1967–68 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team

1967–68 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball
Conference	Big Ten Conference
Ranking
Coaches	No. Not Ranked
AP	No. Not Ranked
1967–68 record	11–13 (6–8 Big Ten)
Head coach	Harv Schmidt
Assistant coach	Dick Campbell
MVP	Dave Scholz
Captain	Ben Louis
Home arena	Assembly Hall

1967–68 Big Ten Conference men's basketball standings
	Conf				Overall
Team	W		L	PCT	W		L	PCT
Ohio State	10	–	4	.714	21	–	8	.724
Iowa	10	–	4	.714	16	–	9	.640
Purdue	9	–	5	.643	15	–	9	.625
Northwestern	8	–	6	.571	13	–	10	.565
Wisconsin	7	–	7	.500	13	–	11	.542
Michigan State	6	–	8	.429	12	–	12	.500
Illinois	6	–	8	.429	11	–	13	.458
Michigan	6	–	8	.429	11	–	13	.458
Indiana	4	–	10	.286	10	–	14	.417
Minnesota	4	–	10	.286	7	–	17	.292

Rankings from AP Poll

The 1967–68 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team represented the University of Illinois.

Regular season

Harv Schmidt, the 1957 Illini MVP and team captain, returned to his alma mater in 1967 after serving as an assistant at New Mexico for three years. Schmidt succeeded legendary coach Harry Combes after his dismissal related to a "slush-fund" scandal that devastated both the basketball and football programs for many years into the future. Schmidt, originally from Kankakee, was the slender 6 foot 6 inch star Illini forward who came highly recommended as both a coach and recruiter. Unfortunately, he had never been a head coach before, but he was considered the best the under the circumstances. Within three years of his arrival, he had brought Illinois back to among the elite programs in the Big Ten. The beginning of his tenure marked what possibly was the high-water mark in fan enthusiasm. Illinois led the nation in attendance in 1970, averaging 16,128 per home contest, with students routinely camped out for tickets outside the state-of-the-art Assembly Hall.

Even though Schmidt lacked coaching experience, he believed in the importance of an aggressive, overplaying defense with the intent of frustrating opponents, generating turnovers and creating easy baskets. He was a stickler to detail and used scouting techniques to learn ways of shutting down opponents offenses. Schmidt was always teaching, as well as coaching his teams, in order to compete favorably against any competition.

Due to the scandal that plagued the Illini, Schmidt's first team was primarily made up of walk-ons. Expectations of the 1967–68 team were low, however, they began to surprise even the experts when, in just their second game of the season, the Illini took on hall of fame player Elvin Hayes and the nationally ranked Houston Cougars at the Assembly Hall. During the matchup, Randy Crews, a 6-foot 5 inch high school All-American guard from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School, became a defensive stopper in just his second varsity game by taking on the 6 foot 9 inch Hayes. The Illini were forced to use a slow-down style to keep the game close and stayed with the Cougars the whole game, losing by a final score of 54-46.

During the remainder of the season, the Illini defeated such teams as Georgia Tech, Texas El Paso, Notre Dame, Michigan State, Iowa and Michigan. Unfortunately, the Ilini would lose 7 of their last 9 games of the Big Ten season to finish with a 6-8 conference record and an 11-13 mark overall, good for a second straight 7th-place finish in the Big Ten.

Positive signs for the Illini included a freshman team that included future varsity players Greg Jackson, Fred Miller, Rick Howat and Bob Windmiller. As sophomores, they would combine with returnees Dave Scholz, Randy Crews, future New York Knicks draft pick Mike Price, Alabama transfer Jodie Harrison, Dennis Pace and walk-on Les Busboom to form the best group Schmidt would ever coach. Scholz would finish this season by being named 1st team All-American by the Helms Foundation and to the Converse honorable mention All-American team.

The 1967-68 team's starting lineup included Crews and Benny Louis at the forward spots, Price and Harrison as guards and Scholz at center.

