By Paul M. Banks is Founder/President of The Sports Bank.net

Utah Jazz point guard Deron Williams, the highest NBA draft pick in Illini history, is currently the best player running the point in the NBA. He’s also now the best pro player by far in recent Illini history. And Williams seems to be getting better every time spotlight grows brighter. He’s improved his game every year he’s been in the league and raises it another even level in the postseason.

In the first round of the 2007 playoffs, all three members of the legendary 2005 Illini backcourt re-united. The Houston Rockets’ main perimeter weapon in 2007 was former Illini Luther Head, who finished fourth in the NBA in 3 pt shooting that year. Since then his career has taken a huge step backward and today he finds himself buried on the bench of the lowly Indiana Pacers. He started ten games this past season, but shot just 35% from distance for the season.

-Dee Brown’s huge in Tel Aviv
Dee Brown’s NBA career makes him kind of like another Mateen Cleaves. Both were photogenic, charismatic players who eventually became poster children for a magnificent March Madness run. In the league, Brown is undersized, not a true point guard and way too streaky a shooter to hold down a job. The Brown/Williams situation (Brown was the third string pt. guard, Deron the starter on the 07 Conference finalist team) evokes my infamous “Brad Johnson/Casey Weldon rule.”

A situation where two college teammates find their roles in the professional ranks reversed from what they were in college. Johnson threw less than 30 passes during his entire Florida St. career. The starter was Weldon, a nationally acclaimed and media hyped QB who was relegated to literally playing flag football just a few years later.

In 1999, coincidentally the same year that the Washington Redskins adopted a rip off of the Seminoles logo for their helmet, Weldon was 3rd string and Johnson the starter. Remember it was Brown, not Williams, who got most of the publicity and hype at Illinois. Today, Brown is a star in Tel Aviv after having a cup of coffee with the Washington Wizards and Phoenix Suns following his stint as Deron’s teammate.

Other Illini with notable Pro Careers

-Eddie Johnson’s 19,202 points was the 22nd highest total in NBA history when he retired, but Johnson was never invited to the All-Star game nor a member of any All-NBA team. He did win the NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award as a member of the Suns in 1989. This award typifies his career: not a star, but a good role player. Brian Cook and Kenny Norman, who once averaged about 19 points a game for the L.A. Clippers, are two more Illini who qualify for this category. With Cookie actually that might be a stretch. His skills never really translated to the pro game, and he accomplished little in the league.

-Kendall Gill was the fifth overall pick in the 1990 draft.
Gill averaged over 20 points per game twice in his career. First as a second-year player for the Hornets (joining Alonzo Mourning and Larry Johnson as part of a great young nucleus) in 1991-92. (20.5 ppg) and again for the Nets in 1996-97 (21.8 ppg). In the 1997-98 NBA season, Gill led the league in steals. On April 3, 1999, he recorded 11 steals in a game against Miami, tying Larry Kenon’s single-game record. Unfortunately, his skills were just ordinary and never caught up to his extraordinary athleticism. It’s not likely that an NBA team will sign him away from his cruiserweight boxing career nor his Chicago Bulls pre-game broadcasting gig. His NBA career is in the books.

-Nick Anderson was picked 11th in the 1989 NBA draft. The first pick in Orlando Magic history went on to become arguably the franchise’s greatest three-point shooter. He was the main outside scorer on the Eastern Conference finalist team of 1994-95. Unfortunately, he missed four crucial free throws in game one of the 1995 NBA Finals, and the Magic lost both the game and the series. Shortly thereafter, he developed both performance anxiety and a phobia of shooting free throws. With his head out of the game, his career was never the same. Many feel the Magic have not recognized the contributions Anderson made to the franchise, and hopefully one day that will be rectified. As for fellow 1989 “Flyin Illini” teammates Kenny Battle, Marcus Liberty and Stephen Bardo, their NBA careers can be encapsulated in mere footnotes.
-Derek Harper was the greatest of the bunch before Williams. He teamed with Rolando Blackman to give the Dallas Mavericks a dominating backcourt in the 1980s, and was an integral part of a conference champion New York Knicks team. According to his Wikipedia entry, “Harper played in 1,199 regular season games in his career, ranking him twenty-first in NBA history (as of the 2004-5 NBA season). He retired having the eleventh most steals and the seventeenth most assists in NBA history, and is widely regarded with the dubious distinction as being one of the best players to never make it to the All-Star game.”

