CHAMPAIGN — The memories are still vivid to Kevin Root.

Breakfast at Aunt Sonya’s.

Staying overnight at the Chancellor Hotel.

Walking out onto the floor at Assembly Hall, looking up and seeing what he felt like was the whole town of Hoopeston filling an entire section of seats.

Talk about an adrenaline rush.

“Getting able to play in that was incredible,” Root said.

The former Hoopeston-East Lynn standout from the mid-1980s is talking about playing in the IHSA boys’ basketball state tournament in Champaign, possibly at the height of its popularity.

Root suited up in seven state tournaments games for the Cornjerkers during three straight seasons in Champaign, helping the Vermilion County school place third in Class A in both 1985 and 1986.

“You’re watching Illinois players growing up, and Eddie Johnson was my idol,” Root said of the former Illini standout. “We got to dress and use Illinois’ locker room one time, and that was an experience you never forget.”

Going downstate or having the chance to compete at Assembly Hall for a state title were goals nearly every high school boys’ basketball player or coach in this state dreamed of growing up at a certain period in time. For almost eight decades.

Those moments, however, faded after 1995. The state tournament shifted from its longtime home in Champaign to Peoria, making the move 90 miles west along Interstate 74. After an initial surge of excitement during the first 10 years or so of the state tournament taking place in downtown Peoria at Carver Arena, interest started to decline.

Attendance dipped. Four-class basketball replaced two-class basketball. Suddenly, the luster of the state’s most prized postseason tournament was gone.

“Some of these kids are playing in sold-out venues in sectional championship games and then they go to Peoria, there are more seats empty than there are full,” said Jim Tracy, the executive director of the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association and a long-time high school coach in the state. “It’s almost like coming back to our roots in Champaign. It’s not like Peoria was a bad place. I thought Peoria was a wonderful place. But it was just time for a change.”

The IHSA Board of Directors agreed.

That’s why, on June 15, they approved the state tournament returning to State Farm Center from 2021 through 2023. IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson, though, has said he hopes the state tournament doesn’t need to find a new home once the three-year contract expires.

Keeping a connection — again — between the IHSA and Champaign for a significant period of time is at the forefront of local organizers’ minds.

“That means absolutely everything to us,” Visit Champaign County CEO Jayne DeLuce said. “We intend to roll out the orange carpet for the first three years, and there will be tweaks. One will be with the new format and the other will probably be related to COVID. But looking long-term, the IHSA didn’t make this move lightly. We feel very confident that this will be a partnership that is long-lasting.”

In the month-plus since the IHSA put the tournament back in Champaign, DeLuce said virtual meetings — held because of the COVID-19 pandemic — have taken place daily. The main focus of the work during the last month has centered around securing hotel accommodations.

DeLuce said the I Hotel near State Farm Center will be the host hotel for IHSA officials, with five hotels in Champaign-Urbana serving as hotels for the competing teams: the Holiday Inn and Homewood Suites off of Neil Street in Champaign, the Hyatt Place in downtown Champaign, the Hampton Inn off University Avenue in Urbana and the Comfort Suites off Lincoln Avenue in Urbana.

“When the super-sectional games are done, the winners of each game will know what specific hotel they’ll be staying at,” DeLuce said.

DeLuce understands her work is more than lining up accommodations for the teams. Making sure said teams and their fans have an enjoyable experience is paramount.

One aspect coaches, players and fans enjoyed about Peoria were the dedicated volunteers. And covering all the minuscule details they did.

Former St. Joseph-Ogden boys’ basketball coach Brian Brooks said it was vital during the two times he took the Spartans to Peoria — first in 2013 when they placed fourth in the Class 2A state tournament and then again in 2016 when they won the 2A state championship.

“This is the biggest key to me and what I hope Champaign does — and they probably will — but everyone associated with the state tournament was treated incredibly well when they were in Peoria,” Brooks said. “All of my experiences, I walked away saying, ‘Man, the players are treated like they’re the Chicago Bulls of the 1990s.’ That’s what it’s all about in high school sports. We had a volunteer who was available 24 hours a day who we could contact if we needed anything, and we used them. I hope they keep those things in Champaign because it was very valuable for us.”

