Arizona Game with Peets Coffee at 9am Pac/11am Central

I might be drinking my Peets coffee tomorrow morning when the Illini tip off against the Wildcats of Arizona. For some reason, I am looking forward to this game, thinking positively about the speculation that Pruitt won't play due to his ankle injury. Bruce Weber was quoted as saying that Pru's jumping has been impacted by the injury and some are posting on boards that he actually gets lower to the ground now when he jumps. Said differently, Pruitt can't jump when he's healthy. This has not been Shaun's year, and I don't think we need him in the line-up to match up with Arizona.

My Keys to the Game for Illinois:

1. This is a home game for Illinois, not a neutral court game. We should come out pressing full-court, try to create turnovers and easy fast break hoops to get the crowd in the game. We need a hostile environment.

2. Lock-down defense. Obviously Randle is our lock-down guy, and he will take Chase, but we shouldn't obsess over Randle's fouls. Weber should have 3-4 players take turns guarding Budinger during the game. We are deep, and I could see Cole coming in and taking him, as well as Brock and Alexander. Guys defend better when they aren't worried about fouls. At point guard, Frazier needs to slow down Bayless, Arizona's highly-touted freshman point guard.

3. Use the bench, Bruce. Arizona is not a deep team this year, and the Illinois bench can probably outscore the starters in points/minute. If we go deep in the bench, maybe we can wear down the Wildcats tomorrow.

4. Need to keep scoring. Weber needs to rotate guys to keep scorers in the ballgame. We lost the Maryland game at the end, because we kept waiting for Pruitt, Randle and Frazier to contribute, and kept Rodney on the bench. We have decent guys on the bench, and we need to use them. Rodney Alexander, Bill Cole and Mike Davis can play on the offensive end, so we need to have shooters in each rotation to avoid going cold.

If we execute these keys well, we won't need to worry about making free throws or the calls by the refs, or profanity-laced tirades from disgusting Kevin O'Neill.