Construction regularly interrupts the flow of traffic along I-80 and I-74, the two thruways between Iowa City and Champaign. The Iowa-Illinois college basketball series mirrors that 250-mile drive: In stretches, it\u2019s smooth. Then without warning, it gets ugly and contentious.<\/p>\n
One of the sport\u2019s most combative rivalries reaches its apex on Saturday when the No. 9 seed Hawkeyes battle the No. 3 seed Illini in the Elite Eight. Illinois, a top-10 team all year, harbored championship expectations. Iowa, which has a first-year coach in Ben McCollum and a completely new roster, lives in the moment. And both sides occasionally work blue.<\/p>\n
Ask an Illinois fan to sum up the Illini\u2019s rivalry with Iowa and they\u2019ll derisively utter two words: \u201cBruce Pearl.\u201d<\/p>\n
An Iowa fan\u2019s two-word response? \u201c(Expletive deleted).\u201d<\/p>\n
Constant recruiting wars along with some incredible matchups and off-court issues have at times turned the border feud to a boil. Each program has several other rivalries and significant series both inside and outside the Big Ten, but coaches learn quickly that this one involves a little more disdain for the opponent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got to Illinois, I said, \u2018Who\u2019s the rival school?\u2019\u201d said former Illinois coach Bruce Weber, who led the Illini to the 2005 NCAA title game. \u201cAnd I actually knew, but Purdue is less than two hours away. Indiana is close. But they said, \u2018No, no, no. Make sure you know that it\u2019s Iowa.\u2019 That\u2019s the one we want to beat, going way back to the slush fund era and then obviously the Bruce Pearl situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Illinois leads the series 95-77 and has won nine of the last 10 matchups. The teams have played 21 matchups as ranked opponents, in which the Hawkeyes hold an 11-10 edge. It\u2019s a competitive series with 12 decades of history. What turned it into the Big Ten\u2019s feistiest feud was the league\u2019s most infamous recruiting scandal. Interpretations still vary depending on school allegiance nearly 40 years later, but there\u2019s no question that Pearl, a former Iowa assistant, remains the most reviled figure in Champaign by a margin wider than the Mississippi River that separates the states.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t see Ben McCollum and Bennett Stirtz and this great story because these guys are easy to like,\u201d media personality David Haugh said Friday morning on the \u201cMully & Haugh\u201d show in Chicago. \u201cIf you\u2019re an Illini fan, you see \u2026 the \u201980s, you see the \u201990s and you see \u2018The Devil.\u2019 And you don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to say it\u2019s like Bears-Packers, but if the Bears had lost at the end of their season to the Packers, it would have hurt a lot more in the offseason than if it were the Rams or 49ers. I think likewise if Illinois gets eliminated with a team that\u2019s good enough to be in the Final Four by an upstart Cinderella candidate like Iowa, it might be acceptable \u2026 if it weren\u2019t Iowa.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pearl, who is working as a studio analyst for the NCAA Tournament, was unavailable for comment, according to a CBS spokesperson.<\/p>\n
From 1987 through 1989, five out of six Iowa-Illinois contests matched top-20 teams. Iowa went to a Sweet 16 and an Elite Eight during that span; Illinois reached a Final Four. The programs waged a fierce recruiting battle for Chicago Simeon forward Deon Thomas. Pearl, then an assistant under Tom Davis, was Iowa\u2019s lead recruiter for Thomas, while Jimmy Collins directed Illinois\u2019 efforts. Thomas was committed to Iowa but flipped to Illinois. That\u2019s where the story gets explosive.<\/p>\n
In April 1989, Pearl taped \u2014 without permission \u2014 a conversation with Thomas in which the basketball star ambiguously admitted Collins offered him cash, a vehicle and perks. Pearl sent the tape to the NCAA and wrote out an 11-page internal memo titled \u201cConfidential\u201d that included every allegation involving Illinois and Thomas with its date over a five-month period.<\/p>\n
Pearl documented that on Dec. 8, 1988, Thomas told him Illinois would help him and his grandmother find a nice apartment or fix up their current residence. Pearl wrote that Thomas \u201cdidn\u2019t want to have a reputation like (Illini player) Marcus Liberty. I asked what that meant and he answered $75,000 and a car.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Feb. 1, 1989, Pearl wrote, \u201cDeon told me over the phone that a member of the University of Illinois coaching staff offered him $80,000 and a brand new Blazer\u201d during a weekend visit. Over the memo\u2019s final two pages, Pearl outlined a \u201cStrategy,\u201d which included notifying the NCAA as soon as Thomas enrolled at Illinois but finding a way for Iowa to stay nameless so perhaps Thomas would still want to attend Iowa. University of Iowa officials met to discuss the memo but did not act on it.<\/p>\n
If Pearl wanted to stay anonymous, that backfired. His memo became public record, and Pearl was persona non grata east of the Quad Cities. When the teams played in Champaign on March 4, 1990, Iowa chose to stay about 90 miles away in Peoria, Ill. Pearl did not make the trip, and police officers accompanied the visitors everywhere. The Illini scorched the Hawkeyes 118-85 at Assembly Hall.<\/p>\n