DeLuce said the number of volunteers they’ll have for the boys’ basketball state tournament will exceed what they normally have for the football state championship games and the individual wrestling state meet, the other two IHSA state series events Champaign hosts.

“Similar to football, we will have team hosts,” DeLuce said. “We’re already starting to talk about that. Those people will be the point person for every single team from the moment they win a super-sectional.”

Some volunteers that helped the state tournament run in Peoria, though, were part of the March Madness Experience that would take place in other parts of the Peoria Civic Center away from the basketball games at Carver Arena.

Champaign won’t have a similar-type setup at State Farm Center. Instead, the plan is to have interactive exhibits in various concourses spread throughout the arena at State Farm Center.

“Our fan experience will be condensed compared to Peoria,” DeLuce said, “because we are gearing ours more towards the games.”

Cory Hatfield has sat in these planning meetings before.

Both for trying to get the boys’ basketball state tournament back to Champaign and then seeing the inner workings of what went on during the state tournament’s run in Peoria. It was part of his job, first as sports and sales director with Visit Champaign County for five years until the mid-2010s and then for two years as director of sales with the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Hatfield, a Rantoul Township High School graduate, is back in Champaign now, working as the associate director of development and alumni relations for the University of Illinois’ school of labor and employment relations.

And he’s glad the boys’ basketball state tournament is back in Champaign, too.

“There’s really nothing that compares to seeing all the fans and the families arrive to watch the student-athletes to compete to try to win a state championship,” Hatfield said. “How to make that experience so exciting and memorable not just for the student-athletes, but the families, was always at the top of our mind.”

Decreasing attendance at boys’ basketball state tournament games has developed into a significant issue during the last decade. The IHSA hasn’t released official attendance numbers since 2002.

Not that they wouldn’t if they were asked, according to IHSA assistant executive director Matt Troha, who is responsible for communications and media relations and has held that role since 2008.

“In my decade-plus with the IHSA, historically, if we have been asked attendance numbers, we have provided them as long as we were able,” Troha said. “One of the unique parts of state basketball in Peoria was that we sold a large allotment of tickets out of our office. So it often took a week or two after the tourney to marry the sales from our office with what the Civic Center sold, and it was rare that anyone followed up to ask about attendance a week or two after the event.”

Hatfield said during his time working in Peoria, many meetings were had trying to brainstorm ideas on how to help bump up attendance. No easy answers existed.

“That was always a difficult problem to address,” Hatfield said. “So much of it does depend upon what teams do qualify to come. People’s time is valuable. That becomes a bigger deal when the state tournament was for two weekends, but having it all on one weekend should help.”

For Brooks, he experienced coaching in front of a capacity crowd in Peoria and ones that featured multiple sections empty. His first trip to Peoria on the sidelines happened in 2000 when he was an assistant coach at Riverton, which eventually placed fourth in the Class A tournament.

“We happened to be the last game of the Friday quarterfinals, and we’re playing Rock Falls,” Brooks said. “We walk out, and the arena is full. It just gave you chills. I remember saying to our other assistant coach at the time, ‘God, I wish every kid we ever coached would get an opportunity to have this experience.’ After that, I hope somehow, someway, another group of kids that I would be lucky enough to be involved with, either as a head coach or an assistant coach, would get to have that experience. It was just a great atmosphere and some great memories. Just to see the kids’ reactions and how they handled it all was really neat.”

Brooks, who grew up in Peoria and still has family in the city, experienced state again more than a decade later coaching SJ-O and experienced the thrill of coaching a state championship team.

The crowds had noticeably thinned. Of course, the four-class system went into effect in 2008, creating a ripple effect among high school basketball teams that the state is still dealing with.

“I don’t think Peoria had anything to do with the attendance struggles,” Brooks said. “I know people have their own opinion, but I’m a big proponent of the two-class system. That’s why the attendance is down.”

State Farm Center’s capacity actually decreased after its $170 million worth of renovations ended in 2016. But it’s still much larger than where the boys’ basketball state tournament has been played for almost the last 25 years.

The iconic venue, which first hosted the state tournament in 1963, can hold 15,544 spectators now — still well more than the 11,442 seats at Carver Arena.

