PMP 2024: Artistic vs. Scientific

If you ask a good question when I do the Pick My Post fundraiser, it's possible your question will get pushed further down the pile while I give it some thought. And I've thought about this question many times over the last few weeks. I really want to do it justice.

Here's the question submitted with Jim's donation to the scholarship fund:

Your Top-3 'Artistic Players' (smooth athletes who make it look easy and are fun to watch) and Top 3 'Scientific Players' (fundamentally perfect who perhaps aren't the most athletic but have watched more game film than anyone and WILL break you down).

~Jim L.

First off, this does not specifically state "basketball" or "football." So I'm choosing to write about both sports. I'm going to choose six players and I'll try to go with three football and three basketball.

The second I read the question I knew who I would be choosing at #1 on my "artistic players" list (you just saw his photo up top). But the other five were more difficult. I'm restricting this to the timeframe of 1991 (my freshman year) through 2024 so that I'm only including players I saw in person multiple times. But I just want to note that the 1980's, for both sports, had a lot of candidates.

This is '91 through '24, though. Here we go:

Scientific Players

3. Sergio McClain

I just spent 20 minutes trying to find video of the "Sergio trying to save the ball from going out of bounds so he throws it behind his back near midcourt and it goes in" play but I couldn't find it anywhere. I need to make that a personal quest: find video of one of the craziest plays in Illini history and get it out there on social media to be passed around forever.

I did find the old Alexander Wolff article from Sports Illustrated that talked about Sergio, though. An NBA Scout agreed to share his thoughts on the 2001 NBA Draft class as long as he'd remain anonymous. While discussing Tyson Chandler and Shane Battier he had this to say about Sergio McClain:

"I love the game for the game. I love thinking the game. When I see a kid who loves the thinking part of it, like [Illinois's 6'4" senior forward] Sergio McClain, I can get lost watching him. I just wish Sergio were five inches taller or had a shot."

That's probably the perfect description for Sergio McClain. You could 100% get lost watching Sergio on the basketball court. His brain was always two steps ahead of everyone else. Yes, he was limited by his height and frame. A 6'-4" point forward doesn't have much of a future in the NBA. He'd need to be a free-flowing guard and instead he was a barrel-chested bullyball player.

But he saw the game like you or I have never seen the game. I guarantee if you sat down with Sergio right now and watched film of an Illini scrimmage, he would see 10 things you didn't see. He just gets basketball. And on the court, that meant he made everything go.

2. Chase McLaughlin

I know it might sound weird to put a kicker on here but hear me out.

He arrived as a walkon with the goal of a mechanical engineering degree. He wasn't the favorite to win the kicking job because there were scholarship kickers in front of him. He was just some kid making videos called Kickers Are People Too on YouTube:

I watched the first few Kickers Are People Too videos before Chase was even our starting kicker. He was just some walkon kicker fascinated with angles. He'd look at the goalposts and say "I wonder if I could make a kick from the patio outside of coach's office?" And then he'd go film himself doing it.

He didn't end up with a mechanical engineering degree. He got his undergrad in Technical Systems Management (even better) and his masters in Technology Management. And if you've watched his pre-kick routine, everything is... technical systems management, if you will. Of any Illini kicker I've ever watched, he's probably the most "if I calculate the wind with a launch angle of 36 degrees while the earth is spinning at 1038 mph..." kicker I've observed.

Oh, and he just signed a 3 year, $12.3 million extension with the Buccaneers this offseason. Pay attention in math class, kids.

1. Kiwane Garris

I just wrote about Kiwane for a different PMP article. So it feels like cheating to use him again in this one. But when my brain thinks "scientific players", it immediately goes to Kiwane Garris. Kiwane Garris is... that guy who used to go on talk shows and make 50 free throws in a row if he was an otherworldly athlete.

Kiwane Garris used the backboard better than any Illini player in history. I will accept no arguments otherwise. If there was a HORSE contest for all Illini players and the stipulation was that they had to use the backboard for every shot, Kiwane would win. He'd probably never get to H.

