IU hands No. 8 Illinois 74-66 defeat

Senior forward Jeff Newton was sleeping in Saturday morning, storing up his energy for the Hoosiers' game with No. 8 Illinois later that afternoon, when the phone rang. He answered it and heard the voice of his former Hoosier frontcourt mate, Jared Jeffries, on the other end. \nThe 2001-02 Big Ten Player of the Year, and current Washington Wizard, offered a bit of guidance to Newton as he prepared for his marquee match-up with Illinois senior forward Brian Cook, a candidate for this year's conference MVP Honors.\n"He gave me some good advice," Newton said. "He was just telling me, 'It doesn't matter if you miss your first 10 shots, just stay aggressive and keep going at those guys.' And that's something I tried to do."\nNewton obviously took Jeffries' advice to heart as he put on a dominant display, scoring 28 points, pulling down eight rebounds, blocking five shots and grabbing three steals en route to a 74-66 IU victory over the Illini (12-3, 2-2 Big Ten). His points, blocks and steals totals were all career highs. \nThe impressive performance could not have come at a better time as the No. 18 Hoosiers (13-3, 3-1) were without the services of their leading scorer, freshman guard Bracey Wright, for the second straight game. Wright has been battling a reoccurring back injury that has resulted in the irritation of a nerve, but Davis said the rookie guard may see playing time against Ohio State tonight. \nA variety of Hoosiers followed Newton's lead and stepped up in Wright's absence.\nJunior guard A.J. Moye took over a starting role and scored 9 points on 3-5 shooting, while freshman point guard Marshall Strickland came off the bench to score nine points, as well, on 3-4 shooting from beyond the three-point line.\nFreshman forward Sean Kline provided an emotional spark off the bench, scoring six points and sophomore point guard Donald Perry hit five clutch free throws down the stretch to help seal the IU win.\nPerhaps the most surprising aspect of Saturday's game was the rebounding efforts of the senior guards Tom Coverdale and Kyle Hornsby, who finished with 7 and 10 boards, respectively.\n"I've been talking about those guys, our guards, rebounding the basketball," Davis said. "I've been saying from day one our guards don't rebound the basketball. Newton and Leach are averaging 18 or 19 rebounds together. We've been getting whipped on the glass because of our guards. Hornsby had ten and Coverdale had seven, and that's pretty good."\nThe solid team effort gave IU a 36-31 lead at halftime and sent Cook into the locker room with three fouls.\nNewton took advantage of Cook's foul trouble in the second half, scoring 19 of his 28 points while showcasing a variety of aggressive low-post moves.\nDavis said it had been awhile since he had seen a frontcourt player have the type of game Newton did on Saturday. \n"For Jeff Newton to come out and score 28 points and play the way he did today is big," Davis said. "We haven't had a guy score 28 points from the inside position in a long time."\nAs Cook continued to struggle on both ends of the floor, Illini coach Bill Self attempted to attack Newton and junior center George Leach by committee. \nHe threw freshman forwards James Augustine and Kyle Wilson and sophomore center Nick Smith at the Hoosier frontcourt tandem but all three were largely unsuccessful in containing them.\nWith less than ten minutes to go in the game, Newton hit a turnaround jumper to give the Hoosiers their biggest lead at 60-45. \nCook then hit a reverse lay-up and a turnaround jumper of his own to shrink the lead to 11. After Wilson missed a pair of free-throws, Newton was blocked at the other end and a jump ball was called. On the ensuing Illinois possession, sophomore guard Luther Head knocked down a three, trimming the lead to 60-52.\nBut on IU's next possession, Moye drew Cook's fifth foul and sent him out of the game with just under five minutes to play. \nCook finished with 15 points on 7-17 shooting and seven rebounds. The senior forward, who had been named Big Ten Player of the Week on Jan. 13, was coming off a two game stretch were he had averaged 28 points and 10 rebounds on 56 percent shooting. \nLeach, who had 11 rebounds and 8 points in the game, said the plan was to take the ball to Cook aggressively on every possession. \n"He's the premiere Big Ten forward right now and me and Newt attacked him every single time. That's what we wanted to do and it paid off," he said. "(Newton) had 28 points, which is unheard of. If he shows emotion like that every game, he'll average 28 points. He played extremely hard; he played extremely intense. He did everything well, and hopefully I can feed off what he does."\nThe Illini did manage to muster a late run to make the game interesting. With 1:25 left in the game, freshman guard Dee Brown, who led the Illini with 18 points and five assists, knocked down a three to make the score 68-62.\nOn IU's next two possessions, Illinois fouled Perry who sank all four of his free throws to maintain the Hoosiers' six point lead. \nAnd, fittingly, Newton stepped to the free throw line with .6 seconds left and knocked down the final two shots of the game. He said that after a slight lull over the winter break the Hoosiers are back in top form. \n"It's a statement game for me; it's a statement game for the team too, just to let everybody know that we're coming back stronger than ever," Newton said.