Fitting that the two best players in recent Illini history are point guards.

No Kidding

A good point guard is like a socialist: they prioritize an effective distribution of resources, share the wealth and get everyone involved. The best NBA point guards of the future will accentuate the drive-and-kick game. Deron’s game is often compared to the legendary former California Golden Bear Jason Kidd. If we examine both players’ first two years in the league, we see that Kidd made similar statistical jumps from his first to second season. Williams compares favorably in every stat except rebounding. Williams is more powerful than Kidd with or without the ball, but Kidd is quicker. Without question, Williams’ scoring and shooting ability have now surpassed that of Kidd.

Kidd’s versatility has earned him the nickname “Mr. Triple-Double,” and he is third all-time in career triple-doubles with 87. Deron’s NBA career seems to become more impressive each season. But he still has plenty to do when it comes to matching Kidd’s impressive professional resume:

1995 NBA co-Rookie of the Year
8-time All-Star
6-time All-NBA Selection
9-time All-Defensive Selection
5-time NBA regular-season leader, assists per game: 1999 (10.8), 2000 (10.1), 2001 (9.8), 2003 (8.9), 2004 (9.2)
Member of the 2000 U.S.A. Dream Team which won gold at the Sydney Olympics.

However, I think we all know that D. Will can easily get there.

Paul M. Banks is Founder/President of The Sports Bank.net, an Upper Midwest sports webzine. He’s also a member of the Football Writers Association of America, the United States Basketball Writers Association and a sports writer for the Washington Times.com Communities and Walter Football.com

By Paul M. Banks Founder/President of The Sports Bank.net,

The year 2008 truly solidified my theory: to be a fan of either the Chicago Cubs and University of Illinois football means you know a lot about soul-crushing defeats. You know more than losing, you know exactly what it’s like to have any shred of hope or optimism crushed into grains of dust. You’ve had your hopes and dreams imploded so many times that you can’t even feel optimism anymore. You’ve routinely endured the type of losing that makes you wonder to yourself why you keep returning, but in ’08 took that disappointment spiked to cataclysmic proportions. The fallout from that devastation will likely linger for generations.

I’m lucky enough to be in only one (UI football) of these subsets. If I was in the intersection of both these groups (don’t you love using ven diagram lingo?) I’d probably take a bath with an electrical appliance. If you happen to be both a Cubs and Illini football fan, I’d suggest taking the laces out of your shoes and avoiding any and all tall buildings before reading on. I’d also suggest reading this only on a bright, sunny day.

In 2008, the Cubs had their best team since, well since any of us have been alive. Unless you’re a 115 years old. They cruised through the regular season, and had they not taken their foot off the gas pedal a bit in August-September (though it’s easy to understand why they did) the Cubs easily could have won 100-105 games.

Coming off a first round playoff sweep at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks the year before, this season was about October: plain and simple. Actually, it should always be about October, but these are the Cubs- so it’s quite common for even August and September to be meaningless. Still there was no way the Cubs could blow this thing, right? It was also the centennial anniversary of the last title. It was almost too perfect.

It was too perfect; for the L.A. Dodgers, as every Cubs infielder somehow found a way to make an error in the same inning of game 1. The ’08 sweep, combined with the ’07 sweep, and the five outs from a World Series collapse in ’03, makes me wonder if Cub fans have any reason to look forward to April each year. Regarding Cub die-hards, I wonder if they have any reason to live.

As bad as’08 was for those who live in Wrigleyville (and I mean “Wrigleyville” as the state of mind, not a physical location, kind of like “Margaritaville”), it was equally bad or worse in Champaign. Ron Zook, who is most famous for inspiring Southern fried yahoos to create a website encouraging his dismissal, was coming off a banner season. His best laid plans had finally worked as Illinois made their first Rose Bowl since 1983. The Illini got their second BCS bowl bid this decade, tying Iowa. I know, I know that sentence is utterly unbelievable, but trust me it’s true. However, just like in ’01 when the Ron Turner led Illini qualified for the Sugar Bowl, Illinois got EMBARASSED on New Year’s Day. It was another dark day.

