Hey Illini basketball fans, the season is so close that you can smell it, right? Imagine starting the season by upstaging the programs at both Arizona and Duke. Impossible, you say?

It's not, it can be done and you can all make it happen on Saturday afternoon. The most sought after high school guard will be in Urbana-Champaign this weekend, and it will be the last stop in a recruiting tour that has already included stops in Durham, N.C., and Tucson, Ariz.

His name is Shaun Livingston. He's a 6-foot-6-inch point guard from just down the road in Peoria, Ill. According to www.rivalshoops.com, he's "the top playmaker in the country." You can see him for yourself at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Ubben Practice Facility.

This isn't the same old recruit. We're talking the big time here; he's someone who has the potential to make a Carmelo Anthony-type impact, someone that could lead a team to a national title. This is like trying to get Tom Cruise for the lead role in a movie instead of Christian Slater.

With that in mind, imagine what landing Livingston could do for new head coach Bruce Weber. We all know Weber can coach. Someone who studies under Gene Keady for 18 years, then takes Southern Illinois to the Big Dance two years in a row and has some success on top of that, can coach basketball.

The only thing Illini fans have to worry about is whether or not Weber will be able to recruit great players — not good players, great players. The Illini basketball program's reputation alone will recruit good players, but if Weber can start pulling in great players, Illinois might be ready to escalate into a perennial top 10 program.

Weber and his staff started off on the right foot when they yanked power forward Shaun Pruitt away from Tom Izzo and Michigan State last month.

Landing Livingston would be ground-breaking though. It would no doubt turn the heads of future top 10 basketball studs. The thought process might go something like this: "Livingston picked Illinois over Duke and Arizona, no way! They must have something out there in Champaign. If they call, I'm going to listen." This implements the domino effect and Illinois is a recruiting force for years.

This is where the Illini basketball faithful come into the picture. Weber and his clan can show Livingston the incredibly nice practice facility. They can introduce Livingston to the incredibly great group of guys. They can take him through the incredibly gorgeous quad.

But let's be real honest here. Duke and Arizona probably have just as nice, if not nicer, practice facilities. The guys are probably just as cool at Duke and Arizona — Livingston's high school teammate and friend Mustafa Shakur goes to Arizona. And we all know that Livingston probably doesn't really care about how nice the quad looks.

He's not going to come here to be a student first. He'll come here to be a basketball player first, which as bad as that sounds, is the nature of the beast. What the fans have to do is show Mr. Livingston why Illinois is the best place to come play basketball.

Fans — students, staff, community members, alumni in town for homecoming, whatever — have to show him who they think the best fans in college basketball are. If they firmly believe that the best fans college basketball has to offer are right here on this campus, then they need show up and prove it to him.

If the fans really want this guy, they have to pull out all the stops — wear orange, chant, sing, if you're a girl blow him a kiss — whatever it takes to create that "yeah, this is the place" atmosphere. Ubben should have a Woodstock-like crowd there on Saturday afternoon if the Illinois community is serious about getting Livingston.

He's there for the taking, fans. If you want him, go get him.

Mike Szwaja is a junior in communications. He can be reached at sports@dailyillini.com