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History schmistory: Illini do unthinkable and take down Wisconsin in Madison

Ah you know I was just kidding right? I knew we had this game all along! You believe me right?

Bo Ryan is 66-6 in the Kohl Center, in Big Ten games, and three of those losses have come from the Illini.

But to be honest I did not have a good feeling about this game, and for the first 10 minutes of the game my fears seemed to be pretty spot on. 

But then Demetri McCamey went on one of the sickest runs of his career where, as Paul Klee pointed out, through shooting and passing accounted for 22 points in the final 10 minutes of the half. 

Demetri finished the day with 27 points and 7 assists, and only further cemented his status as one of the best players in the Big Ten.

Star-divide

Mike Tisdale as well deserves a monster amount of credit for this win, as he was the only other shooting threat for Demetri to look to for most of the first half. scoring 17 of his 19 points in that first session.

Another big up goes to Mike Davis, although he scored no points, he had 8 very important rebounds, and looks like he is no longer tentative to mix it up  with the musclebound post players. Good for him. Now if he can have boards and points in the same game....

So how did the Illini do it? Demetri, Demetri Demetri. And Bruce. The Illini took the game up tempo, got good shots and made them. For the middle 20 minutes of the game, the Illini were running their offense their way and kept Wisconsin out of their game offensively. 

Wisconsin lives and dies by the 3 right now, and the Illini were lucky enough tonight to hold them to sub 40% from beyond the arc. Players like Bill Cole made a big  difference playing very tough defense (and grabbing 8 boards...effort!) and D.J. Richardson as well has finally adjusted his game to the Big Ten.

Seriously guys, this game is as important, if not more so, than the win against the Spartans on Saturday. The remainder of our schedule just got a lot more doable with a win like this under our belt. 

Oh and looking at the tv now, Michigan State is losing to Purdue. If that holds, the conference race just got real.

I was really wrong today, and couldn't be happier. More on this tomorrow.

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demetri

wants to be like deron… boy did he take a big step tonight. His willingness to be physical and take the ball towards the rim but not force (and nail floaters) was the difference in this game

i can’t believe this team is where it is after the way they played against lesser competition this year

best basketball of the season at the right time. 2 more wins should get them into the dance and pretty quickly the focus has changed from the dance to a run at the big 10 regular season championship

follow me on twitter for fantasy sports analysis @http://twitter.com/DrewDinkmeyer or get the full analysis at www.fantistics.com

by DartmouthCubsFan on Feb 9, 2010 9:16 PM CST reply actions  

hooray!

no more bunker joe (hopefully). here’s hoping they can keep this going.

by Mike Wazowski on Feb 9, 2010 9:34 PM CST reply actions  

Let's not go all Oklahoma here, chief.

"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday." -- Don Marquis
The Blue Note Zone - Because you KNOW you want to know more about the St. Louis Blues!

by Donut King on Feb 9, 2010 9:58 PM CST up reply actions  

shit just got real folks

we are actually tied for first place again. Seriously, who saw that one coming?

by Joe Kutsunis on Feb 9, 2010 10:34 PM CST reply actions  

yeah dude!

would it be lame to say I-L-L….

by Jack M on Feb 9, 2010 11:03 PM CST reply actions  

Good Game, guys

I can’t really blame this game on refs, outside circumstances, or anything. Illinois deserved the win.

Go Badgers!

by Tim V on Feb 10, 2010 9:58 AM CST reply actions  

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