Basketball earns scholarship contribution
April 6, 2005
The Illini men’s basketball team earned the school a $100,000 general scholarship contribution Monday by winning Pontiac’s Game Changing Performance for the NCAA tournament.
The award was given to what the majority of online voters considered the most important moment in the first four rounds of the tournament.
The moment nominated for the Illini was their miraculous comeback in the waning minutes against Arizona in the Chicago regional final. The sequence was highlighted by a Luther Head breakaway lay-up and was capped off by a Deron Williams 3-pointer.
The voting was broken into five separate rounds. Each round of the tournament provided four separate nominations, the winner of which went onto the final round of voting.
Other moments considered in the final vote were Vermont’s upset of Syracuse in the first round, West Virginia beating Wake Forest in double overtime in the second round, and Arizona’s Salim Stoudamire’s winning jumper over Oklahoma State in the Sweet Sixteen.