CHAMPAIGN – It might seem like yesterday, but time flies.

It’s been 16 years since the Illini were a national championship contender, those days when Deron Williams, Dee Brown and Luther Head were the darlings of college hoops.

The Illini run stalled. Recruiting quickly dried up, and Illinois fell down the seed line, then dropped completely out of the NCAA bracket. Coaches were fired, and the tournament drought was the longest for Illinois in the modern era.

Just let it sink in: this year’s high school senior class was 2 years old when the Illini lost to North Carolina in the NCAA title game in 2005.

So, when Illinois ripped through the last half of the Big Ten Conference season, left a few Nike tracks on the forehead of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio State in the final week of the regular season to likely grab a No. 1 seed and become a trendy pick in NCAA office pools all across the country, the recruits who would arrive as immediate difference-makers have taken notice.

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