Dee Brown

for our next guest he joins us on twitch twitch.tv slash the score chicago and our hotline it is the former illini guard big 10 player of the year in 2005 first time first team all big 10 in 2005 and six consensus first team all-american two-time mr basketball in the state of illinois in 2002 d brown thank you for joining us today all right thanks for having me so excited so excited

We're excited, too, to have the Illini back in the Final Four for the first time since you were there in 2005.

21 years.

I know you've spoken a lot about this.

Now the head coach over at Roosevelt University.

But what has this been like for you, just absorbing this and the memories that have come back during this time?

It's been so exciting, you know, walking around and seeing all the orange and seeing people just happy.

You know, I think Illinois basketball is a special place.

You know, people love it here in the state of Illinois and around the country.

But being here in Chicago, walking around, seeing the joy, seeing the gear, hearing the chants I-L-L, just...

It's an unbelievable feeling.

I'm just going to enjoy this moment because I know how hard it is to get here.

We have a really good team, a championship roster, so I'm just enjoying it and having a really good time talking about it and everybody bringing up the memories and what Illinois basketball means to them.

So it's a great time to be at Atlanta.

It's, I mean, Brad and his staff have done an unbelievable job of identifying talent and guys that can come and play at Illinois and be very successful.

I mean, he's an unbelievable talent.

I mean, he's a Darren Williams-type point guard that has size and, you know, definitely was unrecruited.

I mean, not unrecruited, but he wasn't recruited to the highest level that he's supposed to.

So he plays with a chip on his shoulder, but...

We're able to get really good players at University of Illinois because now we have the money to do it.