Within five minutes of turning on the Illinois game, I knew it was a more enjoyable game to watch than the bulls game.  This turned out to be true – and could be true of the entire season for both teams.  The Illini have bounced back from a couple of ugly losses to Utah and Bradley, with a stunning come-from-behind win over Clemson, edging out Boise State and then last night they beat a ranked #24 Vanderbilt team 79-68 to go to 7-2 on the season. 

Illinois lead the entire game in front of their hometown crowd, shooting an impressive 59.3% from the field.  I think Jeff Jordan has actually been a underratedly big part of the team – he has stepped in to play solid ball and a lot of minutes (averaging 18.4 mpg this year vs. 8.4 last year) for the inconsistent Demetri McCamey, who can score really well but makes stupid turnovers, sometimes gives up and gets into foul trouble way too quickly in many games.  Oh, and have I mentioned that DJ Richardson and Brandon Paul are awesome and freshmen?  And Tisdale, Davis and McCamey are juniors?  This year will be fun, but next year will be awesome.  I am predicting the Illini to sneak into the top 10 at some point this year.

PS – what’s with the photo you ask?  It’s the first thing that came up when I used google to search for images of “Bruce Weber”.  I found that to be funny.  I now must immediately delete this image from my hard drive.

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Tags: Bruce Weber takes pictures of male models, Illini