sheer pull of the show surely attracted massive talent to auditions for this regional premier. But by employing the always-smiling, universally liked Robin Hunt to be director, Eastlight ensured its talent conglomeration would be all it could be.

Hunt unveils a delicious mix  of old reliables — honestly, who within 100 miles should be Madame Thenardier but Barb Couri? — and standouts new to our community. The latter classification includes no less than the show’s Fantine (Mary Kate Smith) and Eponine (Stephanie Myre), each making their Eastlight debut.

Smith, a Petersburg native who boasts a terrific Mary Magdalene at Springfield Muni’s Jesus Christ Superstar among her credits, started out a little quiet in “End of the Day” on Thursday but ultimately acted and sang her tragic part with great passion. Her dying scene was crafted exquisitely by Hunt.

Few characters in the history of the stage make you like them as much as Eponine, and Myre is an impeccable choice in this regard. A veteran of professional work in Chicago (as well as one of several voice teachers among this cast), Myre nails the show-stopping “On My Own” and offers stage movement of great grace while others’ is sometimes clunky.

Another of the vocal teachers is Jason Morris, who plays Javert. However Hunt unearthed him, Germantown Hills resident (and father of six) Morris regales us with first-class pipes and Javert’s requisite spite … after a 20-year hiatus from local stages. Few things are better than deeply talented, local residents being coerced to get back out there and remove the bushel from atop their bright light.

At the risk of going over more of key characters and turning this preview into a review, let’s skip ahead to Jean Valjean.

Roger Roemer, a likeable big guy who is physically perfect for the part, was an excellent thieving Valjean early and executed

Roger Roemer as Jean Valjean
(Photo by Jenny Parkhurst)

the bedside clash with Javert so well it was almost frightening (another feather in Hunt’s cap).

Roemer did strike me as perhaps having more of a “this is only rehearsal” approach than some during the middle of the show. Then came “Bring Him Home.” A song of heartstopping beauty, it tends to separate the wheat from the chaff among the brave men who presume to play this most demanding of lead roles.

Roemer killed it. Sensitive, beautifully paced … I can’t even keep my eyes dry writing about it a day later. The seminal moment of the evening for me. It took this Les Mis from a tad passionless — one can guess the all-but-empty theater didn’t help — to the emotional boxing match that it is.

My family will go back in part to see Jarod Hazzard perform his nice Marius. In part to further examine the wall-to-wall barricade for which Cordle’s team painstakingly acquired and placed items thrown out by EP residents over five-plus years of junk-removal days. Also, to see the nicely blocked and beautifully sung “Heart Full of Love.”

An aside on how big Cordle thinks: We see the other side of the barricade. Professional tours of this show don’t even aspire to such dimension. Spinning the middle portion of the three-part barricade on the stage’s renowned turntable, we get to actually see Gavroche climb down and pick the pockets of fallen soldiers from the opposition. When Enjolras dies over the barricade, he actually dies over the barricade, giant red flag and all.

Whatever your reasons or favorite parts of this almost unimaginably excellent work, you should go. For me, it’s enough knowing a “Bring Him Home” that precious is filling the air within minutes of my house. It’d be wrong to miss it.

A Ricketty ride into super PAC world

Joe Ricketts’ political action plans should give us all a greater appreciation of John McCain.
Ricketts unwittingly rocked the political world Thursday when the New York Times revealed his super PAC’s plans to effectively sabotage the Democratic National Convention in September. At the center of the plan – yet to be finalized and ultimately subject to Ricketts’ approval – are television ads revisiting President Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
It’s virtually impossible to count the strategic holes in “The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: The Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good.” Let’s just say the Chicago Cubs’ bullpen looks like a Wrigley Field brick wall by comparison.
Ricketts, of course, is the patriarch of the family that owns the Cubs. That the family includes daughter Laura, a key fund-raising figure in the Obama reelection campaign, is but a small irony here. A seeing-eye single amid a barrage of extra-base inconsistencies and hypocritical home runs.
The big blow, of course, is that Ricketts is going after Chicago’s favorite son while his family asks Chicagoans to pony up for improvements to Wrigley. Crain’s Chicago Business’s Greg Hinz outlined the project’s costs, and the family’s bond and tax-break requests, late last month.
No, you’re not confusing things. The Ricketts family wants you to help fix Wrigley, and to do so needs the blessing of former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. And the family patriarch has a super PAC called Ending Spending Action Fund, and its proposal says, effectively, America doesn’t hate Obama enough.
According to Thursday’s Times story, the 53-page document “lament(s) that voters ‘still aren’t ready to hate this president,’ “ and Ricketts is upset with McCain for nixing an inflammatory Wright ad in 2008. “If the nation had seen that ad,” the Times quotes Ricketts as saying in the proposal, “they’d never have elected Barack Obama.”
Lest we conclude that Ricketts is this wantonly tone-deaf or arrogant, he did react quickly Thursday to the massive strategic blunder that is this document’s leak. Ricketts retreated via a statement from his camp that said, in part, “(this proposal) reflects an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects.”
The statement concluded that the idea to run the Rev. Wright ads has been rejected.

