Illinois gets in as a 9 seed

No, Lou Henson does not coach at Boston University.

But based on a remarkable four-team quadrant paired up by the NCAA Tournament committee, it would be easy to presume Illinois' longtime coach resurfaced in Beantown.

Put another way, Illini athletic director Ron Guenther is about to run into some former employees who ran out on him.

Here's what happened on Selection Sunday:

After a one-year absence, Illinois returned to the NCAA Tournament field as the No. 9 seed in the Southwest regional.

Bruce Weber's Illini face former Illinois coach Lon Kruger's eighth-seeded UNLV squad at 8:20 p.m. Friday in Tulsa, Okla., on TBS.

Guess who plays the winner?

That's right. Top-seeded Kansas and Bill Self, the coach who bridged the Illinois gap between Kruger and Weber.

This presumes, of course, that Kansas gets past Boston University. Self's Jayhawks lost to “B” teams (Bucknell and Bradley) in their NCAA openers in 2005 and 2006.

“I think (the committee) always looks for little storylines to add to the drama of March Madness,” Illinois coach Bruce Weber said. “I'm sure they don't take that much time to find them all, but when they pop up there and there's an opportunity, I'm sure it's something they feel adds to the excitement. I'm sure CBS appreciates it.”

While the “Guenther Invitational” serves as the dominant local storyline — Illinois' athletic director hired Kruger, Self and Weber during a seven-season span — the national storyline wound up being the NCAA Tournament committee itself.

Between some seemingly illogical seeding decisions and some unexpected schools included in the 68-team field, the committee drew fierce criticism from analysts via television and Twitter.

ESPN's Jay Bilas, in particular, fired on the committee for some dubious decisions, including Colorado's exclusion from the field despite defeating No. 5 seed Kansas State three times.

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith, in his first year as committee chairman, didn't offer many specifics when pressed for some insight.

“Colorado was really close, as were a number of teams,” Smith said. “At the end of the day when we analyzed all the information, put them up against the other teams, they didn't get enough votes to get in the field.”

Smith did reveal some rationale for such decisions as SEC regular-season champion Florida getting a 2 seed and Kentucky getting a 4 seed, even though the Wildcats spanked the Gators three hours earlier in the SEC tournament title game.

“The regular season's the gauntlet,” Smith said. “A lot of people try to put a lot of emphasis on the tournament. But the regular season, that's the run. That's when you have to perform just week in and week out, day in and day out.”

Illinois, which hasn't won two games in a row since the first week of January, simply is grateful to get a chance to put a better spin on its season.

FiveThirtyEight.com, the website that fared so well predicting the 2008 elections, did the math Sunday night and declared the Illini own a 4.2 percent chance to reach the Final Four and a 0.7 percent chance to claim the school's first NCAA crown.

“It was a different story today (than last year),” said senior point guard Demetri McCamey. “We had celebration and (assistant) coaches were crying. It was just a great feeling.

“You get one shot now and anybody can win. I think all our players know that and are going to go out and play 110 percent for the rest of the season.”