Orange Krush
Watched one of the best basketball games I have seen in a long time last night. Illini jump out to an early lead at Purdue, Boilermakers battle back to tie it and then go ahead, both teams go back and forth the whole game and eventually take it to overtime. More battling in OT, Purdue hits a tough 3 to tie it with 10 seconds left. Finally, Luther Head takes it up to half court and finds Roger underneath the basket, who misses the shot, but then Luther races down there to follow it up with the winning basket. Final result: Illinois wins its 9th straight game and clinches at least a share of of the Big Ten title. Life is good for Illini fans.
Some thoughts:
- I don't know if it's just because Purdue doesn't matchup well, but man... Augustine was all over the place last night on the offensive glass. If he can play like that come tournament time, this team is gonna be awesome.
- It sucks when we lose the big name recruits like Villenueva or Livingston, but the good part about it is that we get guys who stay for more than a year or two and the fans can watch them develop into quality players. Already looking ahead to next season, we could be bringing back the entire starting lineup: Luther Head and Roger Powell as seniors, and Augustine, Dee Brown, and Deron Williams as juniors.
- I have no idea how Deron got so much better this year, but no complaints here. Dee, on the other hand... needs to stop hanging out in the Union taking pictures with random people and start practicing some more free throws.
- I was just thinking the other day about how throughout this winning streak, we haven't had much experience with really close games going down to the wire, and that could hurt us in the tournaments. Then we see them fight out a tough overtime game and come away with a win at Purdue. Of course I'd still rather see them win every game by a comfortable margin, but at least they showed that they can take the close ones too.
- Not sure if I like Bruce Weber's offense yet. It's fine to pass the ball around for 25 seconds every possession if you're in the lead, but what happens if you fall behind? Seems like we wouldn't do that well in games when we have to play catchup.
- Austin Parkinson looks like Ben Stiller. Not just in his features, but facial expressions and movements too.
- What happened to McBride33? He used to come in and hit a bunch of threes earlier in the season, but now you barely hear his name or even notice when he's in the game.
- Let's play some Illini Starcraft...
- If Nick Smith couldn't hit free throws and open jumpers, he'd be the most worthless 7'2" player ever.
*****
I watched some of American Idol's episode a few days ago when they brought back the losers. Of course, they had William Hung do "She Bangs" again. The surprising thing is, when you put a couple background dancers around him, and play the music really loud, he's not nearly as horrible. Still pretty bad, but give him some real dance moves and he'd probably at least be a better entertainer (and less irritating) than some of the crap that's out there, say, Enfreakay Iglesias for example.
