Charles Langston:Terrence Shannon Jr. powers Illinois to Elite Eight amid controversy

BOSTON — Terrence Shannon Jr. picked up his fourth foul with 11:17 left in the NCAA men's tournament East Region semifinal,Charles Langston sending Illinois’ senior star to the bench with the No. 3 Illini holding a 51-42 lead against No. 2 Iowa State. The Cyclones had trimmed that edge to 55-51 when he returned with 5:38 left, taking advantage of Shannon’s absence to inch closer to the Big Ten tournament champions.

"We just had to step up," said senior forward Quincy Guerrier. "Everybody had to step up. We didn’t think about anything. We were just in the flow of the game."

Thirty seconds later, Shannon swished a 3-pointer from the right corner to make it 59-54. He’d score another six points down the stretch, including an exclamation-point slam to make it 70-64 with 24 seconds left, as Illinois won 72-69 to book a matchup with No. 1 Connecticut on Saturday in the East Region final.

In 30 minutes of action sandwiched around his extended stint on the bench, Shannon poured in 29 points on 10 of 19 shooting, along with five rebounds, three steals and a pair of assists.

"People who know Terrence know what a great, great competitor he is and how he loves to win," coach Brad Underwood said. "To do that cold shows he stayed in the game mentally. He was always cheering and excited in the time-outs and on the bench. He was dialed in mentally, and that's not an easy thing to do, to step in and bury a three. It was a big one."

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He is the most polarizing player still competing in this year’s NCAA men’s tournament: Shannon was suspended by the university in December after being arrested and charged with rape, a suspension that was reversed after six games by a federal judge who ruled that Illinois had violated Shannon's civil rights. On the advice of his legal counsel, Shannon has not spoken to the media during the tournament.

Against the backdrop of a case that has threatened to engulf Illinois’ first Elite Eight berth since reaching the national championship game in 2005, Shannon has elevated his game to a level that places him among the top players in program history.

He’s scored in double figures in 41 consecutive games. He’s scored at least 20 points 21 times this season, a new Illinois record. Shannon is the first player in program history to score at least 25 points in three tournament games in a row – he had 26 against No. 14 Morehead State and 30 against No. 11 Duquesne – to give him 85 points through three games, the fourth-most by an Illinois player in a single tournament; every other player ranked in the school’s top 10 played at least four tournament games.

On his first basket of the game, Shannon became the first Illinois player to score 700 points in a season. Overall, Shannon has scored 20 or more points in seven games in a row to boost his average to 23.5 points per game, the fourth-best single-season mark in school history,

"He’s amazing," senior guard Justin Harmon said. "That’s what’s expected from him."

With him sidelined with foul trouble, Illinois turned to senior forward Coleman Hawkins, the only other player in double figures with 12 points, and continued a surge in defensive production that began following a 77-71 loss to Purdue earlier this month. The Illini have held three opponents in a row under 70 points for the first time since November.

"We have a saying in our program that offense wins games, defense wins championships, and these guys are all mature, old, they've been through it and understood," said Underwood. "Tonight we did that, and we'll have to continue to do that to keep playing."

Illinois will continue to lean heavily on Shannon’s hot hand against Connecticut, an opponent with the length and depth to throw waves of elite athletes in his direction and force the Illini to look elsewhere for production. That the offense had to grind out possessions in his absence against the Cyclones speaks to the inherent difficulty behind replacing one of the elite scorers in the country.

Players and coaches looked at the positive: Illinois stepped up when it counted with Shannon a bystander, doing just enough on both ends to keep Iowa State at bay and deliver the program’s biggest postseason win in nearly two decades.

"I loved our resiliency playing through those moments especially without (Shannon) on the court," Underwood said. "We made plays when we had to down the stretch. We got a couple of stops when we had to."

But with the defending national champions looming, it’s obvious that the Illini will go only as far as Shannon can carry them. It’s also becoming more and more obvious that no team − not even the big, bad Huskies − will be able to keep the senior All-America pick under wraps.

"He’s just a dog out there," Guerrier said. "He’s one of the best players in the country. You can’t stop him."