High school reunion

Sporting News, The, Dec 13, 1999 by Gary Childs

Once stars of Ute nation's best high school team, reunited Manual graduates Marcus Griffin, Frank Williams and Sergio McClain try to recreate their winning ways for Illinois.

Most high school teams that win state championships, don't get to go to the White House. But the 1997 Manual High boys basketball team from Peoria, m., was not your average state champion.

A couple of months before meeting with Vice President Al Gore under the White House portico, Manual won an unprecedented fourth consecutive Illinois boys basketball rifle. The team was declared the national champion by USA Today. It included the 1997 Mr. Basketball of Illinois, a 1997 McDonald's All-American and a future Mr. Basketball/McDonald's All-American.

"You'll be champions all your lives," Gore told the group that included then-seniors Sergio McClain and Marcus Griffin and junior Frank Williams.

Three seasons later, the three stars from the 1997 Manual team returned to Washington, D.C., united as teammates once again. This time as members of the Fighting Illini.

"We always dreamed about this," says McClain, now a junior in Champaign. But the dream has been tweaked The Illini, a preseason Top 10 pick by THE NEWS, still is trying to find just the right fit for very talented pieces.

The talent on this Illini squad is, in a word, impressive. For starters, the team boasts the last three Illinois Mr. Basketballs--1999's Brian Cook (who beat out Illini teammate Sean Harrington, among others), 1998's Williams and 1997's McClain. Griffin joins Cook and Williams as McDonald's All-Americans. Then there's Cory Bradford, the Big Ten freshman of the year last season.

Only two of those six--Bradford and McClain--were around last season, when the team struggled to a 3-13 Big Ten finish before pulling together to make the Big Ten tourney title game.

That strong finish, combined with the long-awaited reunion of the Manual trio, has brought big expectations to the Illini, who fell to 3-2 with last week's three-point loss to Duke and Saturday's two-point loss to Maryland. But the influx of talent has coach Lon Kruger trying to figure how to piece the team together.

Griffin, a 6-9, 235-pound forward/center, has handled essentially everything thrown at him this season. After academic requirements prevented him from joining the Illini in 1997, he became the National Junior College Division II player of the year last season at Lincoln College. Through this season's first four games, he was shooting 63 percent with 10.3 points and 6.8 rebounds a game and 11 blocked shots.

"When they told me I was accepted at U of I for the final time, I sat down in my room at Lincoln and said, `Yes, I'm finally back with my boys,'" Griffin says.

But Griffin has yet to take more than nine shots in a game. That's where Williams, a partial qualifier last season who could only practice with the team, comes in. Williams, a 6-3 freshman point guard, was 4-of-17 from the floor against Duke--including a 3-point dud for a tie as the buzzer sounded.

Four days later in the 69-67 loss to Maryland, Williams again missed a 3 at the end. But leading up to that last shot, Williams doubled his assists to six and shot more responsibly.

"He came out of the Duke game recognizing that it wasn't the way he has to play for us," Kruger says. "He worked awfully hard in the last three days, and I thought transferred that to the floor very well."

When McClain and Griffin were college freshmen, Williams assumed more of the scoring load as a Manual High senior. Williams' flair allowed him to finish ahead of runner-up Corey Maggette (Duke, now NBA) and Quentin Richardson (DePaul) in 1998 Mr. Basketball of Illinois voting.

Kruger wants Williams to be involved in scoring points in ways that don't include shooting.

"People want to think of Frank as just a natural point guard, and he really isn't," Kruger says. "He has the skills of a point guard, and that's a good starting point. But now we're trying to get him to be conscious of the flow of the game--the time and score--and making sure that his teammates are involved as they need to be."

McClain, the son of Manual coach Wayne McClain, is sort of a big brother for Griffin and Williams. He was the sixth man on Illinois' Big Ten co-championship team two seasons ago and a versatile starter last season, playing every position but center. But after starting the first two games this season, he played only 10 minutes against Duke. Then, on the eve of the BB&T Classic, Kruger announced McClain wouldn't play against Maryland or Seton Hall.

"He has been battling things," Kruger says. "He's flustered by his play, flustered by his knees not being healthy. So, we're going to hold him out and hope we get a fresh start for him."

McClain's limited playing time behind senior starter Cleotis Brown and sophomore reserve Lucas Johnson resurrected talk that he was planning to transfer at the conclusion of the fall semester.

"That's tough sometimes when you're used to a certain role throughout your career, and all of a sudden you find the going a little bit more difficult and results a little bit different," Kruger says. "But learning how to handle that is part of moving up in levels of competition."