It’s Friday morning of the Big Ten Tournament. In the past decade, your favorite team would usually be home by now. Sometimes, its coach has already been fired.
In Year One of the Underwood regime, the B1G held its tournament at Madison Square Garden, forcing the schedule forward a week because the Big East books Selection Sunday every year. Thus, despite 31 points from Good Kipper, Illinois’s season was done before the month of March began.
Willie Geist didn’t even attend that game, as far as I know. That’s how dark things were for Illini basketball.
It’s better now.
Today on Morning Joe, Willie picked Illinois to win it all. Not just the B1G. Gene Robinson took Michigan, and Jon Lemire wondered about Gonzaga’s annual choking act.
For you young-ins, this is what Illini basketball is supposed to be — talked about.
Meanwhile, in the rolling hollers of southern Indiana, birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan, inbred Hoosiers are deciding how to kill Archie Miller.
Another tip for you young-ins: Indiana basketball was a thing, way back even before Illini basketball was last relevant. Old-timers remember an era when an angry old ape bullied and browbeat his way to three national championships. Enough of these old folks haven’t succumbed to Alzheimer’s & still have enough money and anger to extort an entire Athletics Administration. Thus, the Archie deathwatch is upon us.
They’re also cosplay fantasists, who dress up in candy cane pants and daydream that other white people want to coach their team.
You almost want to root for Steve Pikiell and Rutgers today, in thanks for putting IU in this position, where they must choose to pay $10M for 2017’s brightest up-and-comer to not coach their basketball team.
There are a couple of people on that list who aren’t completely unrealistic. Thad Matta (also rumored for Penn State) seems ideal. He grew up a Hoosiers fan, and he might not mind getting shitcanned in four years. But that’s if he’s healthy enough to get back in the game.
Chris Beard already chose Lubbock over Las Vegas because it’s home and he has family there. If IU can scrape $7 million x 10 into a contract offer, maybe he’d leave. It doesn’t seem risky financially, just for future piece of mind. Who really, when you get right down to it, enjoys being hanged in effigy?
Ah, the sun just came out. It’s another warm March day here in the ECI. Dos Mamba & SuperKofi are going to play basketball tonight. If they lose, they’ll still be a #1 seed. But they won’t lose.
We’ve waited for this, so long that you’re having to explain your tears to people who weren’t even born last time Illinois was good at basketball, and are now clamoring for a learner’s permit.
It’s a good time to be alive. And Indiana sucks.
