Last night’s loss was awful.  We played great in the first half, but were only up by four at halftime when it could have possibly been double digits.  In the second half, the defense was worse than what we saw from Illini football.  It’s a shame because Demetri McCamey is finally playing the way I thought he could all along.  Someone else has to step up on a consistent basis.  I thought it would be Tisdale, but he transferred his ability to score into an ability to foul.  Mike Davis had a nice game, but who knows what he will do next time? 

This is obviously Bruce Weber’s fault.

He’s terrible.  He can’t get the kids to listen to him.  He preaches defense over and over again, and they don’t listen or execute.  Who cares about how good the defense was last year (and the year’s before that)?  He’s completely forgot everything about the game of basketball and Ron Gunther should fire him immediately.

I know I could do a better job.  I would not just tell these guys to focus on defense, I would really tell them to focus on it, and practice it.  I know these kids will listen to me over Weber. 

Also, since Tisdale keeps getting in foul trouble, we should just bench him.  Let Keller start and watch him throw up all of those wild shots on his way to double-digit points every game. 

And what’s wrong with the freshman?  Richardson, Paul, and Griffey are so inconsistent.  When will one of these guys step up and be John Wall?  When will one of these guys step up and become the leader of this team?  Why do they have to look like almost every other freshman in the country and struggle from time to time?  This is Weber’s fault too by the way.

And don’t get me started on recruiting.  We couldn’t get Eric Gordon because Weber messed this up.  It wasn’t the cheating Kelvin Sampson doing his cheatin’ thing.  Also, Illinois’ freshman class this year is only 14th in the country according to rivals.com.  That means 13 teams had better classes on paper.  Unacceptable.  And to make matters worse, he’s only bringing in three different four-star recruits next year.  This team is going nowhere fast.

There.  I think that covers all of the negativity I see and hear frequently with this team.  Once again, before you start spamming the comment section with thoughts about how much I suck or whatnot, remember that this was all sarcasm.  Bruce Weber is the man.  He’s a great basketball mind, and I want him as my coach moving forward.  Has it been a struggle this year?  You bet.  It’s even been frustrating at times.  However, all signs point towards things getting better.  If it doesn’t happen this year, it will happen in the future.  We just got to be a little more patient than we initially thought.

Let’s update the prediction standings.  As I expected, we were all split on last night’s game.  It was a tough one to call with Purdue struggling coming in and Illinois playing much better at home than on the road.  Unfortunately, Purdue got the best of us 84-78.  This means the real score difference was Purdue +6.  Good work by Jshaw for correctly picking the score differential.

Name                                      W                    L                      RSDT*

Tom Young (PUR 75-68)       8                     2                          79

Reillini (ILL 67-65)                  7                     3                          89

jweeks (ILL 65-64)                  7                     3                          95

Jshaw (PUR 66-60)                 7                     2                          75

dave1956 (PRU 71-66)            6                     3                          78

PeterE (ILL 60-53)                   1                     2                          34 

*- Real Score Difference Total

Illinois plays @ Northwestern Saturday at 7P

My Prediction

Northwestern 73       Illinois 70

It’s tough for me to predict a NW win against the Illini, but until the defense shapes up, these road games will continue to be harder than they already are.  Northwestern did their best New York Knick impression on Illinois last time they played when they put up 47 three pointers.  I doubt they will shoot anywhere’s near that amount again, especially since Tisdale has shown the ability to foul like it’s a religion.  Tisdale and Davis did a ton of damage against the Wildcats last time, so I expect Northwestern to attack on offense and try to knock them out of the game. 

Northwestern enters this game on a low, the same way Purdue did.  #21 Ohio State spanked the Wildcats last night, so look for Northwestern to come out running on their home floor.  Hopefully the Illini will be ready to go from the start and play loose.  This team is strange because they play loose when they’re down by 10+ points, but seem to forget what they’re doing when the game gets tight in the end.  It’s part of the learning experience, and hopefully they learned a lot from the Purdue loss.

So what do you think will happen on Saturday?  Will Illinois pull off the season sweep of the Wildcats, or will Bill Carmody and company keep the dream of making their first NCAA tournament alive?  As for the Illini, the big dance is almost a big afterthought, unless they can put a streak together.  It needs to start this Saturday.

I-L-L…