In fact, statements are flying around everywhere and Emanuel is none too pleased. Hinz again.
Which brings us back to McCain. Maybe the 2008 Republican nominee isn’t “a crusty old politician who often seemed confused,” as the super PAC’s attack plan indicated.
Maybe the longtime Arizona senator had the foresight and political acumen to know what it took an embarrassing leak for Ricketts to see: That attacks on character, on either side, do little but lather up voters you already have locked up. And they can be counter-effective by causing resentment among those of us in the forgotten political middle.
And just maybe, the nation’s interests were better served before the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, which overturned much of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, commonly known as the McCain-Feingold Bill.
Because maybe unfettered spending by the founder and former CEO of TD Ameritrade has more to do with enabling the privatization of Social Security than it has to do with Jeremiah Wright’s views on race, much less Barack Obama’s.

What Mike Thomas did and didn’t do

When Mike and Jenny Thomas were transitioning to Champaign-Urbana from Cincinnati, Lou Henson put them up in his house.

When a vacancy developed in the basketball-coaching seat from which Henson amassed the most wins in University of Illinois history, Lou had an outside-the-box suggestion to Thomas as to who should fill  it.

Thomas never interviewed that candidate.

What Thomas has done has been a hiring circus of historic proportions. The Bears’ “hiring” of Dave McGinnis will look  as smooth as an NHL sheet of ice by comparison.

So badly has Thomas crashed that the university arranged for a 3 p.m. press conference Tuesday to announce John Groce as coach and booked a flight to get Groce to Champaign from Athens, Ohio. Then had to call off said presser and flight when the day started shrinking and the Board of Trustees started rumbling.

Whether Thomas should have hired Reggie Theus is a matter of rather lively debate. We can agree that in better times, Illinois would have no need to turn to Theus, who is developing a persona of “the perpetual candidate” as he continues to try unsuccessfully to return to a college game in which he coached five years (2002-07), the first three under Rick Pitino at Louisville and the latter two as head man at New Mexico State.

Mike Thomas

How Thomas can look Henson in the eyes upon returning the keys and say that nothing could have come of a Theus interview? Well, that will be his problem. If he tries to con Henson by talking about the token moves that were made — a short phone interview between Theus and Thomas’ assistant; a phone call to ask a former employer about Theus (in which the review was glowing) after Thomas had reached out and essentially decided on John Groce — you can rest assured Henson won’t be fooled.

Also not fooled by those shady, cover-your-tracks maneuvers will be the BOT, as mentioned, as well as the greater Chicago amateur basketball scene.  Overcharacterized as (take your pick) crooks, boycotters, a single voice, bad coaches, etc., these mostly African-American coaches and AAU personnel know  a diversity sham when they see one.

The reality is Thomas made a run at one coach of mixed race, Shaka Smart, apparently leaked that reality for what many consider to be trustees-appeasement reasons, then concentrated on a string of white guys.

News reports provide a list of other African-American candidates as if to indicate Thomas worked tirelessly to remove Illinois from its embarrassing role as the rare BCS-conference school with zero coaches of color in its revenue-sports history. They mention Lorenzo Romar, who has been known to not be moving from Washington this late in his career. They did the same with Leonard Hamilton of Florida State, who is even older.

