MOMENTS, MEMORIES and MADNESS with STEVE CAMERON: The 1989 Illini, a Final Four upset and painful lesson about ‘cheering’

It’s pretty much the first thing you learn as a sports journalist …

“No cheering in the press box!”

The phrase is so common — it’s often announced by in-house PA sources before games and events — that I’ve known it for a million years (give or take a century).

Legendary Chicago sportswriter Jerome Holtzman even used that exact phrase as the title of his book about his years covering sports in the Windy City — thus beating all the rest of us to it.

On the other hand …

When you’re covering any team for a full season, watching practice, traveling around the country, getting to know the coaches and players, you naturally form attachments.

Besides, you’re almost certainly writing for fans of that team, so your stories and opinion pieces are written from that point of view.

For instance, I cover Gonzaga — attend the games and write both columns and our special Zags Tracker page every week during the season.

IF THE Zags have just played Saint Mary’s, for instance, I’m not going to waste a lot of words on the Gaels — simply to inform THEIR fans on how the game turned out.

A quote or two from Coach Randy Bennett might have its place, but I won’t let him waste space with a sermon on what the outcome means to Saint Mary’s.

My focus will be on the Zags, because our readers will almost exclusively be Gonzaga fans.

Viewing proceedings through your own team’s eyes is fair enough, but standing up in the media area at the Kennel to scream that an opposing player committed a foul…

That’s a no-no.

To do that, you need to buy a ticket and leave your press credential at home.

I’m fairly proud of the fact that I’ve been able to keep those two things apart.

I’ve watched some stunning victories and defeats, and remained impassive — at least while being observed by other members of the media.

NO, I’M not precisely certain I could have watched Zach Collins getting screwed by the officials in the 2017 national title game.

But I saw that one from the safety of home, so I never had a chance to find out if my cool would be tested right there at courtside.

However …

I’m going to admit, right here with witnesses, that at least ONE time in my career, I lost it.

I was unprofessional.

As my friends in Britain would say, the “red mist” suddenly filled my head.

It happened in the spring of 1989, when I was a sports editor and columnist for the Decatur Herald & Review in central Illinois.

Our paper covered the University of Illinois — football and basketball, primarily. The campus at Champaign-Urbana was about 40 miles from our office, and our readers were almost entirely nuts about their Illini.

That 1988-89 season was almost certainly the best and most exciting in Illinois hoops history.

A deep, gifted and absurdly athletic team became known as the “Flyin’ Illini, and the nickname fit perfectly.

THE ILLINI roster that season featured three players picked in the first round of the NBA draft (Kendall Gill, Nick Anderson and Kenny Battle), and two more selected in the second round (Stephen Bardo and Marcus Liberty).

This truly was a team that played at full throttle and above the rim, even though the tallest player was 6-7 — Bardo, the point guard.

In a pre-Christmas game at LSU, facing a pretty salty opponent, Illinois scored 127 points and Tigers Coach Dale Brown told Illini boss Lou Henson afterward: “Geez, Lou, thanks so much for not running it up on us.”

In his postgame remarks to the media at the Pete Maravich Center, Brown noted that the Illini had thrown down 24 dunks and said flatly: “That is the best group of athletes who have ever played in this building.”

The only thing that marred Illinois’ regular season, ironically, came on Sunday, Jan. 21, while the Illini were ascending to No. 1 in the polls with an unusual non-conference game that was set up for national TV.

They roared back from a 16-point deficit to beat a talented Georgia Tech team in double overtime, pushing their record to 17-0 — but losing Gill, their electric prime mover, to a broken foot.

What kind of defender and pace-pusher was Kendall Gill?

Well, he went on to play a decade and half as a pro, and still holds the NBA record for steals in a game with 11.

ALONG THE way, I’ll confess to becoming almost part of the furniture at Assembly Hall in Champaign.

That particular gang of the players was just plain fun.

Now then, Illinois’ colors are orange and blue.

The team wore basic white uniforms at home and dark blue, with orange and white trim, on the road.

But Nick Anderson, who had early on christened this squad as “The Fellas,” once spotted a third set of uniforms — an absolutely phosphorescent, glowing set of orange tops and bottoms — that had never been worn.

When Gill was finally ready to return (Illinois had gone just 8-4 without him, losing three close road games), Anderson begged Henson to let The Fellas wear orange for a home match with mega-rival Iowa.

