It’s time. It?s time for the Illini basketball program to forget the disappointments of years past and move on to greatness. It?s time to get over the 1989 Final Four loss, Bruce Pearl, upsets to the likes of Austin Peay. It?s time to get over the Lon Kruger NCAA non-runs, the night Bill Walton made Illinois known nation-wide as ?thugs?, the short-armed Frank Williams jumper in Madison. It?s time to make kids want to come to Champaign. It?s time to beat Duke.
Duke is the Evil Empire of college basketball. I think of the comparison between the two programs in this way: Illinois is the quiet guy in the back who always lets himself get pushed around by the bullies. In the end, if he?s lucky, he gets the occasional date with the shy, cute girl. Duke is the school?s athletic hero. Duke is like the guy with all the money, the great car, and he is always with the hottest chick in the school. Duke gets the spotlight, Illinois is lucky to get the shadow.
If you don?t agree with that comparison, and you may not, think this way: Would a school of Duke?s ?reputation? get called for 36 fouls in a Regional Final? Would a school of Duke?s ?reputation? get six people fouled out in a Regional Final? Would a school of Duke?s ?reputation? get to ATTEMPT (Not make, ATTEMPT) thirty-one LESS free throws than their opponent???
I don?t think so either. But it?s happened to Illinois before. You can look it up.
Anyway, getting to the question I posed in the title of my article: Is this Illinois? biggest game ever? Mind you, I?m 20, so I don?t have any memories of the Elite Eight game in 1984 or the Elite Eight or Final Four games in 1989. But, I feel confident in saying that the game on Friday will be the second biggest game in Illinois?s basketball history since 1989. Only the Regional Final against Arizona, in 2001, was bigger. Illinois can do so much by winning, and lose so little by losing. Wouldn?t you rather be in the Illini?s shoes Friday Night???
Finally, I said anything past the Sweet Sixteen for the Orange and Blue would be gravy. A win on Friday, and you just might have to buy me a gravy train. Or something. All right, that was a bad joke, let’s move on…
Predictive Analysis
It?s time to look back at my ?Running the Numbers? two-part preview of the NCAA?s and see how well I?m doing.
In my sleepers I?m 2 for 5. Vandy and Syracuse (McNamara got so mad at my misspell he scored 43 in his first game) are still alive. Arizona choked, and Charlotte lost to Texas Tech. And Air Force couldn?t beat one of the NCAA?s most disappointing coaches for his career, Roy Williams, in their own home state.
For my overrated teams, I was 4 for 4. Florida exited in the first round (Thank you Billy Donovan!). UNC and Cincy departed in the second round. Utah State didn?t even make the tournament, and they then lost their first-round NIT game. Nice job guys. Let?s move on to looking at Part II of my predictions…
Three of the teams I didn?t want Illinois to play are still in the tournament. Only Gonzaga is out. And Illinois plays one of those teams, Duke, on Friday. In case you haven?t heard. We?ll see if my fear was well-founded.
I was in the middle of the road on St. Joseph?s and Kansas. Both those teams are in the Sweet 16.
Two of the three top teams I wanted to see Illinois play (N.C. State and Providence) are gone. Maybe that?s why I wanted to see them play Illinois.
So, overall, not that bad a job on my predictions. Then again, my bracket picks aren’t looking that good. Three of my Final Four teams are already gone. Somebody call a doctor.
Injury News
Mark Prior is likely going to miss his first start of the season. Oh my God, we might as well burn down Wrigley Field now.
Luckily, if this is all the action Prior misses we will only have to see Juan Cruz in a Chicago Cubs? uniform once before September. Hopefully Dusty will agree with that premise.
Recruiting Thoughts
To conclude, I have to ask a question of the college basketball fans (Or maybe just Jake Potter) on here. What is the type of player you consider to be a ?blue-chip? recruit?
