Ah yes. I recall the 1986 game vividly. U of I had no answer for Jackson. And Lou Henson whined and complained about the officiating after the game - which he was prone to do - getting some headlines in the papers the following day. The officials did have a number of missed calls - but they went both ways, with a couple of critical calls going against Loyola late in the game. Lou - of course - failed to mention any of those to the press. It was the last game U of I would play against us for a long time.

Hey Jr., the Ramblermania Office of Inspector General has opened an investigation on your activities on the message board.
Better resign now. Your political clout and URM status won't help you here.

I will stick my two cents in since my brother played for Henson and I played for Sully.
Lou was very good to my brother and always honest about his playing situation and what was expected. Really not a lot more you can ask for as a player. Collins and Nagy always pointed to players like my brother as the glue that holds things together. As fans we don't see practice and the other nonsense that either binds teams together or breaks them apart and a coach can only do so much.
Sully was a very likable person and I have a great deal of respect for him. I didn't agree with a lot of his basketball moves but that's common for a player who doesn't play every minute and is actually common for the player that does.
From what my brother and I remember this was a decision made on different levels. Lou cared about losing to anyone. He wanted to win especially against IU and Knight. lol During this time Sully was really going after kids Lou's staff wanted. Losing didn't help that. The big reason the Illini stopped playing LU came from the AD. Most athletic programs answer to the AD. There have always been exceptions where the tail wags the dog but that wasn't Lou. I can't express what a good man he was. When the AD starts asking why are you playing these guys it becomes easy to discard a LU and when Sully was let go we fell off the radar completely.
It is naive to think schools don't play each other for political and personal reasons. It happens more and more as time goes on and money becomes greater. A big public university like Illinois has not achieved on a consistent level its athletic association wants. Maybe Underwood is the answer and Ayo is the first Illini player to be first team all-American. They do have the talent to win it all. But to say you can't play everyone is disingenuous. You can't play everyone that has the capability to beat you and programs avoid those teams at all costs. There are exceptions such as the bragging rights game that started in the early 80's. LU fans have great memories of games against in-state schools that won't play us anymore. Some of the blame is on those schools and some of it is on our administration and things they did. This is the reality of today's college basketball and it really hurts the bigger picture. Illinois is not Kansas or North Carolina and LU is not Duke.
I would love to see LU and Illinois play as would my brother but that is a brother thing. I can honestly say at this point I don't really care if DePaul, Northwestern, or Illinois play us again. It took a long time for us to go back to a final four and that is some place teams from the state of Illinois rarely go. I root for Illinois, I have childhood friends who played football and hoops there. When Porter becomes the next coach at Indiana I will root for him against anyone after all he has done to restore the pride we have as alumni in OUR program. As a fan I like watching good hoops.

Great post 86. He’s not going to Indiana. if he goes to the state of Indiana it will be Notre Dame

Crickets from @uoficpa...

His contributions to the board will be long remembered.

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This loss will leave a bad taste for Illinois. Maybe they'll schedule regular season game to try and get revenge.

He's too busy working with Latasha to get the 8000 block of S. Peoria declared a TIF zone to post on Ramblermania.

The answer really would be a round robin of Illinois D1 teams like they do in Philadelphia