Illini's Weber not thrilled despite win over Iowa

CHAMPAIGN - In deference to the huge ice chunks sliding off Assembly Hall's sloped roof, every entrance but one was sealed Sunday afternoon to keep the sellout crowd out of harm's way.

Beware, there's a parallel construct coming with regards to No. 19 Illinois.

While the Illini found their shooting eyes long enough to knock off Iowa 62-54 in a physical Big Ten battle, coach Bruce Weber sounded the alarm afterward.

His players will be the next to do some harmful sliding if they don't start bringing it to practice each day.

Yes, the Illini (18-4, 6-3) pulled within 1 game of Michigan State in the jammed Big Ten standings as sophomore center Mike Tisdale scored 12 of his game-high 18 points in the second half.

But Weber grew so irritated during a slovenly practice on Saturday, he kicked his entire team out of the Hall early.

"And I was chasing them, too," Weber said.

Sunday's rally from a 3-point halftime deficit - Illinois revisited its awful showing at Minnesota with just 3 points in the final 9:56 of the first half - didn't exactly quell Weber's worries.

"If we're going to really compete, we have to have two good days of practice in a row," Weber said.

"If you're gonna win two games in a row, you've got to practice good two days in a row."

That means Illinois needs four good practices this week wrapped around the trip to Wisconsin on Thursday and No. 16 Purdue's visit on Sunday.

"Tuesday and Wednesday, if we practice good, now I'll start to think we're making some progress," Weber said. "Because we haven't done that in weeks."

Senior guard Chester Frazier, who posted 5 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists despite getting gashed in the mouth by a wayward elbow, sensed the problems before the 59-36 loss Thursday at Minnesota.

"It brought us back down to earth," he said. "We were kind of riding that wave, you know, Top 20 team. We kind of got bigheaded and we paid for it.

"I felt it coming. We were just lax. I don't think we prepared as if Minnesota was a big game, but we learned from it. We wanted to come out tonight and have more energy."

Illinois started fast behind Tisdale and Dominique Keller (12 points), but shot just 1-for-12 in the final 9:56 of the first half to trail 25-22 at the break.

"We went into the locker room and the guards said they wanted to get into the lane, but there was no space down there," Tisdale said. "So I started getting out of their way, they penetrated and did some good passing."

Illinois reeled off 24 points in the first 8:21 of the second half as Tisdale kept spotting up for 17-footers on the occasions when his teammates (Demetri McCamey, Frazier and Keller) didn't hit 3-pointers.

Nonetheless, Iowa (12-10, 2-7) got as close as 46-45 with 8:48 to go before Calvin Brock's consecutive layups on McCamey feeds pushed Illinois ahead by two possessions for good.

"Hopefully the second half was a little more characteristic of what we've done all season," Weber said.

And, he didn't need to add, what he hopes they'll do the rest of the way.