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.

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.