Team

No.	Player	Hometown	High School	Class	Position
11	Benny Louis	Pinckneyville, Illinois	Pinckneyville Community High School	Sr.	Forward
12	Paul Nitz	Woodstock, Illinois	Marian Central Catholic High School	Jr.	Forward/Center
15	Mike Price	Indianapolis, Indiana	Arsenal Technical High School	So.	Guard
24	Dan Kuemmerle	Danville, Illinois	Schlarman High School	So.	Forward/Guard
25	Steve Kohn	Creve Coeur, Missouri	Ladue High School	So.	Guard
30	Randy Crews	Kankakee, Illinois	Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School	So.	Forward
32	Les Busboom	Royal, Illinois	St. Joseph-Ogden High School	Jr.	Guard
33	Jodie Harrison	Streator, Illinois	Streator High School	Jr.	Guard
34	Denny Pace	Collinsville, Illinois	Collinsville High School	Jr.	Forward/Guard
40	Dave Scholz	Decatur, Illinois	Decatur High School	Jr.	Forward/Center
42	Jim Skarda	Lake Geneva, Wisconsin	Badger High School	So.	Forward
43	Rich Crusius	Bloomington, Illinois	Bloomington High School	Sr.	Forward
44	Ron Armbrust	Lincoln, Illinois	Lincoln High School	So.	Guard
45	Bill Jones	Chicago, Illinois	Waller High School	So.	Guard

Head Coach Harv Schmidt (1st year at Illinois) ^[1]

Schedule

Source^[2]

Date Time, TV	Rank^#	Opponent^#	Result	Record	Site (Attendance) City, State
12/2/1967* no, no	No. NR	vs.Butler	W 75-57	1-0	Hinkle Fieldhouse (5,875) Indianapolis
12/9/1967* no, no	No. NR	vs. Houston	L 46-54	1-1	Assembly Hall (7,605) Champaign, Illinois
12/14/1967* no, no	No. NR	vs. BYU	W 63-55	2-1	Assembly Hall (6,842) Champaign, Illinois
12/15/1967* no, no	No. NR	@ Tennessee Volunteer Classic	L 42-66	2-2	Stokely Athletic Center (8,500) Knoxville, Tennessee
12/16/1967* no, no	No. NR	vs. Army Volunteer Classic	L 57-65	2-3	Stokely Athletic Center (9,650) Knoxville, Tennessee
12/22/1967* no, no	No. NR	@ Stanford	L 72-74	2-4	Maples Pavilion (1,800) Stanford, California
12/23/1967* no, no	No. NR	@ California	L 72-89	2-5	Haas Pavilion (3,400) Berkeley, California
12/28/1967* no, no	No. NR	vs. Georgia Tech	W 65-54	3-5	Chicago Stadium (5,212) Chicago
12/30/1967* no, no	No. NR	vs. UTEP	W 68-50	4-5	Chicago Stadium (5,108) Chicago
1/6/1968 no, no	No. NR	vs. Michigan State	W 66-56	5-5 (1-0)	Assembly Hall (7,932) Champaign, Illinois
1/9/1968 no, no	No. NR	vs. Indiana	L 60-61 ^ot	5-6 (1-1)	Assembly Hall (6,396) Champaign, Il
1/13/1968 no, no	No. NR	@ Minnesota	W 61-60	6-6 (2-1)	Williams Arena (6,676) Minneapolis
1/27/1968* no, no	No. NR	vs. Notre Dame	W 68-67	7-6	Chicago Stadium (13,472) Chicago
2/3/1968 no, no	No. NR	vs. Iowa	W 66-63	8-6 (3-1)	Assembly Hall (8,553) Champaign, Illinois
2/6/1968 no, no	No. NR	@ Wisconsin	W 68-60	9-6 (4-1)	Wisconsin Field House (10,094) Madison, Wisconsin
2/10/1968 no, no	No. NR	@ Northwestern	L 71-78	9-7 (4-2)	Welsh-Ryan Arena (8,349) Evanston, Illinois
2/13/1968 no, no	No. NR	vs. Michigan	L 65-67	9-8 (4-3)	Assembly Hall (8,850) Champaign, Illinois
2/17/1968 no, no	No. NR	vs. Purdue	L 68-75	9-9 (4-4)	Assembly Hall (11,941) Champaign, Illinois
2/20/1968 no, no	No. NR	@ Michigan	W 72-64	10-9 (5-4)	Crisler Arena (6,500) Ann Arbor, Michigan
2/24/1968 no, no	No. NR	vs. Northwestern	W 62-61	11-9 (6-4)	Assembly Hall (12,857) Champaign, Illinois
2/26/1968 no, no	No. NR	@ Ohio State	L 75-95	11-10 (6-5)	St. John Arena (12,591) Columbus, Ohio
3/2/1968 no, no	No. NR	@ Iowa	L 56-61	11-11 (6-6)	Iowa Field House (12,900) Iowa City, Iowa
3/4/1968 no, no	No. NR	vs. Ohio State	L 64-67	11-12 (6-7)	Assembly Hall (9,227) Champaign, Illinois
3/9/1968 no, no	No. NR	@ Michigan State	L 59-62	11-13 (6-8)	Jenison Fieldhouse (5,112) East Lansing, Michigan
*Non-conference game. ^#Rankings from AP Poll. (#) Tournament seedings in parentheses. All times are in Central Time.

