Posts tagged Chester Frazier at FanHouse

As MDS pointed out earlier, Eric Gordon and his family may have had the last laugh in Indiana's double overtime victory over the Illini in Champaign on Thursday, but they had to suffer through quite a bit of abuse while doing it. Be it the constant boos Gordon heard everytime he touched the ball, the chants of 'Liar" and "Traitor" as he calmly sank his free throws, or the beads thrown at his family in the stands, Illini fans acted like fools. Complete and total fools.

I'm an Illini fan, and just like all of them, I don't like Eric Gordon. I was just as upset when he reneged on his oral commitment for Indiana as anybody else. At the same time, I realize he's just a basketball player.

A 19-year old basketball player.

What I saw and heard from the Illini crowd last night embarrassed me as an Illinois fan. Though it wasn't just the fans whose antics I found a little disturbing. Chester Frazier's "chestbump" with Gordon before the game was out of line as well, and he should have been punished for it. Either by the refs or his own coaching staff.

The truth is that the Illini and their fans are going through a tough, and extremely frustrating season. They're 10-14 on the season, including a lovely conference record of 2-9, and things arent' going to get any better this season. Instead of placing the blame where it should be though, like on the players and coaching staff, the team and it's fans have redirected all their anger at Eric Gordon.

Somehow it's gotten in their head that he's the reason the team sucks this season. It's not the fact that Shaun Pruitt can't hit a single free throw, or that they're shooting 30% from behind the arc, in their minds it's because Eric Gordon went to Indiana.

And they should all be ashamed of themselves, I know I'm ashamed of them.

Things started out well for the Illini, after jumping out to a 10-0 lead early it looked like Illinois was on it's way to it's first victory over a ranked non-conference opponent since 2005.

The defense was swarming, the shots were falling, and Illinois was finding every loose ball. Maybe it was the jet lag of coming from the west coast to play a game at 11AM in Chicago, but Arizona just didn't look like the ranked team early.

Then the Wildcats woke up.

Arizona then spent the rest of the game slowly chipping away at the Illini lead before finally taking over themselves late in the second half. They would eventually win 78-72 in overtime, but not without controversy.

As Illinois point guard Chester Frazier drove down court at the end of regulation, he was stripped by Arizona's Nic Wise who then called for a timeout. Unfortunately for Wise, Arizona didn't have any timeouts left. Of course, the officials at the United Center were a compassionate group of men, because rather than calling the illegal timeout and sending the Illini to the free throw line for the winning points, they just chose to ignore Wise's timeout call.

It probably wouldn't have mattered anyway, though. Have you seen the Illini at the free throw line? They wouldn't have made any shots anyway.

Shaun Pruitt, who wasn't expected to get that many minutes, led the Illini with 24 points and 9 rebounds. Illinois is now 5-3 on the season.