And how did Illinois build off the momentum of a 9-4 campaign? By going 5-7 the following season. ’08 was low-lighted by an embarrassing loss to Western Michigan before a crowd of like 6,000 people in Detroit. In an era where ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY goes to a bowl game, Illinois hasn’t been to back-to-back bowl games since ’91-’92.

How is that even remotely possible for a team that plays in a power conference?

The Zooker is back for another year even though he REALLY should have been canned after last year’s dismal 3-9 showing; a year in which numerous experts predicted Illinois to finish third or fourth in the Big Ten. I knew better, I picked them seventh, but that was STILL too optimistic.

How can you ever trust an optimistic pre-season forecast for an Illini football team ever again? The state doesn’t have enough money to buy Zook out of his contract, meaning our hope -what little of it that we have left- is years down the road.  Hopefully, his successor will do the right thing: schedule cupcakes, beat them down, and get the program’s confidence back up so they can actually squeak out a few 6+ win seasons in a row, and then we can stop referring to every good Illini campaign as “that fluke season a few years ago.”

Of course, I know that’s an extremely sunny forecast. Because I also thought Turner would use the boost of the ’01 season, combined with the Chicago Bears playing in his home stadium during 2002, as the perfect springboard for the program recruiting onto itself. And everything would change for the better. But Turner recruited division III level talent on defense and everywhere on offense outside of the tailback position.

At least Cub fans have that whole solidarity, safety in numbers thing going for them. They have each other to lean on in during their hopeless existence from April-September.  You know who Cub fans are because they never stop telling you. They make stupid documentaries, write cheesy books, and record awful music that reminds you they’re Cub fans. Then they stumble around and puke on the sidewalks in your neighborhood. Seriously, Cub fans, shot the f— up! You’ve produced enough cultural crap already. Even your mother is sick of you talking about how much you love the Cubs.

As for Illini fans, I guess they have basketball season. And these days basketball season seems to start in October, or maybe even September.

But all is not lost, right? The Atlanta Braves won a World Series, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won a game when it was below 42 degrees, and the Denver Broncos won a Super Bowl. The Illini won two national titles in the 1920s (I’m sure national championships were a totally different animal and had a completely different name back then) and the Cubs have a date that we’re all sick of hearing for the kajillionth time.

Well, maybe it really is hopeless for both of them. I’ll start believing after the Buffalo Bills win a Super Bowl.

Paul M. Banks is Founder/President of The Sports Bank.net, an Upper Midwest sports webzine. He’s also a member of the Football Writers Association of America, the United States Basketball Writers Association and a sports writer for the Washington Times.com Communities and Walter Football.com

Look Selection Committee! Another away win against a quality opponent!

After hearing for weeks that the Fighting Illini only had to win one more game against a quality opponent to seal their NCAA tournament berth, it’s become a habit of mine to wonder how each successive game impacts their ability to move off the proverbial bubble.  Well surely their convincing 76-66 win over the Stony Brook Seawolves in a raucous Stony Brook Arena would have vaulted them ahead of say Florida or Utah State.

Who cares that Stony Brook’s RPI was a dismal 143? That took guts to get booted out of their own stadium by French Canadian clowns and hit the road as a #1 seed.

Next up on Monday:

Illinois @ Kent State, 22-9, 46 RPI. Must be a Monster Truck Rally at Assembly Hall that day.

The f$%&ing selection committee can’t seem to get anything right.  Those idiots in their ivory tower stare at computers all damn weekend for one weekend a year and then make horrible decisions.  Florida?  Really?  Florida?  And Utah State?  How do they justify putting Minnesota in over Illinois, when Illinois finished better in the Big Ten?

Okay okay.  That was my initial reaction.  The reality is that Minnesota earned their way in by playing as well or better than the Illini in the tourney while adding a win in Champaign to their resume late in the season.  Utah State and Florida did not deserve to be there, but Illinois really hurt themselves by losing 5 of 6 down the stretch; essentially melting down when the eyes of the college basketball world were upon them the last few weeks of the season.  So if the selection committee isn’t to blame, then who is?

Maybe Bruce Weber shouldn’t get a pass, as the team took the floor night in and night out looking less than motivated.

McCamey, the supposed leader of the team, definitely deserves some share of the blame.  His atrocious defense and lack of any real leadership qualities besides a decent jump shot and streaky passing skills were a problem.

