What more is there to say about the Illini basketball season?  The NW game definitely summed up the season.  Pretty well.  Looks like the 3-pt defense was still hung over from the Missouri game, giving up open three's and leading to an early deficit.  Also prevalent again, is our penchant to start the game slow.  This season has definitely been a tale of two teams

.

However, it looks like like Bruce made all the adjustments he needed to tonight.    Let's go over the key points I took from this game:

Yanking Brandon Paul for Bill Cole (nice shooting game, sir) after giving up a few open three's led to the defensive turnovers on 2 of the next 3 possessions.  I love BP but he needs to get his sh*t together defensively.

Great game, Bill Cole.

Ed Hightower sucks.

Mike Tisdale's career game.  Scoring the Illini's first 2809 points and not missing a shot for as long as I can remember.  It's good to see him heed Weber's word to be more aggressive.

Mike Davis got his usual double-double in convincing, and early fashion.  He was huge for us in overtime.

I have a feeling every team is going to play the trap against us for the rest of the year.  McCamey needs to be more aggressive in breaking the half court trap.  When he finally did, it lead to Cole's open 3 and an easy lay-up too.  The lolly-gagging and lob/bounce passes have given up at least 3 breakaway layups for the other team this year.

Ed Hightower sure looks funny when he makes calls.

This team is still dependent on the play of freshmen and defense.  Early in the game, BP struggled with his defense, and his man hit the open 3.  Him and DJ never found their groove offensively.  Come second half and something just clicked.  I don't know if their defense improved or not, but NW's 3's stopped going in.  BP and DJ hit their 3's and all of a sudden we had the lead back.

One area of concern though is our last minute play execution.  DJ lolly-gagging for 7 seconds was enough to give Weber a heart attack on the sidelines and call a time out.  So two-time outs and 14 seconds later what happens?  A turnover and a near-miraculous half-court shot by NW.  What a way to lose.

This team needs an emotional leader.  BAD.  I thought Keller could be the guy.  We just looked flat near the end of the game.  Didn't have that refuse-to-lose attitude we had last year in Chet.  Luckily we found that desire in overtime.

NO MORE NEUTRAL SITE GAMES.  Oh wait..  Dammit.