I won?t name names, but someone on another site was telling me a recruit who had just given a verbal to a school was a ?blue-chip? recruit. My problem with that statement is that this recruit was ranked 10th and 13th in the state he is from on two internet services. Neither of those services had him ranked in the top 100 nationally for his class. Basically, I think for someone to be considered a ?blue-chip? recruit they have to be in the Top 100 nation-wide or in the top three in their state. Of course, neither condition applies there for this recruit. What is your opinion?
That’s all for now. Go Illini!
You guys can make fun of my name all you want, but I’m going north with the club this year, and little Juan is going to Pittsburgh for Randall Simon at the trade deadline.
We don’t need the meat-beater!!
We have Big Scott McClain!
Coach K can lick my sac.
I-L-L…
I-N-I…
Mitre to go north with the team? That might be an idea.
Say no to the Onanist! No Simon in ’04!
Did I put down the doughnut to write this column? The headline asks if it is the biggest game ever, then later says it is the *second* biggest game for Illinois since way back in 1989. Then it says I don’t really remember the Elite Eight games in 1984 and 1989 or the Final Four game in 1989, so those aren’t part of the equation. So should the headline read "Fifth Biggest Game Ever?"
I’m pretty sure I didn’t write this, but it sure sounds like the sort of illogical crap I’m capable of.
It should have been "The Biggest Game in the Life of Brian Crozier, Champaign-Urbana, IL"
Forgive the kid. He’s only twenty. Wait until a wannabe Nick Anderson comes forward and fails to clear the glass for a rebound and break the kid’s heart.
Ahem.
Try "SECOND-Biggest Game in the Life of Brian Crozier, Champaign-Urbana, IL"
I’m from Chicago. Bruce Weber is from Wisconsin.
You don’t stand a chance.
Polish Johnny Cash…the only two things you have in common are 1) people like you, and I don’t get why, and 2) after Friday, you’re both dead.
Face it, Illinois had no chance against Cincinnati, and now they’ve got no chance against Duke. We can’t believe that Kansas was able to squeak by UIC though.
In an attempt to create chaos in a nice young man’s journal: Honey!
You’re not hyping it enough, kid.
How about "the first half Sunday will be the second-biggest half in Illinois basketball history since last weekend."
It can’t really be canonized as the second-biggest anything when you say in the next sentence they have so little to lose, but you’re still my second-favorite writer in history since Peter King.
Apparently Duke doesn’t even play Illinois this week… according to me, the bracket opened up and now Duke just has to beat Texas to return to the Final Four…
Money quote:
See what I mean? I don’t even need to talk about the other teams in the Atlanta region!
Of course, the fact that I played for Duke has nothing to do with my ridiculous bias. Yay Blue Devils! And Coach K is very handsome, he looks nothing at all like the Polish Johnny Cash…
Jay, maybe you should have the "l" removed from your last name.
I . . .
MISS . . .
ANDY!
Since there’s no dose today I had to post this here:
Guess who will probably be the opening day starter for my beloved Rockies?
Yikes, I guess I tugged on some people’s emotional strings with my article.
To clear up the confusion:
The title of my article is simply a question I posed. Some people will probably think this game IS the biggest game in Illinois history. Since I myself was thinking about how big of a game it was to me as a fan, I decided to get my thoughts out of the way so I could try to tell how I feel about the game in the article.
The article does not have to follow the premise of the title to the letter. The article is designed to display my feelings about how big the game is, in my mind, before it is played. That’s all.
To conclude, if you want to read 20-year old or so writers that suck and aren’t trying to put themselves in a position to improve themselves (Only in my opinion of course), then go read the Daily Illini. If not, then you can read me. It may not be great, but I think I’m giving Desipio good thoughts and good issues to think about.
And nobody is answering my recruiting question dang it!!! OK, had to let my frustration out a little bit.
Answer to recruiting question: who cares? Setting rules for whether it’s OK to call a hypothetical person blue-chip or not is pointless.
Ouch.
That was mean.
And that’s coming from ME.
Some people obviously just are being very mean.
There is no such thing as society….There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. by texas holdem