Got your attention now? Teammates Dee Brown and Luther Head won the awards, but Deron Williams willed Illinois to the final four.(Final 4)

The campaign began after the election was conducted. That's a tough way to win it, folks. As a candidate, Deron Williams needed every endorsement he could get, every expert testimonial. His appeal was too subtle to expect that voters would rush to embrace him.

So among the three gifted players in Illinois' backcourt, Williams gained the least individual recognition for his contributions to his team's astonishing season. Dee Brown's game-changing energy helped make him the face of the Illini; he smiled from magazine covers on newsstands and was a consensus first-team All-American. As the team's leading scorer, Luther Head was easy to notice and always seemed to be ...