Best Illinois basketball players: All-time Illini starting lineup

Brian Cook, quite simply, was not a superstar from the jump for the Fighting Illini. In fact, when he arrived in Champaign for the 1999-2000 season, he only played 18.6 minutes per game as a freshman. But as the big man averaged 9.0 points, 4.5 rebounds and 0.9 blocks in that limited time, that was enough to earn him Big Ten Rookie of the Year honors. And he became a consistent force thereafter.

After his freshman campaign, Cook made strides but only marginal ones as a sophomore and junior. It was in his senior year, however, when he truly broke out as the team around him began to add elite talent. Cook went on to average 20.0 points, 7.6 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game in his senior season.

For his efforts in that 2002-03 season, Cook was named Big Ten Player of the Year and was eventually named the Big Ten Tournament MVP as well. While he may not have had a consistent run of being one of the best players in one of the best conferences in college basketball, that he was a consistently productive player who had one year at that level speaks to Cook’s credit.

Cook’s four-year efforts with the Fighting Illini have landed him as the program’s fifth-leading career scorer with 1,748 points, the seventh-leading rebounder with 815 and with the seventh-most blocked shots (136) in school history. And had he been able to put forth even three-quarters of what he did as a senior during his junior campaign, Cook would be even higher on those lists.