University of Illinois radio voice Brian Barnhart joins Springfield's Morning News to discuss the Illini draw in the NCAA tournament and their chances for a deep run in March.
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Brian Barnhart, the radio voice of the Fighting Illini. Brian, good morning. How are you? Hey, good morning. This is your day, isn't it? St. Patrick's Day. Happy me day is what I like to say. I was looking through something the other day, Brian, and I realized you and I used to have cubicles next to each other in the newsroom at WDWS in Champaign. And I started 20 years ago next month.

Wow. 20 years ago. We're getting really old. This hair did not get this white when I was 21 or 22 when I started with you. Well, that's amazing to think about. Wow. Two kids in 20 years in politics will do that. That's right. That's right. All right. So good draw, bad draw. Oh, I think it's a good draw, actually, for a couple of reasons. Well, the most exciting for me is the fact that we're in Milwaukee.

and not Denver or someplace like that. I think that's a great, great landing spot. As the seeds were coming up, I kept thinking, you know, they're probably going to put Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and they didn't. And so I thought, wow, they might actually put us there. So I like that, first of all, and also the fact that it – you know, and they've got to win. They've got to do their work. But it feeds back into Indianapolis at Lucas Oil Stadium. So that's – as far as our fans go, that's probably the best you could hope for.

Also, I think you're going to play a team that will have played two nights earlier just to get in. Now, that can cut both ways. Maybe they'll have some momentum from a win, whether it's Texas or Xavier, and then you're playing them, but you're getting them late at night. You're getting a pretty prime TV spot. I think Illinois is always a big draw.

And so, you know, you're not playing 11 o'clock in the morning, which I think is a good thing. So I think the time of it, uh, the fact that you're playing someone that's going to have to have played before two nights earlier, um, and you're getting, you know, potentially if you can get by that game, uh,

a Kentucky team that, you know, is, is a good team, but not certainly at the level of, I don't think Alabama or Auburn or somebody like that. So, and it's not a John Calipari team, you know, I mean, we, we don't, this isn't the Kentucky that we've, we've known them to be the last 10 or 15 years. And that doesn't mean they don't have, you know, they've got a, you know, they've got great players. Usually they do. But I think they're still,

trying to get back to that elite level. So it's not an elite Kentucky team, I guess is what I'm saying. But Patrick, we've seen the elite SEC teams. I mean, we've seen them up close, Alabama and Tennessee, Tennessee,

We haven't seen Auburn yet, but I think the fear factor there isn't quite as high just because of where Kentucky stacks up compared to the other ones. Well, and Arkansas, an SEC team that made the tournament, beat them on Thanksgiving Day. Missouri. Yeah, Missouri beat Missouri, who's in the tournament. So, I mean, they've had success. This team has just driven me crazy this season, Brian.

and I'm sure I'm not the only one, that some games they come out and they look like

the best team in the country, right? That Oregon game, that late-night game that they played in Oregon in early January, I think it was, and they came out and just whooped Oregon's tail on the road by 30, and then there's the Duke game where you go out to Madison Square Garden and lose literally by 40, where you go out and score 106 against Iowa on Thursday and then lay an egg against Maryland on Friday. I mean, this is like the most Jekyll and Hyde Illinois team I can remember.

I hear that a lot from a lot of people. It's a little bit, at times, it feels like, I'm sure, like a stock. It's a high-risk, high-reward feel. Boy, if you hit the right night where they're hitting all their shots and they're healthy, they can beat anybody. And then, again, if they're not hitting shots and they're

They're flat. You know, you can see what happens. Now, the Duke game, I think you have to set aside because that was like the worst possible time to be playing Duke. I mean, the team was sick. You know, they had played earlier in the week at Wisconsin. Jake Davis had started the game and was throwing up in the locker room literally at halftime. We didn't see him the rest of the night until he got on the plane. I mean, it was sick. It was Tommy was still hurting with his ankle. And, you know, it was just Trey White was out.

and not able to help. And so that was of all the games you say, well, let's play Duke on that day. It was like, okay, that's a bad day to play Duke. And so you can kind of set that one aside, but Maryland's a bad matchup that, you know, it's just not been a good matchup for us even over the years before this year. And, and then they're a little older with, with, you know, Juju, Julian Reese and what he does. And so they kind of punked us. I mean, in a sense, they, they, they were physical, they took it right to us and,

And, you know, but against other teams that I think we match up well, like in Oregon or, you know, we played Indiana this year, blew them out in Bloomington. You know, this team, when they get on that kind of role, it's an amazing team to watch. So they do tease you a little bit with that and then, you know, have what happened the other night. Brian Barnhart, the radio voice of the Fard and Illini, joins us here on 92.7 WMAY. What's the ceiling for this team?

Oh, I think, you know, the ceiling, I think, would be an Elite Eight. I mean, I think they've got a chance. I think so. I think they've got that in them. You know, I think a Sweet 16 is very doable with the talent they have. I think they've got five starters that average double figures. They have different guys that can do different things. Will Riley has really emerged here late in the year. He went through that freshman wall back there in January and early February, but he's come through that.

