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Enjoy from my personal collection of college basketball games. As I was living in Raleigh, North Carolina, at the time of this game, I was pumped to see the Fighting Illini in action for the first time this season. Of course, the last time I had seen Illinois play basketball was the national championship game loss to the Tar Heels. I remember reading a newspaper article the day of this game, with it detailing how Head Coach Bruce Weber and seniors Dee Brown and James Augustine were having a hard time walking into the Dean Dome, looking up to see a North Carolina national championship banner that should have resided in Champaign, Illinois. Watching this game was a bit weird with Illinois missing Deron Williams, Luther Head and Roger Powell, Jr. I was definitely struggling to adjust to Illinois' all lefty frontcourt of Augustine, Sean Pruitt and Brian Randle. From what I remember, Illinois controlled this game against a North Carolina squad that lost all five starters from the championship game. I do remember being impressed with North Carolina freshman Tyler Hansbrough, who rallied the Tar Heels a bit in the second half. While it was great to see the Illini win this game, revenge felt a bit hollow as I could only think "What if we would have beaten UNC in the title game?" One last thing I remember is Illinois wearing these blue uniforms with an awful streak of gray on the front shoulders. For some reason, I just hated how those jerseys looked with that small addition of gray. The Illini uniforms from 2001-2006 were the best in school history in my opinion and didn't need to be tinkered with. I wish the Illini would bust out those retro uniforms one of these seasons. :-)
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