Had my written prelim exam on Thursday and ended up pulling an all-nighter working on it. By the time I was done writing, I was too tired and loopy to tell whether I was making sense anymore. Foolish me. I did write basically a 15-page research paper overnight, though. Whether any of it makes sense isn’t for me to say at this point. I’ve got a little over a week to put together my presentation for the oral component of the prelim, then I’m off to the races, assuming I’m not screwing this up.
Saturday I woke up long enough to watch the Illini lose to Iowa. We should have won that game, but it’s not so upsetting that we didn’t. Kind of a pisser to be the bookends of Iowa’s 8-game Big Ten losing streak, though. I feel bad for Eddie McGee. He showed poise after his 83-yard TD pass was called back and I was certain that he’d get the ball in the end zone before the clock ran out. Thought he was managing the game well until that incredibly bad pass to the Iowa linebacker. It would have been a great win to march down the field and put the game away at the end. Wasn’t to be.
Mendenhall needs to get the ball more often, to hell with the option if it’s not working, which it clearly wasn’t the entire first half. I completely agree with Mark Tupper that it’d be great to see the line hold a pocket open and put these talented receivers to better use. The most frustrating thing was that McGee had great protection on the fatal interception play—plenty of time to let the receivers get into their routes and see where the defense left men underprotected. It’s a young offense, but still a pretty good one, even if they only managed to put up six points this weekend.
In basketball news, Bruce Weber and his assistants received three major verbal commitments for the class of 2009 last week. That’s exciting news and I’m hearing good things about the team from my neighbor who goes to watch some of the players work out on their own time. Basketball Prospectus has officially launched—a link is added to the sidebar. Their introductory motivation for their tempo-neutralized statistics is presented here. I’m excited to see what those two very bright fellows have to offer this winter. They’ve definitely enhanced my appreciation for college basketball over the last several years.
In hockey news, the Illini team remains undefeated with a sweep of Penn State over the weekend. The Blues are outscoring their opponents 15-8 through four games with a 3-1 record. Erik Johnson’s already made a big impression on the blue line. I’m a little disappointed that Jeff Woywitka didn’t make the team. I saw him play in a pre-season game in the 2005-06 season and liked what he was doing on the ice.