Sunday was just one of those games that needs to be forgotten.  Illinois never showed up, and in return they got a severe butt kickin’.  All we can hope for is they use this 4-5 days to recover from Sunday’s horrendous showing and get themselves back in gear for what’s sure to be a tough game at Purdue.  Hopefully Illinois can figure out how to tighten up the defense and put the ball in the hoop.  They were unable to do both against the Buckeyes and got crushed.  I was delighted to see Illinois getting some recognition in the AP poll.  It looks like the media is looking more at the wins vs. Michigan State and at Wisconsin and less at the embarrassment vs. Ohio State.  I still feel if we go to Purdue and loss the same way we lost to Ohio State, we will drop like a rock and almost completely cancel what was accomplished with those two big wins.  Illinois is only #70 in the RPI, which isn’t too great.  The Illini are 4-5 vs. the RPI top 50, which is good, but they’re 1-4 vs. the RPI 51-100, which is bad.  With were they’re at, they can still be considered a bubble team.  They got to find a way to get to 20 wins, and beating another ranked team wouldn’t hurt either.

Time to update the prediction standings.  Congrats to dave1956, who was the only one who predicted Ohio State to beat Illinois at the Hall.  Ohio State won 72-53 (it was that close?), so the Buckeyes are +19 in the real score difference.  Here’s how it looks after 17 games predicted.

NAME                                                 W                    L                      RSDT*

Tom Young (ILL 79-74)                     13                    4                         138

Reillini (ILL 79-76)                            11                    6                         162

dave1956 (OSU 77-70)                      10                    6                         152

Jshaw (ILL 73-68)                              10                    6                         170

jweeks (ILL 78-74)                             9                     7                          169

PeterE (DNP)                                     2                     2                           39

*- Real Score Difference Total

Looking ahead to Saturday…

My Prediction

#4 PURDUE 79       ILLINOIS 68

Even if Illinois beat Ohio State and was working on a six game winning streak and three in a row against ranked teams, I wasn’t going to pick Illinois to win this game.  The only blemish on Purdue’s record is a little three game blip where they lost at Wisconsin, vs. Ohio State when they had Even Turner, and @ Northwestern.  The Northwestern loss can be looked at as their only bad loss.  This team is number four for a reason.  They score close to 75 points a game, they make close to 75 percent of their free throws.  They got three players averaging 15 points or more, and they have Decatur product Lewis Jackson back in the lineup.  He’s started to see increasing minutes and that in return has led to increased production.  His last game against Iowa, he set season highs in minutes, points, and assists.  It was also his first game of the year without a turnover.  If he starts clicking, this team went from dangerous to deadly.  Against Illinois, they will be in good shape.  I would still like to see one more signature win on order to further forget about that awful performance in the non-conference portion of the season.  Unfortunately, this won’t be the game or the place. 

In a bracket updated yesterday, Joe Lunardi of ESPN has Illinois as a #8 seed playing Georgia Tech, a team that hasn’t played that well in conference play, but benefits from it’s strength of schedule.  A #8 seed would be tough because a win would mean a match up against a #1, but at this point getting in the Big Dance any way possible would be great. 

What do you guys predict for Saturday?  Will Purdue continue looking like the #4 team in the country, or will Illinois rediscover the magic they used to win in Badgerland?  Post you’re thoughts below.  Also, if you have a sleeper team in the NCAA tournament, who is it?  Who do you think can sneak up on a Kansas or a Kentucky and knock them out?  My under the radar team is Cornell.  This team has a lot of senior leadership and it’s these types of teams that can pull the upset on a big stage. 

Talk to you guys soon.

I-L-L…