November 8, 2009

Brian Rector
OrangeandBlueNews.com Staff

Champaign, Ill. - Illinois closed out exhibition play Sunday afternoon with an 84-63 victory over Quincy at the Assembly Hall. Freshman D.J. Richardson recorded a game-high 23 points on 9-of-13 shooting, including 5-of-8 from 3-point range, to lead the Illini. The Orange and Blue had four players score in double figures, as Alex Legion came off the bench to score 12, freshman Brandon Paul had 11 and Mike Davis added 10.

Illinois trailed for the majority of the game's first 10 minutes, then went on a 10-0 run to take a 25-22 lead with six minutes left in the half, extending the advantage to seven points at intermission.

The Illini pushed the lead to 10 early in the second half, but the visitors would not go away quietly. Quincy went on a 14-5 run to pull within 54-53 with 10 minutes remaining. Illinois controlled the rest of the game, however, outscoring the Hawks 30-10 over the final 10 minutes. Richardson scored 10 of his 23 during that stretch.

The Illini shot 49 percent (30-61), including 42 percent from 3-point range, making 13-of-31 from behind the arc. Illinois tallied 21 assists on its 30 field goals, and after committing 19 turnovers in its first exhibition game vs. Missouri Southern, the Illini finished with just six miscues against Quincy.

Illinois opens the regular season on Friday, hosting Southern Illinois-Edwardsville at 7 p.m.(Recap courtesy University of Illinois sports information)

Illinois beat Qunicy in their final exhibition game Sunday by a score of 84-63. Get Head Coach Bruce Weber's take on the game, as well as the latest on Joseph Bertrand in this postgame report from the Orange&Blue News.

Bruce Weber's opening statement "I think it was a typical second exhibition game. What I talked about it yesterday was playing with a passion. As a coach, obviously talent is important, but if you have a talented player that has no passion, it doesn't do you any good. That was our thought that we talked about. I did that because I knew it's tough for our guys especially the older guys to get motivated (for exhibitions), but you have to play every day. Whether it's practice or a game, you have opportunity and you have to have the right mental preparation and obviously we didn't have great mental preparation to be ready to play."

Mike Davis, what do you think is missing with him?
Bruce Weber: I think he's got to be more ready to play. Going to class and running the court, he should get a run out, get a tip dunk. He's so mobile and so athletic and I don't think he always uses his tools. He had a practice a couple days ago where he was the best player on the court, there's no doubt. Why don't you do it every day? He's still a young kid when you look at it age wise, him and (Mike) Tisdale. One, we've got to look for our big guys but they've got to find out how to get open too. If they're not getting passes or post feeds, go to the glass and do the little things, get run outs and do the other things. We need them to play well and he's got to get a better production if we're going to be successful.

It looked like Jeff Jordan brought the team together.
Bruce Weber: He gave us a little boost of energy and he was excited to be able to play for the first time. He went to exhaustion and that's the part of his conditioning where he needs to catch up. He got to the point where he just stopped and that's our fault, we left him in too long. He gave us a nice little boost and pushed the basketball, that's what he's been doing. He's smarter, older and can give us some defense so we were pleased that he got some minutes. He's never going to be a great scorer, but maybe he can do some things that some of our other guys can't.

It seemed like maybe you were a little unhappy with Alex (Legion's) shot selection?
Bruce Weber: Yeah he comes in and takes a couple quick one's and makes them and now he has the heat check going. In 13 minutes, he has 10 shots and some of them are forced. There's a tempo of a shot and you can't just go and play it, it means something and that's where he needs to get better. He can get some points for us, but he's got to figure out when to shoot it and when not to.

Can you give us an update on Stan Simpson?
Bruce Weber: He's got to show us that it's really important to him. That school is important, being here is important and having a passion. I probably would have played him to be honest, I didn't get some people some minutes, Semrau 7, Tyler (Griffey) with 10. I didn't want to have a Syracuse on my hands. It's much better to win but at the same time, it's disappointing because we didn't get a lot of guys minutes that probably deserved them. That's the veterans fault to be honest because they didn't do what they were supposed to and got us in a bind.

You've got to be happy with the turnovers, only 6.
Bruce Weber: Yeah, but they're not a pressure team, it was a different thing. They were letting us move the ball and then we'd throw up a 3. Last week, they were pressing us and today we played a totally different style. And that's good that we've played two different styles and it's something to learn from.

What kind of offensive production are you expecting from D.J. (Richardson)?
Bruce Weber: He's had his moments where he's been pretty productive. In one of the scrimmages, he had 32 points in a 22 minute scrimmage so he can score some points. The thing I think is most impressive is his perimeter shooting over the last year, even two years, he's gotten better. He's always been someone who can get to the basket. He's someone who can slash and he has that pull up and he shoots the ball with a lot of confidence. Ironically, he's actually struggled the last four or five days of practice. I think he had hit a freshmen wall and then tonight he almost saved us . . . For D.J., going to the prep school probably helped him get used to the travel and home sickness and all the things that freshmen go through. And the coaches there were tough on him, they had hard practices so I think his transition has been easier than for some of the other guys.

How is Joseph's knee?
Bruce Weber: We've actually rested him 5 or 6 days now, since Tuesday. We're hoping to get him back in this Tuesday. To his credit, he's showed a lot of toughness, more than I thought. He's wanted it and showed that he wanted it. He almost went to hard and might have hurt himself a little bit. Now we've just got to get the swelling down and work him back in and see what happens with him.

Rebounding could have been a little bit better.
Bruce Weber: It was not very good and in fact early, it was really bad. It was 12-4 or something like that and we talked about it at the timeouts and it's something that we've emphasized. We even put it on the board. We don't need 7 foot, 6-foot-8, 6-foot-9 safeties, we need them going to crash the boards. That dunk Tisdale had was one of the most impressive plays he's had since he's been here. Maybe that's good for him, to be assertive and not back down.