Illiniwek and the Seniors Go Out With a Win

There's been so much going on around the Illini basketball team lately with the school's decision to get rid of Chief Illiniwek, and Jamar Smith's bright ideas.

Seriously, I could go on forever trying to understand Jamar's notion that since he thought Brian Carlwell was dead, the best idea was to drive home and leave his corpse sitting in the car. That's just drunken brilliance at its best, ladies and gentleman.

"Oh man. I think Brian's dead. Well, I better get home. Aqua Teen starts in 10 minutes, and I can just drop him off at the hospital in the morning."

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. There's been so much going on around the Illini lately, that we almost forget they're fighting to get into the Big Dance.
The Illini beat Michigan 54-42 in Champaign Wednesday night, on Senior night. The win was Illinois' 20th of the season, giving them 8 straight seasons of 20 or more wins. Whether or not it's good enough for the tournament, we'll have to wait and see.

Personally, I don't care how "down" the conference is seen, 20 wins from a Big Ten team should be good enough to make it in my opinion. Especially when you consider all the crap that this team has had to go through, and I haven't even mentioned the injuries yet. I'm also pretty confident the selection committee realizes this too, and that the Illini will be in field of 65.

As for the Chief, he performed his last dance at halftime of the game. Afterwards the big screen at Assembly Hall showed the graduate student who performs as Illiniwek, Dan Maloney, in the tunnel.

He stood there trying to fight back tears as he realized it's not likely he or anyone else will ever partake in the tradition again.

"If this is the last time -- and I stress if," Maloney said. "I couldn't think of a better way for it to end."

I don't think Maloney's hope that Illiniwek will return at some point is accurate, and I'm also pretty sure that in a year or two nobody will care anymore anyway.