The regular season come to an end, Illini at Penn State
by Joe Kutsunis on Mar 5, 2009 9:33 AM CST
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PrintWell it has finally come to the month of March and that means the regular season must come to an end. This one last road game in Pennsylvania gives the Illini another shot against an RPI Top 100 team. One last road game here at the end of the year will not matter as much for the Illini as much as it does for the Nittany Lions. The Lions are teetering on the bubble and could definitely use a win. According to Lunardi at ESPN, they are among the last 4 in. A loss to Illinois and an early exit from the tournament might keep them out of the dance.
Illinois on the other hand has its NCAA ticket pretty well punched. They only thing this team is playing for right now is a good seed. Lunardi has the Illini at a 4 seed. But a loss tonight and an early exit from the Big Ten tourney could drop the team to a less desirable number. I this team wins tonight, it maintains its position at third in the conference with a first round bye. Giving the Illini, especially given their record in the BTT a very real shot at taking the tournament and getting a conference tournament title. (I'll take whatever I can get.) But that is neither here nor there, yet.
First things first, we need to beat the Lions
Okay, so if I am writing a preview for this game does that mean I have to mentally relive the previous PSU game? Argh. What I seem to recall from that unfortunate evening is a series of good shots going brick, dumb fouls, poor rebounding, and dumb turnovers. No, I think it is best not to even think about that game, let alone think about the final score.
One thing I do remember from the last game though was the ease that the guards were able to pass the ball into the post to Tisdale. Unfortunately Tis, missed the shots that he had. I think we need to go right back to him for those open shots.Tis had a great second half against Goran Sutan and the Spartans on Sunday. I believe he should get the shot to do the same thing against Cornley or whoever guards him tonight.
Chester did a great job against Talor Battle last game, holding him to about 7 points until the very end where free throws let him get into double figures. Of course in that game the 11 points Battle scored was enough to lead all scorers.
The rest of the team is pretty well predictable. DMAC will be DMAC Mike Davis will get his points and his rebounds and Trent will be good to spot up at least two 3's in this game. I don't know why Illinois has had such problems with the Lions these past few years, but other than last years BTT game, things have not really broken our way. Maybe that will change tonight. See ya'll at the Openthread.
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PSU
My most hated “underdogs” ever. Edging out NW because we usually beat them. For some reason, we are almost always favored against PSU and almost always, we blew it. In 2005-2006 they broke our 30+ game home win streak… might I add we finished 1 game behind OSU that year for the Big Ten regular season championship…. That alone makes me not like them. Darryl Clark’s arrogance doesn’t hurt either (wrong sport I know, but still…)
Yeah . . .
so when this arena our boys will be playing in tonight (I think it’s called the Brice-Jordan Arena, or something to that effect) was opened not too long ago, my guess was that the campus-wide reaction would be . . . “What? Basketball? You mean we DO that here?!”
I hope they’ve heard of the Nitts’ basketball team by now. They’re relatively solid and at the VERY least are going to the NIT.
With that being said . . . we’ll need to ruin their Senior Night tonight, unless Illinois believes Iowa can beat PSU on Saturday (my guess? Not so much). Otherwise, there’s a good chance we get thrown into the 4-5 matchup for the BTT, and considering that large mesh of teams that may end up in the 5-spot, I’d rather play a team that had to bang around the hardwood the day before.
"The world is getting to be such a dangerous place, a man is lucky to get out of it alive." -- W.C. Fields
The other path to avoiding the 4-5 game
If MSU beats Purdue and PSU beats Iowa, there’s a three-way tie at 11-7. PSU gets the 2, you get 3, Purdue gets 4.
Y'know what that means . . .
Go get those Boilers for us, then.
(With all apologies to our good friend(s) from Purdue who are on this board as well)
"The world is getting to be such a dangerous place, a man is lucky to get out of it alive." -- W.C. Fields
inexcusable loss
How can a team like the Illini lose to Penn State in basketball? Inexcusable. Penn State is better than Northwestern, but not by much. Well, good luck in Indy at Conseco.
Josh Normand
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