Saturday, December 04, 2004
THE FIGHTING ILLINI
How good are the Illinois Fighting Illini, who defeated Arkansas 72-60 in Little Rock earlier today?
They're so good that head coach Bruce Weber can get away with wearing a hideous orange jacket this past Wednesday against Wake Forest. I was expecting him to come out to mid-court and announce to the crowd, "it's time to play Tic Tac Dough!". The jacket reminded me of Wink Martindale, who's a legend in his own right. Yes, I watched a ton of game shows growing up. Thank you, USA Network.
Illinois will probably be ranked #1 in the polls next week. But I don't think they'll stay there for too long. There's at least 8 teams this season that I believe will be ranked #1. College basketball is very wide open this season. But the thing is, the polls really don't mean a damn thing in college basketball. It's all about the NCAA Tournament. (No, I don't plan on arguing for a college football playoff today.)
One more thing, if you did catch the Illinois-Arkansas game on ESPN today, you may have noticed the court. That's not the University of Arkansas' court. Alltel Arena is located in North Little Rock and is home to the University of Arkansas-Little Rock (UALR) Trojans of the Sun Belt Conference. Personally, if Arkansas is going to play at a so-called neutral site (Alltel Arena wasn't a neutral site IMO), at least put a Razorback logo somewhere on the court or on the press row table. A game of this caliber (Big Ten vs SEC) didn't deserve to be played on a Sun Belt Conference court. I'm not bashing the Sun Belt at all, because I'll be transferring to a Sun Belt school next fall.
Alltel Arena is a nice facility. I've been to two events at the venue, an Arkansas Twisters game in 2003 (Arena Football 2) and the Metallica/Godsmack concert back in May. UALR will play in a new on-campus arena next fall.
I'll have a college football post later tonight, sometime around 8-8:30 p.m. Pacific. That's 10-10:30 Central for me. Be on the lookout for it if you have absolutely nothing going on tonight.
Enjoy the rest of the games today, Auburn/Tennessee, USC/UCLA, Cal/Southern Miss, and Oklahoma/Colorado. Oh, and I can't forget about Eastern Washington either, as they will take on Sam Houston State in a half hour in Cheney. Should be fun.
/ Click for main page