They even were clueless enough to mention Anthony Grant. Grant’s associate head coach at Alabama is Dan Hipsher, who was fired at Akron by one Mike Thomas in a move of maximum bitterness. It’d be a cold day in 2012 before Grant would have anything to do with Thomas.

We are not here to say Illinois had to hire an African-American coach. That kind of limitation is nonsense in any search.

We are here to question a search that landed on the latest mid-major white guy with a spotty record when an African-American with an equally impressive resume was ready to interview and never got the courtesy of that interview. At a time the program badly needed to be spiced up, Thomas provided brown sauce on beige food.

Basically, Thomas listened to a search firm from Atlanta but not his own constituency. The search-firm method is popular for all the wrong reasons, driven by plausible deniability. Brad Stevens and Shaka Smart get to say “I haven’t talked to anyone from Illinois” and blah, blah.

What it prevents is Thomas getting in a room with one of those home-run hires and actually putting Illinois’ best foot forward. He could play a video of how crazy the Assembly Hall was a few short years ago, play audio of Jay Bilas and Dick Vitale calling the Orange Krush unmatched and the atmosphere being as good as there is in the country. He could point out Illinois is the winningest program in the nation’s historically co-best league (with the ACC). He could offer testimonials about the job (Seth Davis saying it is among the top few). He could assuage fears of the change in U of I presidents by talking about how universally liked Bob Easter is. He could point to CAA champ Drexel’s exclusion from the NCAA tournament or Butler not even getting an NIT call.

Did any of that happen? We’re left to doubt it.

The bad form out of the AD portends many gloomy days ahead as Illinois tries to recruit its own state. While Groce might earn the favor of Tai Streets’ Meanstreets AAU program, from which Ohio standout D.J. Cooper was launched, it likely will be a long, long time before Groce is accepted by the Chicago Fire. The Illinois Wolves, from which so many current Illini came, fall somewhere between. To say Fire chief Michael Irvin is upset about these developments is like saying one-time Groce recruiting coup Greg Oden has been known to get hurt from time to time.

In other words, Mike Thomas has found a way to alienate the University of Illinois from the robust recruiting classes of 2013 and 2014 in Chicago and the rest of Illinois. Sources say prize recruit Malcolm Hill is as good as gone.

He has found a coach who inexplicably has lost about half his games in a mess of a league that includes annual 20-loss programs Toledo, Northern Illinois, Central Michigan, Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Ball State, Miami … pretty much all but Akron, Buffalo and Kent State. By doing that, Thomas has all but assured his interim head coach, Jerrance Howard, will leave his alma mater.

That in turn calls into question the verbal commitments of 2013 standouts Hill and Jalen James. It essentially ensures current center Meyers Leonard will leave for the NBA, a decision that was not the fait accompli that the Illini’s hometown press has made you believe all season with its relentless references to Leonard’s lottery status (which, in reality, is shaky).

Whether any or all of the incoming sophomores transfer out remains to be seen. It is feared Tracy Abrams will leave when Howard does, and that Mike Shaw and Myke Henry might follow. But those things are always said before the new coach gets a chance to talk to his new kids. A great deal of persuasion tends to take place in those meetings.

Any kind of legitimate research by Thomas of his actual constituency and playing field at Illinois would have told him that a Theus hire spelled extreme acceptance by Chicago, the best chance at retaining Leonard, the best chance at retaining Howard (short of a Buzz Williams coup), the best chance of James and Hill staying aboard, the best chance at major hauls in 2013 and 2014, the best chance of exciting revered alums in the media business, Kendall Gill and Stephen Bardo … and thus the best chance to be really good really soon.

Thomas was too smart for all that. He acted without Henson’s input. Outside of the recommendations of Jerry Sloan, Rick Pitino and the aforementioned alumni. Instead, he found himself another MAC coach after underwhelming the world by going to that league for his football coach.

At least the MAC has a nice history of producing football coaching stars. It is utterly devoid of that history on the hardwood.

John Groce, your table is ready. Nobody from your new school is sitting at it, but it’s ready nonetheless.

Bring us Theus

Mike Thomas, it’s pretty simple.

You have a chance to go from this:

Bruce Weber

to this:

Reggie Theus

Has a program that needs an image makeover ever been presented with such a tailor-made opportunity?

