Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Kent Williams NCAA Tournament Journal
03/18/2002 | 12:00:00 | Men's Basketball
Sunday, March 17, 2002
We woke up and headed to shoot-around to prepare for the Bulldogs. Everyone seemed relaxed and ready to go. We quickly went to our pregame meal at the Big Downtown.
Me and Carney laid around watching other games and talking about Georgia. We felt we had a good chance.
I was getting excited sitting around in the locker room before the game while Creighton and Illinois were playing. I calmed down a little once we took the floor. The game got off to a very shaky start. They couldn't miss, and they were bullying us around. I got my nose busted open by Jarvis Hayes, who was a punk. He was crying the whole game, complaining that I was holding. We got him frustrated, even thought he busted us for 26. I was worried when we were down 30-11, but coach told us to not worry about the score and just play. I knew we could hang with them, we just needed to get something going. Then our intensity on defense just picked up and we started taking the ball to the hole. J.D. played the best game of his life. We got the fans back into the game. Even Illinois fans started cheering for us. It felt like the whole arena was for us, and we cut the lead to three at halftime. We all felt pretty good, and we knew we had a chance.
We got off to a good start in the second half, and once we took the lead, the fans went nuts. I wasn't shooting real well, but we had other guys stepping up. J.D. was playing great, and D.B. and Brad hit some huge shots. I hit one tough shot on the baseline, which got me a little bit more confident. Georgia got within two, but with the shot clock running down I hit a three and the whole arena went nuts. Everyone's hands flew straight up and it was an unbelievable feeling. I got goose bumps once the flagrant foul was called and Brad hit his free-throws, I knew we had it won.
When the horn went off, I couldn't believe it. We were dancing in the lockerroom and going nuts. Then the media hit us up. It was like an NBA lockerroom. We were asked so many questions, and I did another phone interview on the radio. I messed around a while talking to Russ, Mike Reis, Greg Starrick and Rick Shipley. We had to wait a while for our plane. All the players got to sit in first class which was cool. Once we got to Marion there was a ton of people going nuts. We had police officers escorting us through all the wildness. Everyone was going crazy. I couldn't hear a thing. My ears were just ringing. I did some TV interviews and signed autographs and pictures. The mayor of Mount Vernon, Mark Perry, was on the phone with my mom right when we got there, so I got to talk to her right then, and she told me how proud she was of me. After everything calmed down, we went to the arena, and coach gave us a talk and said he was proud that we didn't give up. Then we all went out to celebrate that we made it to the Sweet 16.
