UIC Athletics will hold its 2017 Hall of Fame Banquet and Reunion on Saturday, Jan. 28. This year's class features representatives from five different sports, one former coach and long-time administrator, and the first men's basketball team to earn an NCAA Tournament berth.
 
Leading up to the celebration, UICFlames.com will be profiling each of the 2017 inductees, which include Tricia Charbonneau (Softball), Tom Cisar (Men's Golf), Jay DeMerit (Men's Soccer), Erin Garrett-Guevara (Women's Swimming), Justin Johnson (Baseball), Denny Wills (Coach/Administrator) and the 1997-98 men's basketball team.
 
1997-98 Men's Basketball Team
By: John Healy
 
Although they would go on to become one of the most successful teams in school history, things did not start well for head coach Jimmy Collins and the team that would end up being the first in school records to make it to the NCAA Tournament.
 
When Collins and new players arrived in 1996, they were met by angry fans of the men's hockey team that had just been cut the previous spring to make some more room for the basketball team to grow. "Matter of fact," Jimmy Collins said. "When we started, there were people marching around the Pavilion with signs, and people coming in with signs, saying to get rid of me."
 
It also didn't help that that initial team started off that season going 1-8. "When you mix new guys with guys that were established," Collins added, detailing his current players and players he had brought with him. "The team didn't gel well initially." J.T. Wilson, who had come with Collins to UIC, was sitting out that first year and did his best to be an ambassador for the contentious team, remembered its early struggles as well. As the team grew, Wilson noted, "Coaches settled into a style, and utilized talent they had," and that players bought into the program, understanding, "the sum was better than the parts."
 
Along with the mad hockey fans, there were also players who had been playing with the previous coach, Bob Hallberg, who started off resenting the new coach, new staff and new players. Fortunately, as Collins recalls, "Winning cures a lot of things." That first season, 1996-97, the Flames went 15-14 and missed an NCAA spot by a mere basket.
 
The team appeared nearly unstoppable with outstanding players like Mark Miller, already a Hall of Fame player who was that year's Conference Player of the Year, Bryant Lowe and Konstantine Stavropoulos, who would be selected for the First Team All-MCC and the All Newcomer Team respectively, and point guard Anthony Coomes that ranked among the top ten in the conference in terms of assists, scoring and percentage of free throws and three-pointers made.
 
During the 1997-98 season, the team would achieve an overall record of 22-6, a conference record of 12-2, record-setting home success of 13-1 at the Pavilion, and would go on to beat tough teams like Butler and Michigan State and ultimately be ranked seventh in the nation.
 
Yet, that year's greatest achievement was the team's, and the school's, first invitation to the NCAA Tournament. "Our RPI's were so high that we got called to go to the NCAA on the first announcement of team's going," Collins said. "It was surreal," Wilson also recalled. "No team had ever done it before."
 
The national tournament was seemingly a whole new world to the players. Wilson remembered that, no matter where you were, there were clocks everywhere counting down to the game. "Five-thousand people came just for our practice," Wilson stated. "We'd be lucky if we had 5,000 for games at the Pavilion." Unfortunately, the Flames lost their first game to UNC-Charlotte with a 77-62 final.
 
But winning big wasn't all that mattered to the players. Exploring with friends in places like Missoula, Montana and facing off against rivals like Loyola, NIU and Detroit Mercy meant just as much. Wilson commented, "Sports teach you life skills; determination, the inner-will to win and succeed, and the need to overcome that adversity to meet your goals." However, Coach Collins was able to sum it up better, saying, "it wasn't easy, but it was a lot of fun."