Davis and Tisdale?  I would have to say that one of my worst moments of the season was a few weeks ago when the Illini were on national television and I heard Steve Lavin explain how the Illini big men play “more of a European style of basketball”.  Ouch.  One big man like that can be effective, but two?  Who will rebound?  No one apparently, as the Illini got beat on the offensive glass all season long.

I will tell you one thing that deserves no blame at all, but instead a round of applause: The Illini home crowd.  Game in and game out, even when the team did not show any heart, Assembly Hall was jumping with crazy passionate fans ready to go balls out for their team.  They deserve a lot of credit, and possibly an apology from the entire team.  Not every team has that kind of support, there were a lot of road games this year where the Illini looked up and saw empty arenas.  Not in Champaign.

I’m not going to follow the Illini’s “miracle” run in the NIT this year, but there is some Illini news that might cheer you up.  One of our top recruits coming in next year, the 7-foot Meyers Leonard, led his high school team to a state championship.  Here is a beautiful highlight of him putting the ball on the floor and throwing down a nasty dunk from his Illinois state championship run:

He better not be “European-Style”. We already have two of those.

By Paul M. Banks, President of The Sports Bank.net

Regarding college basketball in the state of Illinois, it is the worst of times. And it’s again the worst of times. We may get zero teams in the NCAA tournament. And it’s all over from the Wisconsin border to the edge of the state that neighbors Kentucky. SIU was on the national stage for much of the 2000s, today they’re irrelevant. DePaul has been a joke for decades. Chicago St. is quite possibly the worst team in all of Division I. Loyola and UIC bring nothing of significance to the table; ditto for all the remaining direction schools. But two schools, Illinois and Northwestern, spent a lot of time this season within field of 65 tournament bracket projections. Not so much anymore.

In February, both Illinois and Northwestern had a very clear map into the NCAA tournament. Both of Chicago’s Big 10 teams had a route that seemed very doable given what he already saw in their body of work. Both failed miserably, and now each will have to run the table in the big ten tournament to qualify for the big dance. Good luck with that. So whose collapse was a bigger overall letdown?

Prosecuting the Illini

Ok, so you beat Michigan State, a team that’s owned you the past three years, and win at the Kohl Center where nobody does…but then lose 5/6 down the stretch? You achieved the marquee wins needed to balance out your dreadful pre-conference losses, only to throw it all away by refusing to play offense in home losses to Minnesota and Wisconsin.

You get firmly into the tourney picture, then give up when it matters most. The home loss to Wisconsin where the inmates ran the asylum was embarrassing, but not quite as embarrassing as putting up 14 in the first half to a team that hasn’t beaten you in your building in like 30 years. Quite pathetic, but let’s not forget the Ohio St. heartbreak on Valentine’s Day. Yes, you can define a heart-breaker as a game that’s over within the first five minutes. It was the worst loss at Assembly Hall since the same year the venue hosted an Elvis Presley concert; quite heartbreaking.

Much of the blame goes on Bruce Weber, because his players folded faster than Superman on laundry day. Take the curious case of Mike Davis, who matured in reverse this season. After a breakout sophomore year, he took a giant step backwards this season. Bruce believed in mid-season that Davis didn’t practice hard enough. Take a look at Davis’ results in the biggest games the illini had to have: lots of 4-13, 3-9, 4-15 type FGM-FGA. And what makes those numbers even more pathetic is the fact those misses includes lots of bunnies, cheapies, and “high percentage shots.”

McCamey isn’t a perfect player, but he is second in the nation in assists. Maybe he’d be first if Davis could consistently finish. This team peaked on February 9th, when they were 17-8.

Prosecuting the Northwestern Wildcats

When you lose twice to Penn St. (a team that started 0-12 in Big Ten play), not to mention Indiana and Iowa, therefore completing your entire set of crunch time losses to the league’s three bottom feeders, it’s hard to imagine a collapse much worse than that. Northwestern had a scheduling quirk which might explain. A front-loaded conference schedule probably demoralized them. All the tough teams came near the start, and we reasonably believed they could fix everything down the stretch when the cakewalk portion kicked in.

Instead the results were devastating. Playing without their best player Kevin Coble, NU got off to a 13-1 start somehow. It looked like the Ewing Theory was at work again. The Cats achieved their first national ranking in 40 YEARS!!! And set a new school record for single season wins. Of course, that 19 win season, the new program benchmark, comes with a qualifier.

