Gordon goes back to where it all began

Imagine if Eric Gordon made his home at U of Illinois instead of IU. \nHe could have played at the Assembly Hall that looks like a flying saucer instead of the one that sits on 17th Street in Bloomington. Candy-striped pants? It could have been orange and blue for the freshman phenom. \nInstead of leading Illinois, Gordon will be public enemy No. 1 when the No. 14 IU men’s basketball team travels to Champaign, Ill., today. \nFor almost a year, Gordon had committed to play for Illini coach Bruce Weber before reneging to join the Hoosiers in fall 2006.\nThis isn’t the first time Gordon has had to face Weber; Gordon and the Hoosiers edged Weber’s Illini 62-58 on Jan. 13 in Bloomington. \nBut this is the first time, and likely only time, Gordon will play in front of Illinois’ venerable student section, the Orange Krush.\n“We want to make sure that he knows we’re there, that we’re surrounding them,” said Eric Benz, vice president of the Orange Krush. “It won’t be hard to notice that.”\nBenz, who is also president of the Orange Krush Foundation, said the student group has a few plans for how it will treat Gordon, though he didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag before the nationally-televis-\ned game. \n“It’s secret,” Benz said. \nAll this might weigh heavily on the average 19-year-old college student, but IU coach Kelvin Sampson has previously dismissed the notion that Gordon is affected by the Illinois controversy. \n“Eric doesn’t think like you think,” Sampson told reporters before the IU-Illinois game in January. \nBut on Monday, Sampson said that answer might have been a little “presumptuous.”\n“He’s a human being,” Sampson said during a teleconference with reporters. “I’m sure that’s something that will be on his mind.” \nIn the first matchup between the two teams, Gordon was icy from behind the 3-point line, shooting 1-of-6 in the contest. Still, the conference’s leading scorer fought off a slow start to finish with 17 points.\nSampson said he’s not worried how Gordon will respond to fan treatment tonight. \n“I think once he takes the court and plays the game, he will be fine,” he said. \nAnd when Gordon is fine, the Hoosiers are fine. IU is 12-0 when Gordon scores more than 20 points, which has propelled the Hoosiers into the thick of the race for the Big Ten title. \nIllinois, though, has just two wins in the conference and might not even qualify for the National Invitational Tournament. An Illini NCAA Tournament berth would most likely require a Big Ten Tournament championship or a miracle.\n“It’s not a season we expected,” Benz said.\nThe less than stellar result makes it that much easier for fans to hate Gordon, said Jeff Labelle, basketball beat writer for the Daily Illini, Illinois’ student newspaper.\n“I think people, they like to blame something,” Lab-\nelle said. \n“You look at the standings right now and it just gets easier for fans to blame a guy like Gordon.”\nThat’s why Labelle expects the Krush to really lay into the IU freshman.\n“I think they’re going to take advantage of the opportunity,” Labelle said.