The NCAA thoroughly investigated Illinois\u2019 recruitment of Thomas and LaPhonso Ellis (who went to Notre Dame) and ultimately determined the evidence was inconclusive. But Illinois was found guilty of other minor violations such as complimentary tickets for former players and high school coaches and improper recruiting tactics by Collins. The NCAA handed the Illini a one-year NCAA Tournament ban for the 1990-91 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was bitterness,\u201d said Andy Kaufmann, who played for Illinois from 1988 to 1993. \u201cI lost out on playing in the NCAA Tournament because of that situation my junior year. They deemed that we didn\u2019t do anything wrong but they still reprimanded us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why there\u2019s so much bad blood between the teams,\u201d said Jess Settles, who played at Iowa from 1993 to 1999. \u201cThat thing was so heated. Can you imagine that whole deal on social media?\u201d<\/p>\n
Thomas remains the Illini\u2019s all-time leading scorer and currently works as the team\u2019s color analyst on radio broadcasts. But he was taunted mercilessly at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. When he shot free throws, Iowa students jingled their keys and chanted, \u201cBla-zer, Bla-zer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Settles, who works as an analyst on multiple networks, now considers Thomas a friend and said the situation \u201cdamaged both programs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c(Thomas is) one of the greatest guys you\u2019ll ever know,\u201d Settles said. \u201cI always thought he was like this warrior \u2014 which he was on the court \u2014 but he\u2019s a gentle giant. It was just one of those things that sort of spiraled out of control and then almost cost Bruce his career.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rivalry has plenty of flashpoint moments beyond the Pearl-Thomas affair. In 1930, the Big Ten briefly kicked Iowa out of the conference for forming a collective and providing stipends to athletes. Illinois and Minnesota were among the schools that passed judgment on Iowa\u2019s athletics department, which believed it was being made a scapegoat.<\/p>\n
During a 1952 football game in Iowa City, fans threw apples at the officials and Illinois players after a series of calls went against the Hawkeyes. Fans rushed the field, and one grabbed an Illinois player. The schools decided to stop playing one another on the gridiron until 1967 because the series became too heated.<\/p>\n
At the 1987 Maui Invitational, Iowa and Illinois appeared in opposite brackets. According to the late Roy Marble, who was Iowa\u2019s leading scorer for 32 years, players on both teams met in a hotel room to play cards and dominoes. Then a massive fight broke out, leaving the hotel room in shambles.<\/p>\n
Illinois\u2019 infamous Orange Krush student section purchased tickets for a basketball game in Iowa City through an Iowa booster in 2010, and more than 300 visiting fans unveiled their brightly colored T-shirts behind an Iowa basket. That eyesore (coupled with the empty seats around them) indirectly spurred the Iowa athletic department to dismiss then-coach Todd Lickliter.<\/p>\n
In 2023, the Orange Krush posed as a Boys and Girls Club to receive reduced-price tickets for a game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. This time, Iowa athletics intercepted the plot, the tickets were rescinded and the group had to apologize.<\/p>\n
In a 2019 handshake line after a Hawkeyes victory, then-Illinois assistant coach Chin Coleman exchanged words with then-Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery over a late basket. The teams were separated before a fight could break out.<\/p>\n
The series has not lacked for on-court drama, either. In 1987, No. 2 Iowa trailed No. 9 Illinois by 20 points at Assembly Hall, only to rally for a 91-88 overtime win that propelled them to No. 1.<\/p>\n
The most notorious single play in the rivalry\u2019s history took place on Feb. 4, 1993 at Assembly Hall. Illinois trailed by two points with 1.5 seconds left and the ball under its basket. Guard T.J. Wheeler unleashed a long pass to the right sideline to Kaufmann. Before the buzzer sounded, Kaufmann lunged forward and drilled a 3-pointer that sent Champaign into a frenzy and led to a dogpile at the opposite free-throw line.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never shot a shot like that in my life, not that flush,\u201d Kaufmann said. \u201cThen it went in, and immediately, I thought, well, the refs are going to call it off. So, I was worried about that. But obviously they didn\u2019t call it off.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got my arm pinned, and I couldn\u2019t move. I was stuck under there. I saw later that people were pulling people off me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those moments ensure that Illinois-Iowa remains an indelible college basketball rivalry, but this chapter is different. It offers a chance to advance to the sport\u2019s biggest stage and forever hold a signature moment over a rival.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsn\u2019t that great for basketball?\u201d Illinois coach Brad Underwood said Friday. \u201cWhat makes basketball great is these unbelievable rivalries, and I say rivalries, but games where there\u2019s so much history dating so far back. You\u2019ve got two historic programs that have all found success at different levels. This just gets to be another one of those games.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Construction regularly interrupts the flow of traffic along I-80 and I-74, the two thruways between Iowa City and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[462],"tags":[5,44002,58162,4819,4,465,466],"class_list":["post-527611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl-draft","tag-hockey","tag-illinois-fighting-illini","tag-iowa-hawkeyes","tag-mens-college-basketball","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-draft","tag-nhl-entry-draft"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116307225834394498","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}