Webber: Don't Sleep on Illinois

Chris Webber is not ready to coronate UConn in the Final Four, and he has a specific reason for it. Illinois.

Rich sets the table. UConn versus the Fighting Illini in the first semifinal. Webber had been using the Washington Generals framing for weeks, casting the Arizona versus Michigan game as the de facto national championship. Rich calls that framing ridiculous. He hands Webber the floor to defend it or walk it back.

Webber walks it back with conviction.

He says you can never buy into that in the NCAA tournament, especially if Michigan advanced and had to face Illinois. Conference familiarity changes the math. Teams that know each other play differently than teams that don't.

Then he makes the Illinois case in full. He has been preaching this team and San Antonio all year. The bloodline matters. The connection between the coaching staff, Nikola Jokic's agent, and the program is real. The unity on the roster is real. The defensive improvement is real. And they have scorers with NBA lineage who understand big moments.

The tell for Webber is his nephew, Andrej Stojakovic. After Illinois punched their ticket to the Final Four, the locker room interview that stuck with Webber was one sentence long. We're not done. That mentality is what Webber trusts.

He pulls from an older playbook to explain it. You never want to fight a guy who is already crying before the fight starts. Trust him on that one. The same logic applies here. A team that believes in itself more than it believes in the moment is dangerous. A team just giddy to be in the Final Four is not.

Illinois, in Webber's read, is the first kind of team. They know the work isn't finished.

That doesn't mean UConn is an easy out. Webber calls it a slugfest. It is not a given for anyone to reach the championship game. Anybody can take it now. The parity at this stage of the tournament is not a cliche, it is the conditions.

What Webber is really pushing back on is the pre-tournament narrative that Arizona versus Michigan was the only game that mattered. His Illinois angle isn't just family pride, though the Stojakovic connection is real. It is a scouting read on a team that checks the boxes he values most. Defensive ceiling. Experienced scorers. A mentality that isn't satisfied.

Rich doesn't push him off it. He lets Webber own the take. Illinois is going to be a problem for UConn, and by extension, for whoever survives the other bracket.

The final four tips off with plenty of brackets already broken. Webber is telling you not to pencil in the last one just yet.