I’ll use an example from my own life. In high school I dated both co-captains of the pom pon squad. (my status as a 6th string DB/9th string RB had benefits) but all kidding aside, that is a fact. Just like NU setting a new school record for wins is a fact. Of course, I should also tell you that both relationships with the pom pon girls ended quickly, without getting past first base with either of them. And neither one was exactly scorching hot to begin with. Back to Northwestern basketball history, and its zero total NCAA appearances, two conference titles and one NIT tournament win. As Talking Heads once said, “facts all come with points of view. Facts are never what they seem to be.”

Of their 19 wins this season, only one was of the signature variety: Purdue ranked #6 at the time. The Cats peaked on February 8th when they were 16-7, before going 3-5 in their final eight. Despite just one of those last 8 coming against a ranked team.

The Verdict

This Illini team ended up about as likable as Al Qaeda; or the ’04 Chicago Cubs. Following/liking this team is bad for your mental health, because they haven’t just been bipolar along the course of the season, they’re bipolar within every half of every game. Take a close look at the four meetings with their Hoosier state rivals. In the four games against Indiana and Purdue, you’ll see 8-10 minute stretches in which they looked like a Final Four team, immediately followed by 8-10 minute stretches where they would have trouble beating Chicago St.

Illinois had an advantage NU didn’t, their conference schedule was soft early on, letting them build momentum and confidence. In mid-February, it looked like they had done exactly that. Then again their signature wins came against teams missing their best player (MSU-Kalin Lucas) and second best player (Wisconsin-Jon Leuer) so maybe these wins weren’t so special.

RE: Northwestern, they lost to MUCH worse competition than Illinois, and what they let slip away is worse because it meant so much more. The first NCAA tourney berth in school history would have been a magical story, attracting national media attention like the 1995 football Wildcats’ Rose Bowl run. These Cats simply choked up a hairball under that pressure. A tourney berth at NU is history, at Illinois it’s just routine.

Usually. The Illini didn’t lose as much, but letting your RPI slip way down into the 70s and 80s during March is just plain unacceptable in Champaign. And Illinois was the only mediocre-or-better team in the conference that didn’t lose a key player for key stretches of the season. Wisconsin, Ohio State, Minnesota, Michigan State, Purdue: all lost their best player (or a key starter) for a few games. The Illini stayed healthy everywhere except inside their own heads. And squandered their talent, luck and resources.

The orange and blue should be used to winning in pressure games now. And Northwestern went this entire season without their best player in Kevin Coble, and still won more games than Illinois, even though NU went 2-8 on the road this season. So I have to go a bit easier on them.

Bigger collapse=Illinois!

Paul M. Banks is Founder/President of The Sports Bank.net, an Upper Midwest sports webzine. He’s also a member of the Football Writers Association of America, the United States Basketball Writers Association and a sports writer for the Washington Times.com Communities and Walter Football.com

So this Illini team is for real.  I mean don’t get me wrong, they are about as inconsistent as they come, but they can legitimately beat good teams.  All “buts” aside (I know Kalin Lucas was out and the win came at home, but MSU is still is a top 5 team in the country, or was…), the win over Michigan State put the Illini on the map.  It was one of those games that can be the turning point in a season, and the Illini rose to the challenge.  With Wisconsin, OSU, and Purdue coming up back-to-back-to-back on the schedule, a loss here may have started a slide that would drop the Illini to 7-7 in the Big Ten and the schedule isn’t exactly a cakewalk after that either.  Instead, they sit at 8-3 with a signature win against a top team in the country.

Now that is all great, but what will it really mean come tournament time?  Can the Illini make noise?  The inconsistencies have been a problem all season, and they are a result of the team’s soft and inconsistent front court as well as a green backcourt.  So how could a team with two skinny forward/centers and diaper dandies on the perimeter go deep into the tourney?  Demetri McCamey is how.  Until this season, he has been a player who took terrible shots, had a bad assist/turnover ratio, and seemed more focused on his one-on-one moves than on helping the team win.  While he still takes awful shots (and I mean awful), somehow the shots are going in.  His ability is unquestionable, but can he lead?  Can he make his teammates believe in him?

McCamey is frustrating to watch at times, and Bruce Weber knows it better than anyone.  As Weber revealed in an interview early this season:

“If you study him over the course of time, he has very good games and a tendency not to be real consistent, this goes back way to high school and AAU and that’s where he’s got to mature. He has the big one and then average, average. He needs to be more consistent if we’re going to be a very good team because he can do things that other people can’t do.”