I know you have been slow to warm up to the idea of Reggie Theus, Mike. Your fan base has been, too.

Let Reggie take care of the latter part. By the time the introductory press conference is over, this lifelong playa will have the Illini world in a frenzy. When the university’s all-time wins leader, Lou Henson, offers his reasons why Reggie is the answer, they will echo loud and true.

You see, Lou isn’t a guy trying to promote a former assistant, admirable as those motivations can sometimes be. Lou simply wants the best for Illinois basketball. Having seen Theus take Lou’s other love, New Mexico State, from Henson himself in 2005 and turn the Aggies around dramatically, Lou saw Reggie’s good coaching firsthand.

It was an admirable thing Coach Henson did, guiding the Aggies for $1 a year in the wake of Neil McCarthy’s mess. But Henson’s health issues and other factors took NMSU off the rails, to the tune of six wins the year the Illini were amassing 37.

Theus, fresh off Rick Pitino’s staff at that same St. Louis Final Four, coaxed a 16-14 season out of NMSU in Year 1. He was up to 25 wins and an NCAA bid in Year 2. Then the NBA called. Well, sort of the NBA. It was Sacramento, with a roster roughly equivalent to Florida’s at the time. Theus ostensibly failed with the Kings, despite improving them compared to the year before he arrived. He didn’t survive a second season there, like so many NBA coaches don’t.

But enough of the history lesson, anyway.

What Theus means to Illinois is tangible, immediate and exactly what the doctor ordered.

Start with Jabari Parker, who will take his place alongside Derek Harper and Marcus Liberty as the biggest recruiting coups the school has seen. Theus isn’t a lock to snare Jabari, but having known Sonny Parker since the days of their summer games 30 years ago, he’s as close as it gets. (The one lock is that Illinois, without Theus, won’t sniff Parker’s services.)

Next step: An hour in the office with Meyers Leonard, telling him what he might well know, deep down, and what is true.  It goes something like this:

“Meyers, you’re too unique of a talent to crawl into the league unsure of yourself, a 50/50 proposition to ever sign a second contract. Does Patrick O’Bryant ring a bell? Didn’t think so. NBA execs told him he’d be lottery, too, and he was. Taken 9th in 2006 by the Warriors. The former Bradley center was in the D-League by midseason of his rookie year, got shipped to Boston, fell out of the league.

“You can tiptoe in now and be B.J. Mullens, a bit part on a 5-50 team after getting dumped by the team that drafted him. Or you can listen to me, an NBA all-star and coach, about what it takes to survive. You can get stronger, learn real post moves, be part of a winner, and barge into that league a year from now as a sure-fire Top 10 pick.  Odds go way up that a team is far more invested in you, and you’re more mature and a better player, and you have a 15-year career that matters.

“Your choice. Worried about an injury? News flash: There are no career-ending knee injuries anymore. That went out with Danny Manning. People return from ACLs in 6 months now, and are good as new in 18.”

From there, Theus pulls in more top-flight Chicagoans,  largely because of a lifetime of relationships in the city of his first and best NBA playing days. He has known Michael Irvin, son and AAU Fire heir of the late, great Mac Irvin, since he was 20.

The Irvins (Nick, too) won’t just hand every player to Reggie Theus. They don’t have the power if they wanted to. But they will encourage Fire players to consider Illinois strongly and not have their hands out. Each case will be its own in the future, but you start with more than a fighting chance.

You don’t want to find out where you start, Mr. Thomas, if you never interview Theus and trot in some random, elevated mid-major guy. Or worse, let Duke play you a fool and use you as their bullpen for Chris Collins to get his arm loose for the day Krzyzewski hangs ’em up.

What about Theus’ coaching style? Well, he played for the greatest basketball mind still drawing breath, Jerry Tarkanian. Coached under Pitino. These are two giants who thrive on defensive pressure, score off it, but don’t rely on it entirely like that Flavor of the Month 34-year-old who turned  you down the other day.

Hey, I like Shaka Smart like the next guy. Think he’s a fine human being of unbridled enthusiasm who loves his players and whose players love him. But I feared his system — one basketball expert called it “a  high school offense and high school defense” — would fall down under the counter-moves of Big Ten giants such as Izzo, Ryan, Matta and the like.

