The Big Ten Tournament Starts Today

As I mentioned yesterday when announcing the Foul Balls March Madness pool (which you should totally join if you haven't yet) this week is the week where I go from loving college basketball to living college basketball. It's conference tourney time, and while I'm currently watching Georgetown and Villanova in the Big East (which will be the best tourney because the league is so deep), I'm really getting ready to watch the Big Ten tournament which starts at 1:30PM today.

Of course, if you live in Chicago, you better watch the tournament today because it's likely the only chance you'll get to see the local teams. Illinois and Northwestern both play today for the right to get knocked out in the next round.

I'm not even going to spend that much time talking about Northwestern. They went 1-17 in the conference this season, have never been to the Big Dance, and they're not going to beat Minnesota this afternoon. Then for some reason, Bill Carmody will come back as coach for a 10th season next year, and the Wildcats will do it all over again.

The Illini, however, do have a shot at getting to the 2nd round of the tournament. They're facing a Penn State team they've already lost twice to this season, but it's a young Nittany Lions team none the less. Obviously, even if the Illini can manage to pull off a win in Indianapolis this afternoon, they're going to end up getting their asses kicked by Purdue on Friday.

But I don't care. You see, this season has sucked if you're an Illini fan. Sure, some of us were lucky enough to have Comcast and therefore be spared the vast majority of Illinois' games, but it didn't make it any easier to follow the team.

Now the regular season is over, so that 5-13 conference record and 13-18 overall record are out the door. They mean nothing now.

Today is a new season!

Okay, so the new season is probably going to go a lot like the old season did, but damn it, this will probably be my last chance to see the Illini play until next fall, so I'm going to "enjoy" it while I can.

(And after they lose I'll go into "What do you mean? I've always been a fan of Notre Dame basketball too!" mode. The Irish play tonight as well, against Marquette at 8:30 on ESPN.)

Thursday Predictions

• Michigan over Iowa (11AM BTN)
  
• Illinois over Penn State (1:30PM ESPN2)
• Minnesota over Northwestern (4PM ESPN2)