Player stats

Player	Games Played	Field Goals	Free Throws	Rebounds	Points
Dave Scholz^[3]	24	223	83	230	529
Jodie Harrison^[4]	24	88	61	100	237
Randy Crews^[5]	23	88	60	155	236
Mike Price^[6]	24	71	62	123	204
Denny Pace^[7]	19	53	22	56	128
Benny Louis^[8]	24	37	19	50	93
Les Busboom^[9]	24	33	20	92	86

Awards and honors

Dave Scholz
- Team Most Valuable Player ^[10]
- 1st team All-American (Helms)
- Honorable Mention All-American (Converse)

Team players drafted into the NBA

Round	Pick	Player	NBA Club
2	5	Ron Dunlap*	Chicago Bulls

^[11]

*Dunlap was forced to skip his last two years of basketball due to the "Slush-Fund" scandal in 1966.

References

Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball

Venues	Kenney Gym (1906–1925) Huff Hall (1926–1963) State Farm Center (1963–present) Prairie Capital Convention Center (2015)

Rivalries	Indiana Missouri

Culture & lore	Whiz Kids Flyin' Illini Orange Krush Fighting Illini Sports Network Oskee Wow-Wow Illinois Loyalty Chief Illiniwek

People	Head coaches NBA draftees Consensus All-Americans

Seasons	1905–06 1906–07 1907–08 1908–09 1909–10 1910–11 1911–12 1912–13 1913–14 1914–15 1915–16 1916–17 1917–18 1918–19 1919–20 1920–21 1921–22 1922–23 1923–24 1924–25 1925–26 1926–27 1927–28 1928–29 1929–30 1930–31 1931–32 1932–33 1933–34 1934–35 1935–36 1936–37 1937–38 1938–39 1939–40 1940–41 1941–42 1942–43 1943–44 1944–45 1945–46 1946–47 1947–48 1948–49 1949–50 1950–51 1951–52 1952–53 1953–54 1954–55 1955–56 1956–57 1957–58 1958–59 1959–60 1960–61 1961–62 1962–63 1963–64 1964–65 1965–66 1966–67 1967–68 1968–69 1969–70 1970–71 1971–72 1972–73 1973–74 1974–75 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 1980–81 1981–82 1982–83 1983–84 1984–85 1985–86 1986–87 1987–88 1988–89 1989–90 1990–91 1991–92 1992–93 1993–94 1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 1997–98 1998–99 1999–00 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 2004–05 2005–06 2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16 2016–17

Helms and Premo-Porretta national championships in bold; NCAA Final Four appearances in italics

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