McCamey seems to have turned that corner though, eliminating the terrible games and minimizing his own mistakes.  Will it be enough to carry a team with 3 freshman getting big minutes and a starting frontcourt that can’t seem to get a rebound for long stretches?  It’s tough to tell at this point, but you can be damn sure that if he isn’t clicking, this team will be losing in the first round, no matter how high a seed they get.

After what seems like an eternity, the Chicago Bulls will finally be sending someone to the 2010 All-Star game in Dallas!!  Yahoo Sports reports:

Point guards Deron Williams of Utah, Chicago’s Derrick Rose and Boston’s Rajon Rondo will make their All-Star Game debuts next month in Dallas, sources said Thursday.

Williams, Rondo and Rose top the list of reserves chosen by the league’s coaches to participate in the Feb. 14 game at Cowboys Stadium. The names won’t be made official until Thursday night, but Yahoo! Sports has obtained the list of reserves.

Besides Rondo and Rose, the East roster includes Boston’s Paul Pierce, Toronto’s Chris Bosh, Charlotte’s Gerald Wallace and Atlanta’s Joe Johnson and Al Horford.

The West reserves are the New Orleans’ Chris Paul, the Lakers’ Pau Gasol, Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant, Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki, Memphis’ Zach Randolph and Portland’s Brandon Roy.

This is great news, not just for Bulls fans, but also for Illini fans!  Deron deserves his first all star appearance, and for the first time in a long time I am happy about something with the Bulls (no, I don’t care about this latest winning streak because they still have VDN on the bench).

Champaign’s finest sports coverage brought to you by Joe Kutsunis from Hail to the Orange:

Its not every day you can say the Illini are leading in the Big Ten title race, (unless of course you are talking about the three titles the Illini earned early on this decade) but that’s exactly where our hard fought scrappers find themselves this weekend. The Illini and MSU will meet on Saturday in East Lansing, the winner of which will be 5-0 and have firm control over the Big Ten. Well, maybe. The Illini are 4-0 over the four worst teams in the Big Ten, and enter into the meat grinder over the next two games with #7 MSU and #6 Purdue.

Though it isn’t as though the Illini were sure winners in their last several Big Ten contests. Aside from their easy win over sad-sack Iowa, the Illini have either played its opponents into overtime, or played in games that came down to the wire in regulation. Saturday’s six point come from behind win at Indiana and Tuesday night’s single point victory are evidence that the Illini have not exactly been the model of consistency this season, but for the most part they have been just good enough to win lately. In those two wins the Illini have been led by their Juniors Mike Tisdale and  Demetri McCamey. Against Penn State the two accounted for 41 of the Illini’s 54 points and played 37 minutes a piece. While Tisdale also salted the victory in Bloomington away with his stellar free throw shooting. To say the least, the Illini would not be 4-0 without the play of these two.

The Illini are going to need a few more quality wins in order to make a real case for the NCAA tournament, and their next two games could go a long way in making that case, we will see what this team is really made of after facing the top two teams in the conference.

In football news, fan unfavorite and recently demoted defensive assistant coach Curt Mallory has accepted an offer to be the defensive coordinator at Akron this week leaving the Illini in need of a new defensive backs coach, and without one of the coaches that Zook has had on staff since the beginning.

This week also marked a brief period in which Illini fans hoped against all hope that the #1 wide receiver prospect in the nation Proviso West’s Kyle Prater would reconsider his commitment to USC and come home to Illinois. Well that hope finally died yesterday as news of Lane Kiffin being hired in Los Angeles convinced Prater that USC really was the place for him, Sorry Illini fans, it was not to be.

Check in next week, and apparently every week for the best outsourced Illini coverage in the business. Also you can visit my own humble website Hail to the Orange for more Illini coverage and general childishness.

Sure some of this top ten list are positive things.  Obama is from Illinois, and of course the White Sox winning it all in 2005 was fun (for half of Chicago at least).  The rest? Meh, not so much.  This list was released by the AP titled “Top Stories of the Decade for Illinois”.  Enjoy:

1. Obama’s Election
2. Blagojevich’s Indictment
3. Ryan Goes To Prison
4. Ryan Halts Executions
5. NIU Shootings
6. Recession
7. White Sox Win 2005 World Series
8. E2 Night Club Stampede
9. 2009 Budget Meltdown
10. April 2004 Utica Tornado

Makes you proud, doesn’t it?

h/t: Chicagoist via CBS2Chicago

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.

