Paying attention to coaches paying off for Illinois

"We obviously didn't want to lose those games, but maybe at the same time, we might have needed them to figure out what we need to work on," freshman Brandon Paul said. "It helped us get through tough games against Clemson and Vanderbilt."

They began listening more to coach Bruce Weber in practice, the veterans began taking a more vocal leadership role and the Illini dusted themselves off to win at Clemson and beat Vanderbilt at home. Those victories against quality opponents cleaned up some of the mess they made in Las Vegas.

Chris Hine