I remember hearing Lou Henson talk about Garris as a freshman and his "incredible ability to make bank shots" and then I remember watching him do just that for four seasons. His main skill was that rim protector's protection didn't matter much because he could go up, over, or around the guy and bank it in off the glass. He understood how to get the ball on that little white square as good as anyone in Big Ten history. I always wondered if his driveway/local park hoop was missing a hoop for a while so he just learned how to hit the white box on the backboard time after time until the hoop was fixed.

Our #2 all-time leading scorer's #1 skill: understanding the angle of the backboard.

Artistic Players

3. Corey Liuget

In my days standing on the sideline at Camp Rantoul, no player (and I mean no player) created more buzz than Corey Liuget. If there was a ranking of "times some fan standing on the sidelines said 'oh my God' after a single rep", Luiget would win hands-down. His burst off the line is the stuff of Rantoul legend.

This PMP question defines artistic players as "smooth athletes who make it look easy and are fun to watch", and that's Corey Liuget at defensive tackle. You're not going to get much praise at DT – a 1st round pick at defensive end will get more college praise than a 1st round pick at defensive tackle just because of the sack totals – but Liuget always drew my focus inside.

I know that you might think "fluid offensive players" when assembling a list of artistic players, but I can't make a list like this without including Liuget. And his professional career beyond Illinois shows how he used that artistry. Three years at Illinois and then declares early for the draft. Picked in the 1st round (18th overall) by the Chargers. Played 10 seasons with the Chargers, Raiders, Bills, and Texans.

2. Frank Williams

You know what's coming. Yes, Frank played more games than just the Iowa game in 2002 – I mean, he was Big Ten Player of the Year – but I can't talk about Frank's artistry without linking the video of The Frank Williams Show:

The thing that video doesn't show: the final layup shown there happened immediately after the behind-the-back pass. They were back-to-back plays. I'll just tell the story from how I experienced it (and you probably know this already because I've written about this at least five times).

I'm on a ski trip at Lake Tahoe with my friends Derek and Brian. We are watching the game on ESPN from our hotel room at Lake Of The Sky Motor Inn in Tahoe City after a long day of skiing at hidden-gem Homewood. We have two twin beds in the room so Brian and Derek are seated on the end of one bed and I'm seated on the end of the other bed. We're watching #10 Illinois vs. #15 Iowa on what I believe was a 1977 television still in circulation in 2002.

When Frank makes the behind-the-back pass, the three of us are standing and cheering and high-fiving. Dick Vitale is going nuts through the television speakers. As this is happening, Frank immediately steals the ball again and goes in for the layup. Iowa takes a timeout as Dickie V screams "Get a T-O baby - it's the Frank Williams Show!" and we start running around the room jumping from bed to bed.

God I love college sports.

1. Brandon Lloyd

I wish someone would assemble a set of college highlights for Brandon Lloyd just like the set of NFL highlights below. I know there's that one compilation that includes him tipping the ball to himself in the Ohio State end zone but it's missing several of his great college catches.

So let me say it this way: Brandon Lloyd is top five in the history of the sport of football at catching the ball. If you don't believe me, find me five other NFL players with catches - not receptions, not yards-after-catch, not speed, but catches - that rival these:

I'll end this with a plea. Someone help me remember which game it was for this insane Brandon Lloyd catch.

I can't even remember what year it was. All I know is that I was in Carmen's seats at the time (east main, around the 35 yard line closest to the north end zone) and the ball was going away from me towards the south end zone. I want to say that Kittner released it from the 30 (on the north side of the 50) and Lloyd caught it somewhere near the other 25 (headed for the horseshoe) close to the west hash.

It was one of those "the crowd didn't even react because the pass wasn't there" plays and then there was slowly a "wait, he caught it?" murmur from the crowd as the official ran in signaling a catch. I need to find video of that catch.

There we go. Jim gave me an assignment and I've completed it. Now I've given you an assignment. Someone tell me what game that was and I'll try to go find the video. (Also, if someone could find that Sergio video...)