UI coming up Roses?

CHAMPAIGN – Start with the T-shirt.

It was Illini orange, like the one Rich McBride often wears to practice, or the hundreds that clothed the Orange Krush student section at the Orange and Blue Scrimmage on Friday night at the Assembly Hall.

Surely, Derrick Rose wearing an orange T-shirt must be a good sign for Illinois. Right?

"I guess it goes with the shoes," said his brother, Reggie Rose, putting that theory to rest.

Nevertheless, a crowd of 8,263 seemed more interested in what Derrick Rose wore and how he reacted than the goings-on in the scrimmage. The Rose camp's impromptu visit to the UI did answer some questions, however.

Reggie Rose, who has handled his brother's recruitment, said the Illini have moved into a three-school race for Derrick's considerable talents. They will announce the intentions of the Chicago Simeon point guard at an invitation-only news conference Nov. 4. Seniors can sign a national letter of intent Nov. 8.

"If Illinois wasn't on the list, we wouldn't even be down here," Reggie Rose said. "Right now, it's (between) Illinois, Indiana and Memphis."

That's a marked change from what everyone thought less than a week ago. And certainly a change from what everyone thought in August, when the Rose camp released a list of Memphis, Indiana, Kansas, UCLA and DePaul.

"Me, myself, I never had a problem with Illinois. I always thought Illinois was a great school," Reggie Rose said. "It's just, when you're dealing with kids of that age, sometimes it's, 'I want to go to Illinois and then the next day I don't.' I kind of let him see it from his own point of view: 'OK, Derrick, you want to go do this, let's go do it.' "

After the scrimmage, Derrick Rose declined an interview request.

"I've always been honest with my words. We came out with the (initial) list, and that was the list," Reggie Rose said. "But we went to the trips and everything and we were weighing our options and we said, 'Hey, let's take another visit down to Illinois. Just to take a second look.' Sometimes you think the grass is greener on the other side, but when you go take that look you say, 'It ain't like what we think, so let's go take another look.' "

The Roses attended Memphis' Midnight Madness last weekend. On Monday, Reggie Rose called coach Bruce Weber and told him they wanted to make an unofficial visit to the UI on Friday. The initial plan was to return home Friday night, but Reggie Rose said they decided to stay until today and attend an Illinois practice.

"I asked him if he wanted to stay up and he said yes," Reggie Rose said.

Former Illini Kenny Battle and Bryant Notree, a Chicago Simeon product, sat beside the Roses on Friday night. The Orange Krush serenaded the recruit and his brother with "We want Derrick!" and "Reg-gie Rose!" a half-dozen times.

Between games, a montage of recent Illinois guards – Deron Williams, Dee Brown and Luther Head – flashed on the overhead video screen. The montage closed by asking, "Who's Next?"

The scene seemed to envelop what has been a roller-coaster recruiting saga. Derrick Rose's AAU teammate, Eric Gor-don, recently changed his commitment from Illinois to Indiana. Reggie Rose said whether Gordon and Rose want to play together at Indiana is "really up to them."

Reggie Rose said the visit to Illinois was a sort of precautionary measure, to make sure they make the correct decision.

"What happened was last year we came down for Midnight Madness (at the UI). It was kind of a spur-of-the moment thing that came up," Reggie Rose said. "We never really got to take a visit, like all the other schools we've been to. So that was one of the main reasons.

"We were like, 'Hey, we've got to take this visit just to go through everything we did and the other visits at the other schools,' " Reggie Rose continued. "We're just going to take it step by step, let it soak in for a week and he's going to make his decision wherehe wants to attend school at."

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