Sell Out or Get the Hell Out

I just had an unexpected ten minutes in my evening. The title of this post came to me, and then I remembered it as a vestige of a 90's rap lyric in my brain, and then I searched for it, and came upon a song from 1990 I had forgotten I even knew ("We're All in the Same Gang" by the West Coast Rap All Stars), and I watched the music video, and now I'm feeling nostalgic for the 1990's. What a life.

Anyway, a SELL OUT was the launching-off point for all this. The DIA announced a few weeks back that they had targeted the February 8th women's basketball game vs. USC to try to fill up the SFC for the first time in this century. I raised my eyebrows at this when I first saw it. Now there is no question that the fanbase is waaay more engaged than it was before Shauna arrived. I sat through a game or two with fewer than 1000 fans in the stands during the Nancy Fahey era. Attendance is much better now, with regularly 5000+ showing up to cheer on the women.

But 15,544 in the seats? With a team coming into February with little momentum? On Super Bowl Sunday? I'd be thrilled if they could pull it off...but color me skeptical.

One game to recap before we talk about the aforementioned USC match-up:

at Oregon (Illini loss 76-73)

For the record: I HATE when our teams play at the same time. The guys were waxing Northwestern at the exact same time that the ladies were playing the strangest game of the season. To wit:

No Gretchen again, and Berry comes out in a mask (broke her nose the day before, cool cool).
Cearah gets two fouls almost immediately and barely plays in the first half.
In Cearah's absence, the rest of the team plays terribly; Oregon finishes the half on a 20-4 run, and we're down 45-24 at halftime.
(Ah, to be a fly on the wall for that halftime speech from Shauna)
Cearah returns in the second half, and we go on a 21-0 run to end the third quarter to come all the way back.
Oregon actually didn't make a field goal for ten minutes of actual game time (they had five points, all free throws)
With five minutes to go, we're up 64-56, a 36-7 run altogether.
Oregon then goes on a 12-2 run, we struggle numerous times to inbound the ball, Destiny gets fouled(!) on the final offensive possession of the game, there's no call, and we lose a heartbreaker.

I'm in the State Farm Center for this rollercoaster, by the way. In front of me, we're up by 20, 30, 40, nearly 50 points on the Wildcats, but I kept checking my phone to watch the crazy game unfolding in Eugene. My son and I actually watched the final two minutes of the women's game at a concession stand after everyone else had long cleared out. And man, I took it hard. Of course I was excited that the men kept that winning streak going, but to be THISCLOSE to a women's all-time come-from-behind win and not pull it off...well, it was a quiet ride home.

It was frustrating to lose that one, but splitting the games on the West coast trip was not a bad outcome. They won one more than they did during the USC/UCLA gauntlet last year, so we'll take it.

Fast forward to February 8...did we sell out?? Yes...kind of.

First off, hat tip to the DIA and all those who run the social media for an excellent effort. The specials were good ($5 tix, $1 wings, $7 domestic beers), and the posts on Twitter (X) were fun and frequent. And in a manner of speaking, they pulled it off!

Now you can see that all the seats in the building were NOT filled, but that was always going to be a steep hill to climb. But look at that picture at the top of this post again...there were a LOT of people there! And the crowd was into the game and few left before it was complete.

I guess we can talk about the game now...

vs. USC (Illini loss 70-62)

After all the above...the endless efforts to get people in the building, so the community could know that Illini women's hoops were BACK, to try to leave the people with that good taste in their mouths so they couldn't wait to return. All that and the game itself STUNK.

I'm a church musician, so getting to SFC on time for a noon tip was nearly an impossibility. I dashed out of the choir loft, rounded up my kids, hopped in the car, parked, hurried in the door, grabbed seats...and before I could even get settled in we were down 12-1. Of all the games to trip over our feet right out of the gate...

A quick note about our opponent: USC is good. They lost their All-American (Juju Watkins) in the offseason and were a bit slow out of the gates this year. But Torvik had them at #14 coming into this game and #4 in the country on the defensive end. We were definitely not favored to win this game. But it was certainly meant to be A GAME. And up until a desperate rally in the fourth quarter it was not.

The narrative of late is a familiar one: we dig ourselves a tremendous hole, make a furious comeback, come up short. All those boxes were checked in this one. Down 14 at half, the deficit reached 19 in the third quarter, our full-court press then got us within six, but we ran out of gas and out of time and we lose our seventh game in the last ten.

To be clear, I'm not a frustrated fan. Say it with me: "This is a young team!" We've had some highs this season and some lows. This is all expected. But man, as the competition has gotten better, it feels like we've simultaneously regressed. That's a bad combo and the team is fading a bit down the stretch.

Items of note:

Destiny was great in this game...maybe our only player who played well. She had 17 points, 8 assists, 8 steals(!), and only one turnover. This gal is tough...I'm so looking forward to three more years of her.
Berry, Cearah, and Maddie, our trio of scorers in Gretchen's absence, went a combined 14-45 from the floor. That's really, really not good. They were clearly bothered by USC's length and the Trojans had eight blocks to show for it. And overall a tough shooting game for the entire team. (We finished at 39 percent from the floor)
It was also a subpar game from the charity stripe for a team who was leading the nation recently: 8-13. You think we could have used a few of those points when we had cut it to six? Alas.
In my last post I wrote about our slow starts. Our average halftime deficit since I wrote that article: 17.5 points. This is officially a THING, friends. (If you write in the comments that we're just "a second half team," I swear...)
Last month, Maddie Webber went 5-8 from three against Penn State and was shooting in the neighborhood of 45 percent at that point. That's an excellent percentage, and it was probably gonna come down a bit eventually. But after that PSU game, which happens to be the last game that Gretchen played in earnest, Maddie is 5-24 from the arc, 20.8 percent. Not a great time for a shooting slump.
Our record this year without Gretchen: 1-5. I hate that I keep having to mention her absence. Get well soon, dear Gretchen.

All right. The sky is not falling. We're still 16-8. This is going to be okay. And it will be okay starting this week when we face the following three teams:

Wisconsin (Torvik #81)
Rutgers (#137)
at Northwestern (#116)

We must - MUST - win those three games. We will. And we'll sell more games out. And we'll win some of them.

Go Illini.