Fourth and foremost

Sporting News, The, Dec 4, 2000 by Mike DeCourcy

Cook punished UNLV power forward Dalron Johnson, a fellow sophomore, with 12 points, 14 rebounds and defense that led to Johnson's 1-of-8 shooting night. This merely was a warmup for Cook's dismissal of Maryland senior All-American candidate Terence Morris.

Six minutes in, Cook powered down the lane, swooped over Morris and scored as he drew a foul from Maryland's Byron Mouton. Five minutes later, he fought off two Terps and collected one of his nine rebounds. He stole another board from Morris midway through the second half, and though he botched an attempt at a putback, Griffin cleaned up that miss and gave the Illini a 61-52 lead.

With 7:58 left and Illinois ahead by 11, Cook was soaring along the baseline when Williams found him with a lob pass. Cook was a shade off-balance as he caught the ball in the air. Instead of forcing the ball toward the goal, he noticed Griffin charging unchecked down the lane and zipped him a Chris Mullin-style touch pass. After Griffin scored, Illinois was safely in the championship game.

"I thought Brian played with much more aggressiveness the first two nights than he had been," Self says. "Although he has perimeter skills, he's still going to have to be a banger at some point in time. I think he's doing a much better job there. Brian's improved a ton."

Cook fought hard for available rebounds and averaged 10 a game for the tournament. He worked to erase a reputation for softness that developed during his freshman year, though he still tends to fade on inside scoring opportunities rather than invite contact that would get him to the free-throw line.

"His biggest deficiency is scoring with his back to the basket--which is improved--and just becoming more physical and playing a power game when he needs to play a power game," Self says. "I think the way he's rebounding the ball gives me great hope for the future. He's much more of a physical presence than what I thought he was October 15."

The final minutes of the Maui Invitational found Cook in a familiar position. He walked across the sideline with about five minutes left in the championship game against Arizona, found a seat and watched as a smaller Illinois lineup conceived an improbable recovery from a 15-point deficit to a respectable three-point defeat.

The difference this time is Cook knew precisely why he was benched. "I think his tank was about out of gas," Self says. "I think, athletically, we spent a lot of energy winning the first two games."

This was nothing like a year ago, when Cook was a freshman with a McDonald's All-American resume but no clue how to find his way into former coach Lon Kruger's rotation. In Cook's third game last season, against Duke, he scored nine points on 4-of-5 shooting. That was in nine minutes. Next time out, against Maryland, he played 12 minutes.

His mother received plenty of anguished phone calls and frequently made the drive to Champaign for damage-control missions. "Brian's a team player ... but it was difficult for him sitting and not playing," she says. "I was over there quite a bit."