Like Old Times

That's just a fuzzy photo I took with my phone – I didn't even clean the lens so you're looking through some handprints there – at the start of the second half. I took it during Tomi's free throws to show that Indiana hadn't scored in that half and the fans in the 100-level seats hadn't sat down yet.

But I want to talk about what that moment felt like. I hope I can capture this:

For whatever reason, today had an old school feel down around the court. I'm not sure what it was. But in the second half, it all felt purely Illinois basketball. We were living out our ethos. This isn't Breslin and it isn't Mackey. It's the State Farm Center. It's the real Assembly Hall.

The Stripe The State Farm Center thing? It was mostly irrelevant to me. I've said before that we don't have the correct sections in the stands to do a "stripe-out" and that it will only look like a checkerboard at best. I was kind of focused on the stripe thing in the first half, but... let's just get to the second half when I got the stripe thing out of my head.

The crowd was loud. Krush was fully involved. There were stupid candy-stripe warmups to my left. The Hoosier hate was in the air. And Illinois was winning handily.

Former players were there. Will Riley, Kasparas Jakucionis, and even Dain Dainja. Marcus Domask was making fun of Luke Goode on Twitter. The basketball on the court was good and the basketball in our memories was even better.

And it just kept building from there for me. It was everything. The tunes being played by the band with the Illinettes at center court during a timeout of a CBS national TV game against Indiana. Krush chanting "Hoo-sier Daddy?" when we had a 17-point lead with a few minutes left. I half-expected someone to appear at center court with a bag of groceries to make the "County Market Grocery Dash" (or whatever it was called).

I mean, look at this video:

When Underwood greets Riley, KJ, and Dain, doesn't that make you feel all Illinois Basketball-y? It does for me. I used to live in that feeling. Then it went away in the 2010's. But it's come back in a big way. And today was the largest dose of it this season.

Maybe it was the CBS Sunday game. This used to be THE TARGET for Illini basketball. No bigger moment than a CBS Sunday game. Maybe that doesn't mean much for you, but Clark Kellogg sitting over there makes this feel like old times.

(Oh man the music in my ears is PERFECT for this moment. I'm listening to Shostakovich 7 and we just got to the warm chords at the end of the first movement. The first 25 minutes of Shostakovich 7 scream WAR WAR WAR and then, after the battle, it winds down and winds down until The Warm Chords hit. They hit at the perfect time here. I can now end this part of the article with warm chords of my own.)

Krush was great today. Just fantastic. From 150 attempted insults of Wisconsin players/coaches/staff to zero insults today. And I mean zero. I didn't hear a single one. The Eye Of Sauron changed its focus from the sideline to the court and it made a huge difference. What a Krush performance.

And that just bled over into everything else for me. It the feelings of a mid-February CBS matchup with Indiana in, say, 2002. Except, you know, Indiana used to be good back then. Ask your parents if you're too young. Yes, Indiana used to be a basketball school.

I missed this feeling. I've very much enjoyed the Illinois basketball renaissance these last six seasons, but I've missed this feeling. This feeling is very important to me. This feeling was my childhood. This feeling was Anderson and Battle when I was a teenager and this feeling was Dee and Deron before I was married.

And now this feeling is Wagler and Mirk greeting Will and KJ in the locker room while Coleman and Marcus make fun of Luke Goode on Twitter. Surround me with this feeling for the rest of my life.

Especially when we beat Indiana by 20 on CBS the Sunday after the Super Bowl.

-> How to hack a college basketball game: