CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Until the cup of ice water sailed out of the upper deck and landed on Eric Gordon's mother, causing her to shriek in fright, I was going to applaud Illinois fans for handling the return of Gordon with as much restraint as can be expected.
Illinois fans were never exactly classy on Thursday night, including chanting profanity at Gordon and cheering when he appeared to injure his elbow, but this wasn't a situation where the bar is set at classy. That wouldn't have been fair to Illinois' fans, because too much had been said and done. Gordon had committed to Illinois in 2006, giving the Illini their best recruit in decades, and then he had changed his mind in 2007. He had chosen not just another school, but Big Ten rival Indiana. This was bad.
|
|
| Illini fans get warmed up as Indiana takes the court Thursday night. (AP) |
But you couldn't be OK with the final minute of the second overtime when the beads and the water came flying out of the crowd, or within moments after the game ended when arena security rushed to the area behind the Indiana bench to protect the small pocket of Indiana friends and family. With Indiana pulling away in the second overtime, winning 83-79 by hitting nine of its last 10 free throws, a handful of Illinois fans went too far. They threw empty cups and full cups, and when a full cup splashed against the back of Gordon's mother, security responded.
Whoever you are, no matter how strong your loyalties might be to Illinois, you couldn't be OK with the sight of Gordon's mother rushing to the Indiana bench to hide behind the behemoths as soon as the game ended. You couldn't be OK with the sight of every security person in the area abandoning his post to protect the IU section as disgruntled Illinois fans walked past. You couldn't be OK with the sight of that stupid Illinois student wadding up a paper cup and throwing it at the Indiana section, starting a whole new round of finger-pointing between the two groups.
It wasn't clear after the game if Gordon knew what had happened to his mother. He was subdued and gracious during the postgame press conference, saying of the hostile atmosphere: "I wasn't worried about it. The only thing I was worried about was a win."
Until the final moments, I was going to try not to pick a side. Just this once, wouldn't that have been OK? Not every story has to have a good guy and a bad guy. This isn't the movies. These aren't two-dimensional characters, even if they look that way on your flat-screen TV. There's a reason the world has more colors than black and white, right?
So forgive me, until the final water-logged moments, for not picking one side and coming down hard on the other. For the most part, I understood each and every plot twist in this bizarre story that began when Gordon committed to Illinois during his junior year of high school, then changed his mind when new Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson basically refused to take no for an answer.
The people here Thursday night acted as if they despised Gordon, even some of the players at Illinois, and I understand that as well.
Gordon didn't just renege on a commitment to the Illini. He crushed them. With Gordon, Illinois would surely be an NCAA Tournament team this season. Without Gordon, and without enough time to recruit someone to take his place, an NCAA berth is out of the question. Don't think the players at Illinois haven't drawn a correlation between Gordon's college choice and their current 10-14 predicament.
During pregame introductions, after Gordon heard his name amid the boos and jogged to the center circle to await Illinois' Chester Frazier, Frazier barreled into the circle like a car with no brakes, stopping himself by slamming his shoulder into Gordon's chest. Knocked back a step, Gordon flinched and then started to laugh. The crowd gave Frazier the kind of ovation he never earns with his game.
The crowd spent the rest of the night expressing its anger with Gordon, sometimes creatively ("No one likes you, no one likes you") and sometimes not ("F--- you Gordon, f--- you Gordon").
It's hard to embrace the profanity, but it's simple to understand. College basketball fans follow nothing as irrationally as they follow recruiting, and Gordon's commitment was heaven -- followed by his hellacious decision to renege. This night was going to be emotional at all times and ugly on occasion, and if you follow this stuff with any objectivity, you had to understand.