Again, I love what Trey White's doing. Boswell has taken on a leadership role on the team. He's really solid. Ivasich, you know, is being able to shoot from outside, you know, poses a problem for defenses that way. And they can just hit you from all different ways. And so the big thing is, you know, when they miss their shots, and they do miss threes, they don't shoot them at a high clip as far as making them, but if they can offensive rebound at an effective enough rate, they

they can offset a lot of that. And if you look, if you parallel their numbers, when they get out rebounded or it's close, they've typically lost.

and if they out rebound their opponents by a big margin, they typically win big. So, um, but I, the ceiling is high, uh, but you also have to, uh, you got to take care of business in this first game or, or that's how you're going to be remembered. Speaking of 20 years ago, literally 20 years ago, it was the final four team, the national championship game team, uh,

the D Brown, Darren Williams, James Augustine team, Luther head. And then last year felt like a team that could go to the final four, the Terrence Shannon team, even though it ran into that ugly buzzsaw in Yukon. Um,

maybe the two best chances, right? At least since the flying Illini to win a national title. What's it going to take for this program to get over the hump, to become that elite program? I mean, it's a great program, right? It's a top 10, 15 program in the country right now, but it's not a national title winner. It's not considered elite. What's it going to take to get there?

Well, I think the formula's changed now with NIL and Transfer Portal. You know, you used to be able to, you know, build. What you had to do was what happened in 05. You know, you had to have a tremendous recruiting class that all stayed together. I mean, you were around it at the time. After 04, they went to the Sweet 16 and lost to Duke and Atlanta, and then they had everybody back. And you thought, you know, this team might be something. And so that's how you used to build it.

And then you would build on that success and continue to carry it forward. So they had an opening there. But now, I don't know. I mean, you're putting together how many new guys do we have this year? Eight or seven or eight? All but one, right? All but one, yeah. As far as the start, you know, the guys that started played regularly. All but one. And, you know, that new formula, Brad seems to have adapted pretty quickly to it. He's tried different things. Last year, he was really, really old.

This year he went young with a high ceiling of talent, NBA talent, considered to be an NBA talent. And I don't know what happens going forward. So I think that it's hard to say now, Patrick, because I think the formula is different. You've got to put together the right group of guys. Look at Louisville. I mean, they were down for how many, two or three years? Yes.

And then they're, you know, playing for the ACC championship over the weekend. So, I mean, they turned it all completely around. So I, it's just hard to say how you, you know, how do you get to be a, you know, a Duke or one of those. It's very hard to break through like that, but even they're, you know, not immune to people, you know, one and dones and people coming and going either, but yeah.

But I don't know what the direct answer is, but I do know the formula's changed. Who's the best coach in the Big Ten? Is it Tom Izzo? Yeah, probably, just based on his ability to get the most out of his players at the right time. I think most people agree. I mean, he's kind of the...

He's the one that all the coaches, they talk to on a regular basis. I mean, you know, even after a game, you know, they'll phone in the middle of the night and talk to each other. They'll call Tom Izzo or he'll call them.

Uh, so they're all, I think they all consider him. It's like doctors or, you know, other and people in other professions, you know, the doctors know who the good doctors are. And I think coaches know who the great coaches are. Political people on election day, all just talk to each other, talk to each other. But I guess the point of my question was if, if Izzo's one, you've got to think Underwood's in the conversation for number two, right? Yeah.

I think so. I think so. And I'm biased. I'm pretty close to it. But I mean, just in, in, in, since, you know, since bill self, right. I mean, as, as, as good of a run as Bruce Weber had, and then we kind of had some, some, some not so great years at the end of his term into gross, et cetera. But, but,

Even since Lou Henson, right, there hasn't been this sort of stability and high level of coaching since, you know, since Henson, since Kruger, since Self.

Well, think about it. At the very end of the Bruce Weber era when he got let go, John Gross got us to the tournament that first year. By the way, he's doing a great job at Akron. He's got him back in the tournament. But we went how many years there, including the first couple of years under Brad Underwood, we didn't even sniff the tournament. We weren't even close. And I took that for granted early in my career as the play-by-play announcer. I just took for granted we were always going to be in the tournament. And suddenly...

You know, 14, 15, 16, 17, the years started adding up where you weren't even in the tournament. So there's only a handful of, I think it's five or six. Those were dark days. Yeah. Well, I think that, you know, there's only five or six teams, Patrick, in a country that have been in the tournament now like six straight years. Yeah. And Illinois is one of them.

And that speaks to his consistency. And, you know, people quibble over what should he have called timeout or is the personnel subject. You know, people can argue over that stuff. But, I mean, think about the banners they've raised in the last few years, winning Big Ten championship, tournament championships. You know, we're in a pretty good time here. Made Fred McCaffrey unemployed, which makes me very happy. So, not a nice guy. Not a nice guy.

All right, Brian Barnhart, we'll let you go on this. For Illinois to get through the weekend in Milwaukee to the Sweet 16, X needs to happen. What's that, X? Oh, I think they need to hit their shots on a little higher level percentage than they have. Three-point shots, I'm talking about. They're at 31% as a team. It is to be like 35, something like that, I think would get them through. I think their defense –

wobbled during the course of the middle of the season. It got better in that four-game winning streak and then fell off again against Iowa and Maryland. So I think they've got to get that tweaked a little more, a little more consistent. But those are the two things. Defense needs to get back to where it was during the four-game winning streak and then just shoot a little higher, marginally higher than they do as a team for the year from three.

Brian Barnhart, radio voice of the fine Illini. He'll head to Milwaukee this weekend for the NCAA tournament. Brian, a pleasure as always. I know you've got to get on the radio. I could talk to you forever, but I appreciate you taking some time this morning. And if we get a good run here in the tournament, maybe we'll catch up again soon. Okay. Sounds good, Patrick. All right, my friend. Take care.