The 2010–11 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team represented the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in the 2010–11 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. This was head coach Bruce Weber's eighth season at Illinois. They played their home games at Assembly Hall and were members of the Big Ten Conference. They finished the season 20–14, 9–9 in Big Ten play and lost in the quarterfinals of the 2011 Big Ten Conference men's basketball tournament to Michigan. They received an at-large bid to the 2011 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, where they beat UNLV in the second round before falling to Kansas in the third round.
Pre-season Illinois welcomed back all five starters and its top seven players from the previous season. The Illini returned 89.4 percent of its points, 79 percent of its rebounds, and 85 percent of its minutes played from the 2009–10 campaign.Illinois Basketball 2010-11 Record Book , FightingIllini.com, retrieved 11-08-10 In addition to the returning players, Illinois added a top-15 ranked recruiting class to its roster. Three true freshmen joined the squad this season: guard/forward Jereme Richmond, center Meyers Leonard, and guard Crandall Head. The 2010 recruiting class was ranked No. 11 by Scout.com and No. 13 by both Rivals.com and ESPNU. Richmond earned Illinois Mr. Basketball honors and was selected to play in the 2010 McDonald's All-American Game, becoming Illinois' 13th McDonald's All-American and first since Dee Brown. A top-25 recruit, Richmond averaged 21 points, 11.5 rebounds, three assists and three blocks as a senior. Leonard was a consensus first-team all-state selection who led Robinson High School to the 2010 Illinois state title in Class 2A. A top-50 recruit, Leonard averaged 19 points, 11 rebounds and 4.5 blocks as a senior. He is the younger brother of former Illini All-American Luther Head. Crandall missed his senior season after having surgery to repair a torn ACL. He was a top-75 recruit who earned all-state honors as a junior, averaging 21 points, seven rebounds and four steals.
Departures Name Number Pos. Height Weight Year Hometown Reason for departure Jeffrey Jordan 13 G 6'1" 175 Junior Highland Park, IL Transferred to Central Florida Bubba Chisholm 15 G 5'11" 180 Senior Champaign, IL Graduated Stan Simpson 21 C 6'10" 230 RS freshman Chicago, IL Transferred to John A. Logan College then to Memphis Dominique Keller 23 F 6'7" 230 Senior Port Arthur, TX Graduated Alex Legion 33 G 6'5" 200 RS junior Detroit Transferred to Florida International Richard Semrau 50 F 6'10" 245 RS junior Grafton, OH Graduated
2010 additions
Roster
Schedule Source
!colspan=12 style="background:#DF4E38; color:white;"| Exhibition
!colspan=12 style="background:#DF4E38; color:white;"| Non-conference regular season
!colspan=9 style="background:#DF4E38; color:#FFFFFF;"|Big Ten regular season
!colspan=9 style="text-align: center; background:#DF4E38"|Big Ten tournament
!colspan=9 style="text-align: center; background:#DF4E38"|NCAA tournament
National rankings
Various publications and news sources released their preseason rankings prior to the start of the 2010–11 season. Illinois was ranked by the publications below. The Fighting Illini were ranked 13th in the AP Poll and 16th in the Coaches Poll in their respective pre-season polls.
+ Pre-season rankings Athlon Lindy's Sporting NewsSounds crazy, but Duke must address some issues , Sporting News, retrieved 10-26-10Fox SportsPreseason Top 25: Duke a clear No. 1 , Fox Sports, retrieved 10-26-10 CBS SportsFinal preseason Top 25 (and one): It's the work of the Devils, CBS Sports, retrieved 10-30-10Rivals.comRivals.com 2010-11 Preseason Top 25, Rivals.com, retrieved 11-04-10 Blue Ribbon 19 9 15 12 16 14 9
+ Regular season pollsPoll Pre-season Week1 Week2 Week3 Week4 Week5 Week6 Week7 Week8 Week9 Week10 Week11 Week12 Week13 Week14 Week15 Week16 Week17 Week18 Final AP 13 13 19 20 16 12 21 23 20 16 23 20 RV RV Coaches 16 16 19 21 17 14 21 25 20 16 22 21 24 RV RV + Legend Increase in ranking Decrease in ranking No change (RV) Received votes
Season statistics Legend GP Games played GS Games started Avg Average per game FG Field-goals made FGA Field-goal attempts Off Offensive rebounds Def Defensive rebounds A Assists TO Turnovers Blk Blocks Stl Steals High Team high
+ Individual player statisticsIllinois Season Statistics , FightingIllini.com, Retrieved 2011-03-06 Minutes Total FGs 3-point FGs Free-throws Rebounds Scoring Player GP GS Tot Avg FG FGA Pct 3FG 3FA Pct FT FTA Pct Off Def Tot Avg PF FO A TO Blk Stl Pts Avg McCamey, Demetri 31 29 1026 33.1 153 335 .457 68 147 .463 91 124 .734 16 90 106 3.4 62 0 189 89 6 31 465 15.0Davis, Mike 31 31 1009 32.5 158 295 .536 0 1 .000 61 90 .678 50 170 220 7.1 73 1 51 41 26 28 377 12.2Tisdale, Mike 31 29 792 25.5 119 230 .51718 42 .429 56 70 .800 70 129 199 6.4 111 5 36 52 50 15 312 10.1Paul, Brandon 31 8 673 21.7 90 225 .400 38 108 .352 66 84 .786 18 71 89 2.9 53 0 61 55 10 29 284 9.2Richardson, D.J. 31 29 853 27.5 91 224 .406 50 130 .385 25 33 .758 11 46 57 1.8 63 1 60 36 5 20 257 8.3Richmond, Jereme 30 6 669 22.3 101 193 .523 2 11 .182 26 43 .605 53 101 154 5.1 50 1 57 51 13 13 230 7.7Cole, Bill 31 21 627 20.2 53 117 .453 29 80 .363 17 21 .810 29 51 80 2.6 53 0 40 12 16 19 152 4.9Leonard, Meyers 30 1 260 8.7 27 57 .474 0 1 .000 10 15 .667 10 31 41 1.4 46 0 5 24 12 5 64 2.1Griffey, Tyler 24 0 166 6.9 14 42 .333 4 11 .364 10 15 .667 11 18 29 1.2 20 0 1 12 3 5 42 1.8Bertrand, Joseph 13 0 49 3.8 7 13 .538 0 1 .000 3 4 .750 1 5 6 0.5 6 0 3 3 2 1 17 1.3Head, Crandall 15 1 83 5.5 7 18 .389 1 7 .143 4 6 .667 1 2 3 0.2 8 0 10 11 0 3 19 1.3Berardini, Kevin 8 0 14 1.8 1 1 1.000 0 0 .000 4 6 .667 1 2 4 0.4 2 0 1 2 0 1 6 0.8Selus, Jean 5 0 5 1.0 0 1 .000 0 1 .000 1 2 .500 0 0 0 0.0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0.2Team 47 49 96 1 7 Total 31 6226 821 1751 .469 210 540 .389 374 513 .729 318 765 1083 34.9 549 8 515 395 143 171 2226 71.8 Opponents 31 6227 712 1777 .401 183 612 .299 420 582 .722 361 670 1031 33.3 509 5 375 382 91 171 2027 65.4
References