After losing five of their last six games, the Fighting Illini are in desperate need for a change in culture. No one expected that change would start in their backcourt as Wooden Award Finalist Brandon Paul would start the game on the bench as the Illini took on the Wisconsin Badgers. Sophomore Joseph Bertrand started in his place at shooting guard for Illinois. The change failed to put Illinois over the to ...

The Fighting Illini immediately shifted gears from a momentous victory against Ohio State to an 84-67 drubbing against the #8 Minnesota Golden Gophers in Champaign on Wednesday. Just when everything was starting to pick up for the Illini, they’ve once again began to skid, losing their third game in five tries, including a shaky 1-2 Big Ten start. Eight weeks into the season it’s still difficult where to peg ...

  *This is part four of a six part series previewing each Big Ten team. Part one, Monday: Nebraska, Penn State Part two, Tuesday: Northwestern, Purdue Part three, Wednesday: Iowa, Illinois Part four, Thursday: Minnesota, Wisconsin Part five, Friday: Michigan State, Michigan Part six, Saturday: Ohio State, Indiana 6. Minnesota It might be a surprise for some to see Minnesota projected to finish in the t ...

So it all comes down to Saturday. After a season of ups and downs, it all comes down to the last game of the regular season against Penn State. Although I would agree in saying that I would have rather had the Badgers lock up the Leaders division by a win over OSU, you can not argue how great the theatre of the B1G has been. I hate to say, ‘I told you so’, but after the loss to Ohio State I said specificall ...

  For the second week in a row I have dropped the ball by not posting a recap of the Wisconsin game, luckily someone has picked up my slack. There was a certain movie on Monday night about the profession of ‘bouncing’ that distracted me from writing. Honestly though, what can be said about a 62-17 win that was not already said when Patrick Swayze rips out the guy’s throat in Road House. I will also mis ...

Earlier this week I failed to uphold my bloggerly duties and post a review of the Wisconsin v. Ohio State game. There are several things that had halted me from doing that. First and foremost it landed on the Saturday night before Halloween, one of the better holidays for an adult passed the legal age of consumption. Nearly the entire house party I was at cluttered around a television to watch the Badger ga ...

I need to say something before I start this preview. I hate THE Ohio State University Buckeyes. Any time I have written ‘Hatred Power Rankings’ they have never been far from the top, mainly because they are two sport offenders. Rarely do you see a team be overtly cocky all while choking near the end quite like OSU in basketball and football. I need to get that off my chest and out of the way, do not get me ...

Regardless of geographic alliance we all remember the first time we had a sports team give us a punch in the stomach. For me that moment is easy, it was January 3rd, 1999. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Green Bay Packers in the Wild Card round of the playoffs after a Jerry Rice fumble was egregiously missed by the referee. Four plays later Terrell Owens would catch a Steve Young pass over the middle and s ...

After the buffet of blowouts last weekend, the Big Ten finally opens up conference play this weekend.  Purdue is the only idle team this week, coming at a perfect time after the Boilermakers were upset against Toledo last week. As far as the rest of these matchups, at least two of these games should prove to be wire jobs.  Wisconsin will meet  Michigan State, in what could be the best game of the day.  The ...