Fighting Illini & Boise State preview, no time for a step back now.

Mike Davis was right when he said that the Illini would have to steal two games that they were not supposed to win, the game against a ranked Clemson at LittleJohn was just such a game. A stolen win against a Gonzaga or another highly respected opponent would make up completely for Vegas.

But, this also means the Illini cannot drop anymore games to less than stellar out of conference opponents. The Illini are still 5-2 with losses to not so great teams; losing tonight to a Boise State would put the Illini exactly back where they were on Tuesday night, with a very grim record heading into Conference play. We should also not forget that counting the first half of Clemson and the second half of utah, the Illini had a streak of 4 straight halves of absolutely awful basketball.

As amazing as it was when Demetri came back into the game on Wednesday, we saw just how terrible this team can be without him around to run the offense. Demetri is going to have to stay out of foul trouble for the rest of the year, because he has become absolutely indispensable to the success of this team.

It has taken some time but Tisdale has finally come out of his shell and his playing like the scoring threat that we knew from last year. He not only scored the key points against Clemson in the closing minute, but also came away with the biggest block of the season, shutting the door on Clemson's chances to take the Illini into overtime.

Mike Davis too showed up and in a big way in the second half of Clemson. His shot is about as automatic as I have ever seen right now, but he is going to be relied upon all year as the primary rebounder for this team, if he doesn't show up inside, there is no one really that can pick up the slack.

Lastly the freshmen, this team's unknown factor. D.J. and Brandon have shown the brightest when the team is running at full speed, and when they don't have to make decisions on offense. Brandon Paul has proven that when you get a Mr Basketball from the state of Illinois on your team, you have good things to look forward to. Both of these guys played unbelievably in the second half, but were frighteningly dangerous with their hands on the ball under a full court press. The team didn't break its funk until DMAC was able to provide some stability coming down the court. Richardson and Paul are the greatest beneficiaries of the well run motion offense, and if this team has the time and poise to set them up, these freshmen are going to continue to look very good.

Because that is the biggest problem it seems for the Illini, turning the ball over, credit some of it to youth of the freshmen but some to the inability of many of the upperclassmen to react to one of their team mates being in trouble with the ball. It was their undoing in all of their troubled periods this season thus far and will more than likely be their weakness all season. When taking care of the ball, this team will be scary good this season, when not, as we have already seen, they can lose to anyone.

Oh, and we are playing Boise tonight.