Mar. 23—NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Shauna Green had a conversation with her Illinois women’s basketball team in the locker room after last month’s 82-78 loss at Iowa.
A postgame talk from the fourth-year Illini coach that now seems prescient with what Illinois will try to do on Monday night.
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Green made clear to her team that if the Illini were going to advance to a Sweet 16 of an NCAA tournament, it would take beating a team as good as the Hawkeyes on their home floor.
Nearly a month later, and that’s the task before seventh-seeded Illinois (22-11), which will face No. 2 seed and host Vanderbilt (28-4) at 6 p.m. on Monday at Memorial Gymnasium in a second-round NCAA tournament game with the winner moving on to the Sweet 16. Ironically enough, that same Iowa team the Illini lost to is also a No. 2 seed in March Madness. Just like the Commodores.
“And what better way to prepare you than one of the best places and toughest places to play in the country is at (Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa),” Green said. “We had multiple chances to win that game. The nice thing about the Big Ten is you have been in really hostile environments on the road, and the next step in our program and our evolution in a program is to host (the first and second rounds), right? But right now it is, you got to go and you got to beat that.
“Hopefully, I’m going to talk about the Iowa game, reference that again. I’m going to give them my story about us at Dayton and how (as a No. 7 seed) we made the Elite Eight (in 2015). So, it’s hard. It’s really, really hard. Vanderbilt is really, really good. We forgot to mention that.”
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Only twice in the 52-year history of the Illinois program have the Illini been to the Sweet 16. That came in back-to-back NCAA tournaments in 1997 and 1998.
That first matchup with the Hawkeyes is one Illinois would like to have back after the Illini led 69-64 with 5 minutes, 43 seconds left in the game before Iowa rallied for a four-point win. That took the Hawkeyes overcoming the 11 three-pointers Illinois made as a team, including the Illini finishing 8 for 8 from the three-point arc during the second half.
Illinois sophomore guard Aaliyah Guyton said it was an intense conversation Green had with the team after the loss at Iowa.
“But it was definitely something we needed to have,” Guyton said Sunday from the Illini’s temporary locker room for the NCAA tournament. “The uncomfortable conversations that we do have are necessary. I just remember it being kind of like an awakening for us, waking us up from wherever we felt like we were struggling. Then, we go back, watch film, analyze it and get better from it.”
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What came out of that was that Illinois had to be better as a team at responding to adversity. From that perspective, the results have been mixed, with the Illini 3-2 since the regular-season Iowa defeat.
But there’s no doubt Saturday night’s 66-57 victory against No. 10 seed Colorado in a first-round NCAA tournament game was something Illinois can draw upon. Specifically how good the Illini were at answering each of the Buffaloes’ scoring runs. That allowed Illinois to never trail in the final 30-plus minutes.
“We just have to take advantage of this opportunity, and obviously it’s a huge one to beat someone on their home court,” Illinois junior guard Maddie Webber said. “That’s obviously a goal of ours. We’re really prepared. I think everyone kept their composure really well even when Colorado started coming back. And I feel like we just controlled the game. Even when we were having some bad lapses, we were able to gain control. Obviously, we came out with the win.”
Vanderbilt, too, finds itself in a similar spot to the Illini as the Commodores look for a breakthrough moment on Monday night. Vanderbilt hasn’t been to the Sweet 16 since 2009.
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And this time that chance comes at home, where the Commodores are 17-0 before facing Illinois.
“I don’t think we’re really focused on going undefeated at home, even though that’s kind of a great experience and feeling,” Vanderbilt senior guard/forward Justine Pissott said. “But like I said before, that’s what we came to Vanderbilt for is just to improve every single year. I feel like my three years here we have taken a step forward in the right direction. I think for me, it’s pretty special. That’s what I came to Vanderbilt for, was to get to a Sweet 16 and hopefully further than that.”
The Illini have a chance to play spoiler in what will be, regardless of the final result, the final home game for the Commodores this season.
But the motivation is more than that for this Illinois team. Illinois — as the youngest team in the field of 68 for the NCAA tournament — has a chance to write its own kind of history.
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The Illini are hoping that the successes — and also failures — of the past four-plus months will be the reason they can take that next step as a program and reach the second weekend of an NCAA tournament for the first time in 28 years. A win on Monday night would send Illinois to Fort Worth, Texas, later this week to play either third-seeded Ohio State (27-7) or sixth-seeded Notre Dame (23-10) in the Sweet 16 on Friday afternoon.
“I feel like a lot of the stuff we have gone through in the postseason and the regular season has prepared us for these kind of moments,” Illinois junior guard Jasmine Brown-Hagger said. “Shauna gives it to us how it is and at the end of the day, we have to go out and win. We have to take it step by step and who wants it more. Are you going to do the dirty work? Are you going to sit down and guard when you really don’t want to? Are you going to crash the boards when you don’t want to? When you play teams on their home court, it’s just about who’s more disciplined because when you’re on your home court, you’re a little more comfortable. So just coming in and trying to disrupt that a little is what we have to do (on Monday night).”