No matter. That’s over. The abundant pining for Smart by Illini Nation will have to turn into something else.

You fear a reaction of “Reggie Theus? What the hell?” And  you’re right. Nobody ever offers a reason they don’t want Theus, but it is strangely fashionable for message-board denizens to spout about what desperation he would constitute.

Trust me, they’re fickle. With all the people behind Reggie — Henson, Pitino, Jerry Sloan, many more — goofy fan reaction will last maybe a day, probably more like an hour.

This hire is for 12 or 15  years. The second of those, and maybe even the third, probably involves Jabari Parker playing for your university.

All 12 or 15 involve a coach who likes uptempo basketball, but adjusts to his personnel. ADJUSTS! Did you hear that!? It can be done.

Instant cred.

And what personnel it will be. Think a dapper, Hollywood actor who was an NBA All-Star and coached in the league as recently as last season will be good in a living room? God bless John Groce and Gregg Marshall — basketball genius Brad Stevens, even — but I think I’ll try to win Chicago back with Reggie.

“I’m uptempo. I’m NBA. I’m engaging. I can coach. I have the right Chicago friends, and they trust me to do right by their kids. Wanna play for me?”

That’s the opportunity you have, Mike Thomas.  A guy who wants the job more than any of these others you might be trying to woo.

He won’t say no.

You shouldn’t either.

If you can’t build it, they won’t come

Illinois fans don’t have the convenient excuse on Jabari Parker.

While the Simeon junior superstar is the epitome of close to the vest on his recruitment, Illini fans know darn well he won’t be heading two hours down I-57 for his lone season of college ball. And unlike the cases of Sherron Collins, Julian Wright, Derrick Rose and Anthony Davis, there are no suitcase-of-cash murmurs as to why Illinois isn’t in the Parker picture.

No. Illinois will watch Parker go elsewhere because Illinois’ program isn’t good enough.

Reason enough to need a new coach. Not for missing a single recruit, even if it’s about the 30th single recruit.

Because of the state of the state school.

You all know it is in shambles. We come to you after Athletics Director Mike Thomas provided “read between the lines” criteria to Illinois’ two key radio audiences — at home on WDWS and in Chicago on The Score — that made it clear even to the proverbial child of 3 that his coach was gone.

We come to you even after the coach admitted as much himself in a depressing, meandering postgame to his umpteenth straight Purdue loss. In eight minutes Wednesday night, Bruce Weber managed to say “that’s my fault” about a half-dozen times while deviously painting a picture of it being his players’ fault, specifically his best players’ fault.

Taking the blame, passive-aggressively.

How ironic, those two words. Weber’s nine years are marked by a series of stunningly passive teams, by all measurable means:

• An annual ranking in the bottom third of college basketball in free throws attempted.
• A game-by-game flogging in the offensive rebound category.
• A steals column that never reaches double digits.
• A bagel under the box-score category of “fastbreak points” in upward of half the games this season.
• Field-goal-attempt totals with which you simply can’t sustain success at any level of basketball.
• A seeming disdain for trying to score off the very high number of baseline inbounds play a team gets on its own end in the average college game.

Weber on Wednesday lamented not establishing a culture among his kids, one of toughness. But through three roster makeovers after the divine group he inherited, the list above is this program’s culture.

Add this season’s glaring weakness that has confounded just about every color analyst to call the Illini on TV — the oft-fleeting interest in establishing gifted 7-footer Meyers Leonard on the block and an almost funny inability to pass him the ball — and you have a program that is a strategic step or two behind the opposition almost every night.

You want to know the real problem? Weber is a better game coach than he is a program coach.

The man’s undoing was his roster-building, from the days of embarrassing recruiting hauls in the afterglow of the 2005 Final Four to all these years of the biggest myth out there: that Jerrance Howard fixed everything.

A C-minus recuiter could have conceded Rose’s recruitment was shady from the start — could even have endured the spurning of Eric Gordon — and still signed a 2007 class of Evan Turner, Robbie Hummel, Demetri McCamey and Mike Tisdale. Possibly with E’Twaun Moore to boot. It bordered on stunning to watch Weber fumble away Turner and essentially un-recruit third-generation Illini legacy Hummel.

