Orange Crushed

Even though we're Illini fans, and fans of the Big Ten in general (not Indiana, screw you Eric Gordon!), we still enjoy the ACC/Big Ten challenge. We don't care that the ACC dominates the thing, or that it's just an event created by ESPN so they can get some early season ratings.

We just love college basketball.

We didn't enjoy watching Illinois lose last night to Maryland 72-66. The loss snapped the Illini's 51-game win streak at home against non-conference opponents. The Illini were able to come back from an early 15 point deficit to take the lead in the second half, but sloppy guard play helped the Terrapins take over in the closing minutes and get the win.

We aren't quite sure what we're going to get from our Illini this season. There's no more Dee Brown, Deron Williams, or James Augustine. We like the frontcourt though with Sean Pruitt, Warren Carter, Brian Carlwell off the bench, and Brian Randle when he returns in December.

But the guards.....

They don't seem to play with much control. Chester Frazier looks like another Dee Brown kind of player, but is too erratic. Trent Meacham took some shots last night that were awful.

It was just an ugly game all around.

The highlight of the night for us came from the Duke/Indiana game. ESPN showed some footage of Duke freshman, and last year's Mr. Illinois, Jon Scheyer. The footage was of Scheyer scoring 21 points in 1:55 to lead his Glenbrook North team back from a late 15 point deficit to win.

The team he did it against was our high school, Proviso West. Awesome.

Duke won 54-51, and the ACC took a 4-2 lead last night. There are five more games scheduled tonight, but none better than #1 Ohio State going to Chapel Hill to face #6 North Carolina.

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