Henson finally agreed, and after trotting around in their normal blue warmups and even being introduced that way, the guys stripped down to those orange threads and the crowd went nuts.

Poor 15th-ranked Iowa, which had squeaked out a four-point win at home in Gill’s absence, was summarily mauled 118-94 in a game that was never that close.

THE ILLINI, stuck with those four losses while Gill was out, were ranked No. 3 after pounding the Hawkeyes — but everyone in the country knew this was the best team in college basketball.

It’s time to note here that Illinois waxed a ranked Michigan team twice, by 12 at home and then by 16 at Ann Arbor on the final night of the regular season.

So on to the NCAA tournament …

Illinois ran past McNeese State, Ball State and Louisville, then survived a battle with Syracuse to reach the Final Four.

Astonishingly, they found themselves matched up again with Michigan and sharpshooter Glen Rice.

All kinds of strange things had happened with the Wolverines just prior to the tournament.

Bill Frieder announced that he would be leaving to coach Arizona State, which prompted AD Bo Schembechler to throw out Frieder and replace him with assistant coach Steve Fisher.

The new boss didn’t have much to do with it, but Michigan pulled off a couple of upsets to reach the Final Four in Seattle’s Kingdome — but it seemed a perfect semifinal set-up for Illinois, because the No. 10 Wolves had produced no defensive answers against the Illini at three or four different positions.

Except …

THINGS WERE strange in Seattle, almost from the beginning.

Illinois center Lowell Hamilton was still limping from an injury he suffered prior to an Elite Eight game in Minneapolis, when THAT dome leaked and Lowell slipped in a puddle of water during a workout.

Illinois did jump out to a nine-point lead in the first half against Michigan, making it look easy and suggesting a repeat of the first two games the teams had played.

Once again, Michigan had defensive issues with Battle, Gill and Anderson.

But then in less than a minute, Anderson was called for two fouls on what were deemed illegal screens — but when seen on tape much later, were simply nothing of the sort.

Then while Nick sat, Rice got hot and tossed in a trio of 3-pointers.

The game tightened and then stayed that way, with an astonishing 33 lead changes.

As things went back and forth, I was feeling more and more sick to my stomach.

Reporters behind the Michigan bench said later that Fisher made one key substitution and told Terry Mills: “I had a dream you’d do something great.”

A dream?

That’s when you realize that karma is all wrong.

EVENTUALLY, it came down to a Michigan possession with things tied at 81-81 and just a few seconds remaining.

Illinois had found its old swagger by then, and overtime would have seen the better team win for the third time.

No doubt.

The final sequence started as the Illini forced Mills (who was ineffective despite Fisher’s dream) to take an awful shot from the corner, which was an air ball.

Unfortunately, Mills’ shot was heaved so poorly that it sailed over the heads of all the well-positioned Illinois rebounders, and landed in the startled mitts of perhaps the most disappointing big-name recruit in the nation, Sean Higgins.

The oft-ignored Higgins had done nothing all year, nor in this semifinal.

I can still see this play as though it happened an hour ago, and it keeps repeating in slow motion.

Higgins caught the ball as though it were a live grenade and just sort of flung it up toward the hoop before the explosion.

It went straight in.

SUDDENLY, everything was over.

The dream season. The national title that should have been.

I remember being, like, paralyzed for few seconds — and then, totally out of character, I kicked a chair so hard that I hurt my foot.

Embarrassed?

Not then, because I was too angry at the injustice of it all.

Eventually, yes, I knew I’d been out of bounds — that no matter what had gone down, I was a professional and should have acted like one.

But that Illini team had become almost like family, and they would have beaten Michigan nine times out of 10.

I just couldn’t process it.

I hated the whole universe after that dog Higgins hit his game-winner, sending Michigan off to win a national championship two nights later.

You know, I’ve covered hundreds of games before and after that one, thrilling wins and disappointing losses, and I’ve taken them in stride.

Whatever happens, I’m thinking about my job.

But that one …

It makes me ill to this day.

Maybe …

Uh, maybe you’re allowed one of those in a career.

You think?

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron writes the Cheap Seats column on Wednesdays and Fridays, along with “Moments, Memories and Madness” each Sunday. He also contributes the “Zags Tracker” about Gonzaga basketball once per month during the off season.

In addition, Steve authors an “isolation blog” about life at home during this coronavirus pandemic. It now appears in The Press news section on Tuesdays and Thursdays.