I’m not sure if it’s corn, but I am sure this is a lot of effort to show love for your team.  I don’t know if anyone has told the owners of this farm in Spring Grove, Illinois, but the Bears suck.  Making that maze this season is like Rule 5 Draftee buying Bulls season tickets that one year in the last five the Bulls didn’t win at least 40 games (yeah that happened; ouch).

As crazy as it is you have to give respect to someone for showing that much devotion to their team.  Or have them committed.  Either way.

***UPDATE: I started zooming out on the Google Maps and just north of the Bears maze I stumbled on an Illini one!  You would have to think it was the same person who did it.  Unless of course this is some farm version of “keeping up with the Joneses”.

I’ll keep looking until I find the Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, and Blackhawks mazes.  Don’t wait up.

In a huge blow to the Illini defense, junior linebacker Martez Wilson will miss the remainder of the season with a neck injury.  A five-star prospect in 2007, Wilson played for the Illini right away and many expected him to break out in a major way this season. 

The injury, a herniated disk requiring surgery, has to be especially devastating for Wilson after he worked his way back into the starting lineup following an incident at a bar in the winter where Wilson sustained multiple stab wounds.  The injury occurred in the first week against Mizzou and Ian Thomas filled in for the win against Illinois State last week. 

Thomas will likely start again next week when the Illini travel to Ohio State.  The extra week to prepare should help out the sophomore, but the defense as a whole will be tested against dual-threat sophomore Terrelle Pryor. 

This is tough for Wilson and you have to feel for him coming off the incident over the off-season.  At least this will give some young players needed experience, but it’s another bombshell in a season off to a very rough start.

What an awful start for an Illinois team I thought would be near the top of the conference.  It’s a familiar formula in the Big Ten: young players show promise, struggle, then put it together in their senior season.  I thought Juice would be ready to lead his team to a great season and perhaps sniff another BCS berth. 

Roses are the last smell emanating from Champaign.  The offense couldn’t move the ball and the defense looked like the only unit in the Big Ten that the awful Illini attack could possibly move the ball against. Some thoughts:

• While the Zookster impressed early as the Illini head coach and continues to recruit well, a performance like the one he oversaw Saturday does not do much to debunk the idea that he is a subpar game coach. I’m not saying we should be buying up FireRonZook.com–I think some jort-wearing Florida slappies have it already anyway–but any hyperbole about Zook that doesn’t have to do with the Red Bull flowing through his veins will probably stop.
• How much worse would Illinois have been against the pass if Zook moved, say, and offensive guard to play safety?  I mean, certainly no offensive guard did his job well, but the safety play was absolutely embarrassing.  All players in the defensive backfield took worse angles than a Tecmo Super Bowl defender chasing Bo Jackson.  That should be good news when the Illini face mobile QBs Pryor and Clark in the next few weeks. 
• I don’t think the Illini have a servicable linebacker outside of Wilson, and it remains to be seen just how far above “servicable” Martez really is. 
• Looking back at the game, the body language from the Illini was very distrurbing.  Sure, you’re getting schooled by a team that lost virtually all of its skill players and is breaking in a new quarterback to the tune of 300+ yards and three scores, but there was no fight. 

So is there any good news?

Well, the Illini were missing Arrelious Benn and Jason Ford for significant portions of the game (Benn for basically the entire game), and when they get back, the offense immediately improves.  Sophomores Troy Pollard and Mikel Leshoure ran the ball pretty well in Ford’s absence.  Finally, Illinois State is coming to town next week and not a decent opponent.  Time to get things together and rebound.

For two days the Big Ten football coaches and three players from each team gather in Chicago for Big Ten Media Days.  From what I could tell, this year’s event was pretty bland (are they ever exciting?), but I guess that’s what you get when Lane Kiffin doesn’t coach in your conference.  

So what did we learn coming out of the event?