To watch a single team at the last Nike All-America camp ever, and know Illinois had said yes to Bill Cole and Jeff Jordan and gone out of its way not to welcome Hummel, as I did in July of 2006 at Indianapolis, was to know that trouble lied ahead. Hummel, while still vastly underrated at the time (to the extent people thought his Valparaiso prep teammate Scott Martin was better) was dazzling all weekend. Cole acquitted himself OK. Jordan was an obvious courtesy invite. (To be fair, Illinois recruited him as a preferred walk-on.)

Quiet little smear campaigns by the Illini staff ensued against local favorites Lewis Jackson (“He’ll never qualify”) and Verdell Jones (“too skinny”) before both filled roles for Indiana schools that Illinois could have used filled at home. But woe is the program that pines for LewJack or VJ3. Indeed, had Bill Self stayed, those two wouldn’t have received a sniff by the U of I, either.

The difference, of course, is Self practiced what he preached on the second day he was ever around Illini basketball. The occasion was a midsummer Flyin’ Illini reunion, and Self was there with assistants Billy Gillispie and Norm Roberts. Self said he liked to have two point guards on the floor if possible, or at least two guards who could at times play the 1.

He backed it by leading Illinois’ best recruiting class — ever? — with Deron Williams and Dee Brown. Those two would grow  up to go 37-2.  Self kept exhibiting the philosophy at Kansas, where a team with Mario Chalmers and Russell Robinson and Sherron Collins won a title. Then Collins and Tyshawn Taylor overlapped, and so on.

Weber left himself visibly deficient at point guard on every team after Dee Brown left. I beg you not to cite McCamey’s gaudy assist numbers as a junior as counter-evidence. It reached crisis proportions at times, as even the departure of the do-nothing Jordan could not be overcome when nary an able backup PG existed in his stead.

Weber all but doesn’t have a PG in this, his last season, with ghastly low assist numbers out of his Sam Maniscalco-Tracy Abrams duo and a team slate that shows more turnovers than assists virtually every game.

I see a college coach who tries to build a team without a PG and I think of Dave Wannstedt, a football coach who tried to build teams without an offensive line. It’s beyond belief they don’t understand the leadpipe necessity of having such positions filled.

Weber was also nearly immune to forwards as he mismanaged his rosters again and again. The decidedly unstable Jereme Richmond was about the only forward recruit of note as Weber fell in love with the three-guard idea in 2005 and never let go. Such an approach can be done successfully if, say, you are Duke and spread the floor with skilled ballhandlers and generate dribble-drive offense on almost every trip.

Alas, Weber’s teams do nothing of note off the bounce, perpetually seeking the mythical day when the motion offense is finally understood by these juniors, darn it, and they get shots other than turnaround 3s after running from one far wing to another. (Translation: Weber is waiting for Deron to come back and use that last year of eligibility.) The most telling quote from the Purdue postgame: “You don’t need to make plays. You need to be solid and do what you’re supposed to do.”

Duke aside, most college champions do it with a bevy of bigs. Whether it was Florida’s Horford-Noah combo with 6-8 Corey Brewer at the 3, or Kansas’ Arthur-Aldrich-Kaun-Jackson assault, or North Carolina’s Hansbrough-Davis-Thompson-Zeller depth or whatever Jim Calhoun throws out there each new cycle.

Weber left himself bankrupt there, too. Only now, with a good starting 7-footer and another promising center the class behind, has Bruce shown any emphasis on defending the rim.

But it’s too late, because Weber’s teams remained devoid of the other element you need to win at any level: shooters. His last team at Illinois will essentially be a 1-out-of-4 squad on 3-pointers. That’s largely because of the stagnant offense; it’s partly because the annual whipping boy was sharpshooter Tyler Griffey; it’s partly because the best offensive player in the program, Myke Henry, has been brought along at Weber’s trademark freshman speed (think continental drift).

Ours, however, is not to worry about why. All of Weber’s team-building errors converged on him, even now, after three allegedly Top 15 hauls occupy three of the four classes.

Chasson Randle and Ryan Boatright would have been better shooters. Anthony Davis and Wayne Blackshear better interior players. Hummel and Turner better leaders.