Of course, who knows what crowds may look like next March, when all four classes of the state tournament are to take place from March 11-13, because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We continue to look at what that situation will look like, but we haven’t gotten too far into the details yet because we just entered Phase 4,” DeLuce said of Governor J.B Pritzker’s “Restore Illinois” five-phase reopening plan amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “We also want to see how high school sports start out and go from there.”

DeLuce and Co. are hoping with the focus of the state tournament centered more around the games, a jump in attendance will ensue.

Root, who went on to coach boys’ basketball at Hoopeston Area and serve as the school’s athletic director at one point, understands why after attending the state tournament in Peoria.

“I took my two young kids to the tournament,” Root said, “and they loved the March Madness Experience instead of just watching the games.”

The state tournament’s return to Champaign also coincides with another historic change.

Instead of two weekends spent hosting state tournament games — one devoted to small-school teams and one devoted to big-school teams — all 16 teams across the four classes who reach the state tournament this upcoming season will play in the same three-day span from Thursday through Saturday. Six games are set for Thursday, with six more on Friday and four on Saturday.

The six games on Thursday are 1A and 2A games, with 1A state semifinal games at 10 a.m. and approximately noon, followed by 2A state semifinal games at 2:30 p.m. and approximately 4:30 p.m. Then, third-place games in 1A (7 p.m.) and 2A (approximately 9 p.m.) are slated to take place on Thursday night. The same time schedule is in place on Friday for all 3A and 4A state semifinal games and third-place games before what the IHSA hopes is a banner day on Saturday. Specifically, championship Saturday.

All four state title games will take place that day, with 1A tipping off at 11 a.m., 2A at approximately 1 p.m., 3A at 5:30 p.m. and 4A at approximately 7:30 p.m.

“My hope is that is going to be an off the charts, exciting day,” said Tracy, who won more than 400 games coaching at Chicago De La Salle from 1983 to 1990 and then at Reavis from 1992 to 2007 before becoming the IBCA executive director in 2014. “I’m hoping that the energy and the enthusiasm that comes from that experience for all these kids and their coaches is going to be something incredible. We compare our history to any other state and the players that have come from our state certainly speak to that. Hopefully this is a shot in the arm that our state needs.”

Like it was in the mid-1980s. When Root and his Hoopeston-East Lynn teammates — which included former Ohio State men’s basketball coach Thad Matta — felt like rock stars in Champaign.

Taking a second-half lead on Chicago Providence St. Mel and its future Flyin’ Illini post presence, Lowell Hamilton, during a Class A state semifinal game in 1985 is still a moment Root holds near and dear to his heart. Even if Hamilton and Providence St. Mel rallied to win 83-72 before cruising by Chrisman 95-63 to win the state title.

“It was great for us to be able to play against a big school like Providence St. Mel being from a small town from central Illinois,” Root said. “When we were making our comeback and taking the lead, the entire Assembly Hall seemed to be on our side. Not just the 4,000 people or so from Hoopeston. I remember cheers from all around the Assembly Hall.”

Anecdotes like this are what other associated with the state tournament returning to Champaign hope materializes for future high school basketball players in the state. An entire generation of players have passed through the state without knowing what it’s like to play a state tournament game in Champaign.

That changes now. High school players will imagine shooting hoops on their driveways or dribbling inside their school gyms, wondering what it’s like to take to the same court where Dee Brown, Deron Williams, Ayo Dosunmu and others have all played for the Illini during the last 25 years.

“There’s the prestige of going and playing at State Farm Center, which they see on national TV quite a bit,” Brooks said. “I’m a Peoria guy and my parents are Bradley season-ticket holders. This is not a knock on Bradley at all and I really like their program, but most kids who don’t grow up in Peoria, it’s probably not the same lure that playing at State Farm Center is.”

Despite all the differences the state tournament has these days compared to its last time in Champaign, one constant remains.

How an inspiring basketball team can unite a community. And keep alive the dream of making it to state. Root understands the concept better than most. He yearns for future Hoopeston Area boys’ basketball players to possibly experience what he and his former teammates did more than three decades ago.

“For all of the industry that we’ve lost in our town through the years, for us to have something positive like a team making it downstate to Champaign, it would be a huge boost for us,” Root said. “People still love high school basketball around here.”