• Ron Zook broke his regiment of water skiing and small child eating to show up, which was nice.  Zook actually spent a lot of time talking discipline and off the field issues, which I guess is disturbing.  Apparently a couple of bars are off limits to players around campus (any guesses?) and they have drafted “character teams” so either Zook is very proactive in attacking character issues, or there are some serious ones.  He also jokingly–or not so much–chided the media for picking Terrelle Pryor as preseason Big Ten Offensive POY.  Good for him.  Way to base the distinction on hype rather than, you know, the guy who won the actual Offensive POY award last year (Clark). 
• Joe Pa is still living and stuff, and he was there cracking jokes and drawing out plays on tablecloths about how they used to run the spread in the 1840′s 1940′s.  A couple years ago I thought he should just hang it up, but now I hope he lives/coaches forever.  Not because of the diagrams, just because I changed my mind. 
• So yeah, Terrelle Pryor was preseason POY for offense and Greg Jones, a linebacker from MSU, got the honor on defense.  Jones is a solid choice and if you hadn’t heard of him, try to watch him play this year.  He will only be a junior, but is a heck of a talent.  Pryor…well, it’s no secret I don’t like him.  You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think Todd Boekmann could have done just as well, if not better for the Buckeyes last year.  It’s not that hard to lob deep balls up to future pros when the other team has eight or nine in the box to stop your star running back.  Pryor can run and he throws a nice bomb, but his intermediate passing game will need to improve if he wants to live up to this hype. 
• The top three teams as voted by the media will be OSU, PSU, and MSU.  Well there’s no surprise there…wait, MSU?  This is a team that was actually outgained by its opponents last year, and loses it’s only offensive star in Javon Ringer.  The QB situation should be addition by subtraction with Hoyer out and Cousins or Nichol in, but come on.  The best thing the Spartans have going for them this year is that they miss Ohio State and Dantonio has been better at avoiding embarrassing losses in games they should win easily.  I like Illinois and Iowa over the Spartans. 
• In terms of the other coaches, Dantonio and Tressel were unbelievably boring, Bielema made some lame excuse about why UW plays cupcakes every year, Rodriguez said his team was on track to improve, but he didn’t seem to want to be there, and Pat Fitzgerald continues to look like the perfect guy to lead Northwestern and I mean that in a good way. 

Plenty more Illini coverage will be coming, along with previews for each team before the season gets started in September.  You can rejoice football fans, the long month of July is almost over.

Other than the fact that we know Western Kentucky has a sweet mascot, we really don’t know much else.  We also know they won a couple games in the Big Dance last year and bring back a hand-full of those players.  But what are they about this year and how do they stack up against the Illini? In full disclosure I have WKU upsetting the Illini in my bracket right now, let’s see if this preview changes my mind.

The Western Kentucky team looks a lot different this year.  They have a new coach in Ken McDonald, an assistant at Texas last year, and McDonald has changed to a more up-tempo feel for the Hilltoppers.  The key for Illinois will be to get out and stop WKU in transition.  They love to run and get easy buckets, but this is something Illinois has had success in stopping this season, in particular when they played Missouri.

Western Kentucky can score the basketball though.  They average 71.8 points per game, with Illinois giving up only 56.6 per game.  Guards A.J. Slaughter and Orlando Mendez-Valdez got some tournament experience last year, so you know they won’t be rattled by the pressure defense from the Illini.

With Slaughter and Mendez-Valdez in the backcourt and Steffphon Pettigrew (ff or ph make up your mind!) and Sergio Kerusch in the frontcourt, Western Kentucky is a favorite of many to upset the Illini minues Chester Frazier.  Sure, the Illini are worse without their leader, but they’re still great defensively with balanced scoring.

I think the Illini can slow down Western Kentucky on the break, but if they’re having one of their bad offensive nights, 38-33 night for example, they won’t win.  The advantage Illinois must exploit is on the inside.  The Hilltoppers’ biggest player is 6-9 and their best players are in the 1-4 spots.  Mike Tisdale can carry this team to victory, and if he can establish himself inside early, it will open things up for McCamey, Meacham, and others on the outside.

I don’t think my mind has been changed to pick Illinois, but I’m definitely on the fence.  WKU just doesn’t seem like the same team as last year, but they can run.  If Illinois goes through a couple of their signature droughts, the Hilltoppers will make them pay running off of misses.  Illinois has to make a conscious effort to enter the post and crash the boards to win.  I’ll go homer with my 68-64 prediction for the Illini.

The game is tonight at about 8:55 ct.