The latter two would have come if you had even the slightest sales pitch. That would have brought the elusive status Illini fans are always seeking: a sustained elite program. In that case, the other four listed above, of whom only Randle flirted with the Illini, would have come of age under an entirely different vibe in Illinois, a program with a dozen years of serious mojo. They wouldn’t have looked the other way because the program was not worthy.

So when Weber friends and apologists Doug Gottleib and Tom Izzo, et al., preach to Illinois fans about how they should accept Weber’s .670 ball because Illinois is not the elite program it thinks it is, ask them something:

Whose fault is that?

Moment in time or turning point?

If you beat Nebraska and Ohio State in football by the same margin, that usually makes sense. And good for you.

If you beat those two schools by the same five points in basketball, at home, 80 hours apart, it stirs debate. Basically: are you good, or was the big upset of the No. 5 Buckeyes an aberration?

We decided to delve into this conundrum in point/counterpoint fashion.

First up is Bill Liesse, a journalist who columnized from both of Illinois’ color-TV Final Fours after covering Ken Norman and the formation of the Flyin’ Illini for the D.I. He will argue that Illinois fans shouldn’t read too much into Tuesday’s 79-74 win over Ohio State.

Illini fans are longing to recapture the swagger they felt from 2001-06, when the team was ranked in the Top 10 more often than not, virtually never lost at home and won four Big Ten titles. The game on Tuesday held the feeling of those days.

That does not mean the team is returning to that time.

The easiest way to dismiss this upset is to look at Brandon Paul and his 43 points. On the Ohio State side, they’re probably saying “We got beat by a kid going out of his head. What can you do?”

That’s only partially on point.  Tuesday was a team win, with Joseph Bertrand, Meyers Leonard and D.J. Richardson all contributing significantly before Paul completely took over late.

It is true, however, that Paul’s uncharacteristic shooting — 11-of-13 overall and 8-of-9 on 3s after missing his first two shots — renders impossible a repeat of this particular winning recipe. It’s also true that Paul’s numbers led to a 60 percent shooting night by the team.

Funny numbers in the box score scream “outlier” and won’t mean a thing when the ball goes up Jan. 19 at Penn State.

Look deeper into that box and you see ongoing Illinois problems: Only 45 shot attempts, 21 fewer than the Buckeyes. This on the heels of 44 FGA vs. Nebraska. The team does not offensive rebound, it regularly turns it over more than 15 times and it  plays catch around the 3-point ring for most of the shot clock on many possessions.

You can’t score enough to beat good teams with so few possessions and the inherent pressure on each one. Not when you perennially reside toward the bottom of the NCAA in free throw tries. Shoot your usual 45% on those 45 shots, Illini, and you’re scratching and clawing to get to 60 points, per usual.

It’d be nice to think the Illini have figured out how to score in the 70s now, but you thought that after Gonzaga and Missouri, didn’t you? They reverted right back to teeth-pulling wins over the likes of Cornell and Minnesota. There’s a reason, too. With half the box scores this year reading “0” for transition points, and 20 FTA nights about as common as 80th birthday parties at the Hall (forget it on the road), Illinois simply has to be an extraordinary shooting team to succeed, and it isn’t.

Other concerns include the annually shrinking bench, which contributed zero points vs. OSU, its third shutout in the last 10 games; two point guards with astonishingly low assist numbers who simply don’t get the ball to the scorers in the right spots; evidence from the huddles, if not the floor, that Leonard and Paul have tuned out Bruce Weber; the 214 national rank in rebounding; the even-worse rebounding ability on nights when Leonard is called for fouls; and the nagging scare that Bertrand, a 3 ppg scorer through a dozen games, is not the 14 ppg guy he has been for three weeks.

Illinois’ 15-3 record belies the fact it has played pedestrian or lousy in 13 of the games and large parts of two others (Maryland and Missouri). Weber’s teams have had sterling records through the holidays a few times during the now-six doldrums years since Dee Brown left campus. Virtually every season grinds to its conclusion.

You’re looking for a hot streak out of a program that couldn’t win two straight games over the last two months a year ago. Ain’t gonna happen.

