A few thoughts on Illinois and the state of the Big Ten after the 71-65 Illini victory over Minnesota:

1) The Inside Game Has Improved Dramatically – Last season, Illinois rode its perimeter players to the national championship game and that emphasis on outside shooting continued into the first part of this season.  In the last few weeks, however, the Illini have shifted to getting more points in the paint, which I personally think is great.  James Augustine, who had a fabulous performance last night with 16 points, 10 rebounds, and 7 assists (leading the team in all of those categories), has become more consistent on a game-to-game basis.  Just as important has been the development of Shaun Pruitt, who is really becoming a force inside.  He still has some problems handling quick interior passes, but when he is able to catch the ball in the post, he’s been able to use his size to power in for points.

2) A Dickie V Reprieve – If my memory serves me correctly, the only Illini game that Dick Vitale called this season on ESPN was our tilt with North Carolina.  While Steve Lavin wasn’t exactly sparkling (must he make the Road Runner “beep beep” sound every time Dee Brown touches the ball?), I was enthralled to see the great Brent Musburger and the even greater Erin Andrews work most of the Big Ten Super Tuesday games this year.  Thank you, Bristol!

3) We Need to Root for Northwestern Tonight – Illinois now needs Ohio State to lose one of its last 2 games in order to have a shot at bringing a third straight Big Ten title back to Champaign.  Tonight, the Buckeyes travel to Evanston to face Northwestern, which puts me in the semi-awkward position of cheering for the Wildcats.  Here’s my Illini/Bears fan analogy to this situation: having to cheer for Indiana or Michigan is the equivalent of rooting for the Packers (which is about as pleasant as a root canal, cleaning a port-a-potty, or watching the Blackhawks), while having to cheer for Northwestern is like needing to root for the Detroit Lions.  The Lions are a rival of the Bears on paper due to history and proximity but are pretty harmless on the field, so there’s not quite as much animosity and makes the situation, while not ideal, a little more palatable.

So, Go U Northwestern (just for today)!

Well, at least Illinois isn’t like our next opponent, Indiana.  The Hoosiers’ victory over us in Bloomington a month ago is as dusty of a memory for IU fans as Keith Smart’s jumper in 1987.  Since that game, Indiana has gone from being a top ten team to a club that is in serious danger of not making the NCAA Tournament at all for the third season in a row.

Indiana coach Mike Davis has been on the hot seat at Indiana since the day he was named as Bobby Knight’s replacement in 2000 and yesterday, he finally broke down and announced that he would resign from his position at the end of this season.  In the aftermath, the sports world is pretty divided between those who believe Davis was never given a chance to succeed and others who think that it was his own fault for the dearth of wins at Indiana.

I believe that it was a little of both.  It’s always tough to be the successor to a legend – look at the coaching carousel at UCLA since John Wooden left and how North Carolina ran its first two coaches after Dean Smith out of Chapel Hill.  What made the Indiana situation even tougher is that while Wooden and Smith retired on their own terms and hand-picked their successors, Bobby Knight was fired to the chagrin of much of the Indiana faithful.  That meant Mike Davis had absolutely no margin for error from the fans and resulted in immense and irrational outside pressure.

Regardless of that pressure, however, Davis wasn’t ready to take over the head coaching reigns of any Big Ten-caliber team in 2000, much less replacing a legendary coach at one of the nation’s most storied basketball programs.  Even worse, he hasn’t really improved either as a coach on the floor (Indiana not making 3 NCAA Tournaments in a row is unconscionable to Hoosier fans) or as a recruiter (two of the top high school players in the nation – Greg Oden and Eric Gordon – are from Indiana’s backyard of Indianapolis, yet they have committed to Big Ten rivals Ohio State and Illinois, respectively).  In the end, like any other program in the country, Indiana judges its coaches by wins and losses and Mike Davis simply didn’t meet the school’s standards.

It seems to be a forgone conclusion that Iowa coach Steve Alford is heading to Indiana.  The media loves the potential story of a former Hoosier hero swooping in to save the program.  However, I believe Alford would be absolutely nuts to leave his current job to go to Bloomington.  He’s had pretty much the same record at Iowa as Davis had at Indiana, as in there have been a couple of good seasons sprinkled in with general mediocrity and unfulfilled expectations.  For as much pressure as Indiana fans put on Davis, it seemed like they expected him to lose.  In Alford’s case, the same pressure would be there along with raised expectations for winning, even though his record doesn’t justify any higher expectations than what they expected out of Davis.

Plus, Alford would be going from a Big Ten school to a rival program in the same conference.  In a situation like that, the new program better be a huge upgrade over the old one, which I don’t think is the case at all.  Sure, the Hoosiers have the history and the alma mater factor, but for the past decade, Iowa has been at least as good or better of a basketball program as Indiana.  So, Alford would be trading his current job for another one that’s essentially a lateral move with a lot higher expectations and pressure.  That doesn’t sound like a great deal for Alford.

After all of those Daily Illini posts, it’s time to get back to another serious matter: the state of the University of Illinois basketball team.  It felt good to snap that 2 game mini-losing streak, even if it was beating up on Big Ten sacrificial lamb Northwestern.  This puts us back into position to grab a share of the Big Ten title since we still have one more date with league leader Iowa.

The disturbing thing for me over these last three games, however, is that our defense has broken down in one specific instance: our opponents’ fluky jump shooters keep having career days against us.  Look at Travis Parker from Penn State (4 of 5 from 3-point range and 21 points), Je’Kel Foster from Ohio State (6 of 8 from 3-point range and 18 points), and Vince Scott from Northwestern (3 of 3 from 3-point range and 11 points).  As my wife noted, Scott kept hitting ridiculous shots yet had so little athleticism that his feet didn’t even leave the ground while shooting.  As I’ve said before, not locking down on 3-point shooters is the way to get bounced early from the NCAA Tournament by a lesser team.

In theory, I think we Illini fans are pretty spoiled when we start panicking over a 2-game losing streak.  However, coming out so flat at Ohio State eight days after that stunning loss to Penn State at home was unacceptable.  It was one thing to let the Buckeyes’ Terrence Dials (better known as the second coming of Oliver Miller, who made his old Phoenix Suns teammate Charles Barkley look svelte) to take advantage of his size advantage over us down low.  However, to let a team shoot 13-for-23 on three-pointers when perimeter defense is our greatest strength is simply awful.  That’s the recipe for getting upset by a mid-major or small conference school in the NCAA Tournamnet.

A loss at Ohio State isn’t bad on paper, but the way we lost is really bothersome.  I hope Wednesday’s home game against Northwestern provides the tonic to our current mini-swoon.  With only three home games left, Illinois cannot afford to lose any of them if we still want a chance for the Big Ten title.