Chester Frazier, Rich McBride, Warren Carter, Shaun Pruitt, and Brian Randle. Anyone other than those living in a 75 mile radius of Champaign-Urbana know who these 5 are?
Didn't think so.
But these were the players leading the Fighting Illini to one of the most forgettable seasons in recent memory. No pro talents. No incredible athletes or phenoms. No great stories (such as walk-on to team captain, star graduating in 3 years but staying for championship run, etc.). Just a group of B-grade talent that journeyed themselves to the middle of the Big Ten standings (which outside of Ohio State and Wisconsin, was mediocre at best). Many said that 2 wins in the Big Ten tournament would guarantee them a spot in the Big Dance. They did just that, then fell incredibly flat against Wisconsin. The experts classified them as a bubble team that got lucky theirs didn't burst. This angered some in Illini nation. "We play in the Big Ten! We played the #1 and #2 teams in the nation pretty tight! We beat Indiana twice! Blah, blah, blah..." I've never heard such "homer" talk from this group. Didn't they see them play this year? Sure, they could play tenacious D (speaking of which, did anyone see this movie?), but holding opponents to 40% shooting only works when you shoot much better than they do. They had no ball handling skills and gave up possessions like a politician handing out handshakes. Their decision-making on the court was brutal (I remember during the first meeting with Indiana Bruce Weber yelling at Chester not to foul as Chester body-checked one of the Indiana guards into the scorer's bench.) And I haven't even touched on free throw shooting, but no one works on their free throws anymore. No, this team was NIT worthy at best. But someone fell in love with their RPI rating and the idea that a Illinois-Southern Illinois (Weber's old school coached by one of his former assistants) could be a great story if it happened. It got many worked up into a lather - especially when they had a 13 point lead with 8 minutes left against #5 seed Virginia Tech. Even I couldn't believe it. Had they been saving themselves for this moment? But then as I watched them score only 5 points in the last fifth of the game and turn the ball over 10 times, I remembered why I guarded my heart with this group. Final score: Virginia Tech 54, Illinois 52. Was I pissed? You bet! Did it last long. Nope.
Unfortunately, Illini fans have nothing to look forward to. No talent sitting on the bench and no blue chippers coming our way (but I DO have a new reason to hate Indiana: Kelvin Sampson and his theft of Eric Gordon). Bruce Webber is a great coach. He knows his X's and O's. But he's not shown himself to be a great recruiter. No matter how well he can manage the court, he'll still be taking his Marcus Arnolds up against the Greg Odens of the world.
And it started out to be such a great decade...
Thanks to all the folks who have still been checking in over the last month. You guys are great! I've been trying to stay current with your when I can, but this blogging thing is tough for me. First of all, I am a painfully slow writer. Oh, I have ideas running thru my head all the time, but corralling them into a coherent thought takes me hours. Would you believe that I've been sitting here typing this for 2+ hours? 2 hours for this dribble? Makes you wonder why I even began this endeavor. Have you ever wondered why I don't comment very often? You wouldn't believe how clever I think I need to be in the 2-3 sentences I'd like to leave on your sites - especially when you folks write such great stuff! I wish I were as fluent here as most of you are. You write like you speak and converse. That doesn't come easy for me. Like a lot of things in my life, I need to work extra hard to not sound like the idiot I am.
Secondly, because it takes me so long for an entry, I need to write when everyone is either out of the house or in bed. This is still a problem. When I was at the "top" of my blogging game, I was writing after work or after supper - during prime family times. It became a source of contention between me and my family. So I scaled back to blogging late at night. That worked for a while. Then the sleep issues came and I had to step out. I thought the CPAP machine had corrected this (I am sleeping better), but I didn't realize how dependent my nights had become on caffeine. Over the last 2-3 months, I've tried to limit caffeine intake to 2 cans of pop in the morning. The rest of the day I drink either Diet Rite Pure Zero or water. What this means is that come about 10pm or so, I'm ready for bed, in a good kind of tired way. But that means my blog output (writing, reading, and commenting) is for squat. I try to get thru what I can before I go to work, but that isn't always much.
Lastly (you know, it had to be in threes - it's the perfect writing number), I've been in a writing funk for about a month. Ideas come to me, but if I don't deal with them when they show up on my brain's front door, they lose meaning. And I can't write without a passion for something. And instead of the passion being like a wildfire I need to put out, it's been more like a matchstick that I can't hold on to very long. The only reason I can write this now is because I really feel it now. If I waited until morning, it'd probably be gone and there I'd be: another day without an entry. In the last month, I've let the following opportunities go by:
- The passing of one of our tenants. Melvin died February 6th in his sleep at the age of 91. The night before he'd played cards with some friends and won every hand. Then he kissed his wife of 60+ years good night and said "I'll see you in the morning".
- The passing of Anna Nicole Smith during the same week. The contrast between her life and that of Melvin's could take weeks to chronicle.
- Two snow days from work. The pile I created with the snow blower melted just last weekend.
- Driving 30 miles to sled down a hill that would barely read on a protractor.
- Numerous lunches with the guys. In one, I had Pik driving around a building to 3 different entrances to pick up Rudiger, who was at a completely different place. The sad thing is that Rudiger told me where he was numerous times on the phone, and I just didn't get it. I'm no longer in charge of picking people up.
- A special surprise I'm saving until the end of this post.
- The special surprise turned me into a germaphobe for the past 4 weeks - to the point I wore a mask and rubber gloves to visit my dad and self-medicated myself with echinacea and amoxicillin from Mexico.
- The Boy's birthday dinner at BWW.
- Heroes!
I don't know where all this is going, except to let you know that I'm still here and I'm still reading. I'm not hanging it up or anything. I'll probably show up here and there when I can. Just like the Great Pumpkin traveling from blog patch to blog patch, I'll be looking for those entries that are the most sincere :)
On February 13th, central Illinois was hit with one of the biggest snow storms we've seen in years. 12-14" landed in my neighborhood. We sat in the house all day and watched it pile up in the driveway. And we smiled and smiled. Why? Because earlier that morning we received news that on March 20th we would be on a plane to Hawaii!!!
My inlaws celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last year and wanted to do something special with the entire family. They put away some money from a couple of real estate sales so that they could take everyone on a special vacation to make some memories. Various destinations were tossed around until they decided on Hawaii. The initial plan was to go sometime in the November/December timeframe, but a deal came up on Expedia that they just couldn't pass up. So here we are, mere days away from Paradise! We'll be back on the mainland (just had to use that term) March 31st. Look for a Flickr album shortly thereafter.
I'd love to take each and every one of you with, but I'm only allowed one carry on and one personal item. If you can blow air up my nose for 6-7 hours a night, read the novel "1776" (unabridged) or sing/play the Beatles or Steely Dan in my headphones, you're welcome to come. But be prepared to be flung over my shoulders or stuffed in an overhead compartment.
Have a great weekend all! Go Heels! Sorry, Sue, but I just can't bring myself to root for Bill Self :)
