CHICAGO – After spending Friday morning fielding questions from across the country, the Big Ten coaches and players were free to go about their business after the closing ceremonies of the kickoff luncheon.

Here are some of the cuts from player and coach interviews from Friday.

The “next” Illinois

One of the more prominent questions being asked to players and coaches Friday was “Who will be this year’s Illinois,” any team that might surprise the conference after two dismal years. While the members of the Big Ten were speculative and hesitant to name a specific team, the general feeling was that one of two teams that are not in the forefront of the Big Ten will be come season’s end. Penn State coach Joe Paterno cited the fact that invariably every year since he has been coaching in the conference, some team has come up that people didn’t expect to. Indiana’s head coach Bill Lynch agreed with his counterpart and figures that his Hoosiers are due – eventually – for a trip to Pasadena.

“I don’t know who’s available other than us, Lynch said. “If you think about it, Purdue did and has gone to the Rose Bowl, Northwestern a few years ago, Wisconsin’s gone, Iowa’s gone. But I think anyone down there that’s picked lower, Northwestern, Minnesota, Purdue, they’ll end up surprising.” Read the rest of this entry »

There was quite a bit of Web activity on the story I wrote Saturday of Illinois football player Jeff Cumberland winning the slam dunk contest at the Gus Macker 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament, so I decided to throw up a few more photos of Cumberland from the event. Cumberland was a beast and didn’t disappoint a crowd that expected him to win after the receiver won the event in 2007. He said he had planned on trying out for the basketball team this year but a foot injury kept him out. Though he is quite the specimen — agile, muscular physique and obviously plenty of hops — at 6-foot-5, he doesn’t have the size to be a big man and he’s too big (a chiseled but bulky 250 lbs) to play guard or small forward. Still, he put on quite a show in Downtown Champaign Saturday night. Cumberland had been volunteering at the tournament with several of his teammates.

Here are the photos. I’m not the best photographer but I think a few of these turned out ok. I didn’t edit or crop any of them since I just made a slideshow of the rest of the event and I don’t feel like editing for another few hours. Enjoy!

Cumberland puts on his basketball shoes before the show begins.

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