For the countering argument, we turn to Bill Liesse, who would have attended the Eddie-over-Magic-Johnson game in 1979 if it weren’t a school night, wore wrist bands well up his arm to emulate Derek Harper and took in Tuesday’s win over OSU roughly one outstretched Nnanna Egwu from Lou and Mary Henson.

Bill, you ignorant slut. (Sorry, had to be done.)

Get out of your box scores and sense what is happening here. This is 2003-04 all over again.

You remember Bruce’s first year. Dee, Deron and Luther not getting the offense for a while, and thus turning in stinkers like Providence and a 20-point loss at Wisconsin.

Then, they got it. And ran off 12 straight conference wins for Illinois’ first outright Big Ten title in 50 years. Twelve straight! Who does that?

Any college team anywhere would be lucky to re-create MV3 (Dee, Deron, Luther). The sheer greatness of Williams makes it almost impossible. So while The Ingredients (a nickname assigned by lifelong Illini hoop afficianado Doug White to the three guards who committed within 24 hours some four years ago) might not be MV3, they are nonetheless a good fit for Weber’s motion. They will turn the same corner the 2003-04 team did, and after they do, look out.

The current three scorers complement each other nicely. You have a catch-and-shoot guy in Richardson, a slasher in Paul who can also shoot well if he does it off the pass and not the bounce, and a midrange expert in Bertrand. The intelligent, fifth-year senior who has been watching for three games, Sam Maniscalco, should see how he can facilitate The Ingredients upon his return. Get it to JoeBert on cuts. Kick out to D.J. when defenders cheat toward Leonard. Implore Paul to drive more, despite Tuesday’s rainbows, and choose his 3 tries more wisely.

Furthermore, as good as James Augustine and Roger Powell were, the current roster has assets that 2004 and 2005 lacked: Leonard, destined to be the best big man in program history, and Egwu, probably a future NBA  7-footer himself. While the chances of the latter helping significantly this season are in the long-shot category, at the very least Egwu has a zest for defending the rim that has been completely lacking in the program for years.

Jared Sullinger, while scoring a few above his average with 21, made  a single free throw at the Assembly Hall. That alone reflects a giant step forward for the Illini. It also reflects a defensive makeup that will allow this team to compete in upcoming games while the offensive metamorphosis continues to evolve.

Paul and Bertrand provide wing D that can adapt to opponents from 6-foot-2 through about 6-8 or so. Richardson and Tracy Abrams will dog ballhandlers. Leonard and Egwu have the rim. This defense is a large part of the reason the team is 15-3 and half-game out in the Big Ten despite flawed efforts in four of the five league games thus far.

Weber used very little bench vs. Ohio State, leading some to say he’s following an annual pattern of cranking it down to a seven-man rotation in league play. Not so fast on that assessment.

For one, he had a nine-day layoff coming up, so that game allowed an extra-heavy reliance on starters. For another, Maniscalco was out of the equation.

From my seat, Weber has been masterful at minutes allocation this season. He began it with Griffey at a traditional PF, and sprinkled in plenty of Mike Shaw as a backup there. He deftly got Abrams ample time behind his senior PG. He went so far as using 12 players before halftime in the foul-heavy Gonzaga game and has kept Egwu nicely involved despite extremely rare foul trouble by Leonard.

The Bertrand emergence changed everything midstream, and Bruce has adapted. Griffey might have been tossed aside too abruptly for some, but three points on that. 1) Tyler is going to have to find and front some cutters in his life to not be a huge defensive liability to this team. 2) Traditional 4 men are hard to find on many a college team right now. 3) It’s not over yet. You could see bounce-back minutes out of Griffey as this team finds and redefines its identity.

Weber also has shown increasing confidence in Myke Henry. Like Egwu, Henry might not contribute significantly before this year is out. But drawing on the 2004 parallel again, the main subject at play here is building for what should be a nationally prominent run in the 2013 NCAA tournament. Henry, the most likely pro on campus behind the 7-footers, needs to grow along that timeline. He owns an inside-outside offensive game that is reflective of his Chicago westside predecessors of yesteryear, the aforementioned Eddie Johnson and his superstar Westinghouse teammate, Mark Aguirre.

For all the times you have heard, or said, “I thought Weber was going to do better with all the good recruits here now,” realize that it requires some patience. It is a process.

And it’s happening.