Its expectation and prognostication season here in basketball land. Where hope, optimism and good feelings spring eternal. No one is in anyone's doghouse, everyone's team is "primed to make a deep run" into the NCAA, or "make a fight" out of the conference race etc etc. Everyone's recruits are on campus practicing and raising everyone's expectations and getting everyone excited. Well not me. I am totally and completely snake bitten. And I blame the football team.

I'd like to go back and visit the mid August version of me and punch him in his ruggedly handsome face. Me before football season was drunk on Phil Steele inflated  rankings and Orange Kool-aide, (honestly I was, it had Everclear in it.) Guess what Phil, the Illini are the number 1 surprise team in the nation, as they have surprised the world by fielding a completely uncompetitive team. But I digress. Setting the bar for success so high is clearly just begging to get let down, so with that in mind I have recalibrated my predictions for the basketball team in a manner that I believe will be much more reasonably attained, thus ensuring my enjoyment.

When the Illini take the court on Friday against their exhibition opponent, the Fighting Cupcakes from Paycheck A&M Missouri Southern, I am going to hope they go out there and just try their best, no pressure guys. My current projections predict no single Illini scoring more than 5 points. I know MS has good big men so I don't think we will win the boards on this one, I just want to see our guys go out there and give it the old college try.

As for the freshmen, well I think pretty highly of them. Brandon Paul was named Mr. Illinois basketball last year, so if he gets called for running up and down the court forgetting entirely to dribble, I will be a tad let down. But hey, these are just kids you know. And as for D.J. Richardson who attended the basketball factory that is Findlay Prep, I expect no more than two or three shots taken "granny style" per game. Hey this is Big Ten Basketball, we ask a lot.

And as for you Alex Legion, who made six 3 pointers in Sunday afternoon's O&B scrimmage, well I had some really really high hopes for you last year, and I got burned pretty good. So this year I am going to set my sights slightly lower, and will consider it a success every game he successfully records a minutes worth of game time.

You see I am trying to take a break from what you might call "common sense." A concept that has routinely put me at a disadvantage in life. Common sense would say, "Hey you've got your awesome front court back, and one of your best scorers in McCamey along with a great defender in JJ! Plus you've got some real talented freshman coming in that are sure to contribute right away!" But common sense is a mean mean trickster.

Common sense would say that the odds of all your established players regressing drastically and all of your awesome recruits being bitter disappointments would be highly unlikely. All I need to do is look at the 2009 Illini Football team to tell me, that common sense can be very very wrong.

Wow, this post ended up being much more of a bummer than I had originally envisioned it.

Bruce Weber Emotional report card

This Post makes Bruce feel:

An emotion we interpret as melancholy, a little bummed, and disappointed in my writing.