Q: What is your favorite thing about Champaign-Urbana?

A: I like how happy the people are about basketball.

Q: What does it say on your shoes?

A: (Among many other Bible verses) I’ve got Jesus Christ written on there. Emmanuel, which means God among us. And then “I am,” which is what God tells Moses to tell Pharoah. It’s a lot of things that mean a lot to me. I look at them for strength.

Q: Are you superstitious at all?

A: No, not at all. I pray before the game, but that is not superstitious. That’s just my faith.

Q: What would you say is your biggest regret?

A: I wouldn’t have waited to totally submit my life to God until my junior year in college. I would have done it a long time ago.

Q: What is your favorite thing about Coach Weber?

A: He kind of coaches like a teacher. I know he was an elementary or preschool teacher or whatever, and he kind of uses that with us. He’s a loving guy, and he’s a teacher and I enjoy the teaching aspect of his coaching.

Q: What has been your favorite Illinois game so far this season?

A: The Wake Forest game, because we took down the No. 1 team in the country. And since that game we have been No. 1.

Q: What is something most people don’t know about you?

A: I love people. I am a people person. I love just sitting around with my family or my friends and just hanging out. I guess the fellowship, I really love the fellowship.

Q: Why did you decide to add the Jr. onto your name this year?

A: Everybody asks me that. It wasn’t a big thing that I want to live in my dad’s shadow or that I want to honor my dad. It’s just because people call me Roger Powell, and they get me and my dad mixed up.

Q: What is the best thing about being a part of this team?

A: It’s a very family-oriented team. It’s like a big family, with a bunch of brothers. I enjoy that the most.

Q: If you could choose to be on any reality TV show, which would it be?

A: I wouldn’t really want to be on any of those shows because they do some gross things. I don’t want to eat bugs and stuff. I think the Fear Factor stuff where they jump out of planes and jump into water – that stuff looks fun. I would like to do cool stuff like that.

Q: You are seven points away from reaching 1,000 points, what does that mean to you?

A: I really don’t look at it, really. It’s a decent achievement, but my goal is way beyond that. I want to win games. It’s cool to be in the record books, but I don’t think about it that much.

Q: What would you say is the biggest thing you bring to this team?

A: My spiritual aspect, that’s probably the biggest thing. And then you know, I play hard. I do whatever it takes to win, if it’s guarding a bigger guy or rebounding or scoring, I think that’s the biggest thing. I’m the utility guy, the garbage guy.