The Flyin’ Illini season of 1989 marked the culmination of a decade in which the UI was established as one of the nation’s top-10 basketball programs.
The run to the Final Four — “Battle to Seattle” — topped a wild 10 years marked by uplifting successes but marred by probationary periods, beginning with the Dave Wilson case in the early 1980s and ending with the ouster of athletic director Neale Stoner (1988) and sanctions related to the Deon Thomas case.
By 1989, Nick, Lowell and Kendall drew the same first-name recognition as Dee, Deron and Luther did in 2005.