That Smudge On Your Floor? That's The Big Ten

You know, new Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson isn't known as a disciplinarian in the way that Bob Knight is, but, jeez, he sure does make his players do some pretty publicly humiliating things to their teammates when they lose on national television, doesn't he?

Anyway, the ACC won three of five last night in that whole Challenge thing, taking a 4-2 lead in the supposed "competition." We haven't quite figured out what Indiana was doing in that last possession — nothing better than driving the lane when down by three with fewer than four seconds left — but the pivotal loss was our Illini falling to Maryland, the first non-conference loss in Assembly Hall since Y2K destroyed our nation's technological infrastructure.

It did feel nice to have it all back last night, though, even the hated ambiguously gay duo of Coach K and Dick Vitale. We're ashamed to say that we missed them a little. Another highlight: When the Illini were down late and desperately needing threes, Brent Musberger — whom we will always love in the same way we will always love whippets; an immense, sudden vaporization of brain cells that leads to an undeniably pleasant sensation — yelled, "the Illini need to start jackin' it here." That they do, Brent: That they do.

Guard Play Awful; Work To Be Done [Mark Tupper Blog]