The 88 Illini: #8-#5

Two more of these: one right now, and one on Thursday. I'm gonna save the big reveal of the final four players for the afternoon of the first game. With the game at 8:00 pm, you're going to be "why won't the clock move??" all day so that will give you something to do in the afternoon. Here's what you can expect this week:

Monday: The 88 Illini #8-#5
Tuesday: Craig Has The Scout
Wednesday morning: Those Were The Days
Wednesday night: Stream Of Consciousness (including the season prediction)
Thursday around noon: The 88 Illini #4-#1

Also, the preview was finished on Saturday afternoon this year (since it's a Thursday night opener). I put it on Slack on Saturday evening and then emailed it to all Grange Tier and Seventeen Club subscribers first thing Sunday morning. I got a few "this email address is no longer valid" bounce-backs after I sent it (someone had used a work email to sign up and they no longer work there, that kind of thing), so if you're a subscriber at one of those levels and you didn't get the preview, email me. Robert@illiniboard.com

Word total this year after the final edit:

It is WILD to think that my fingers struck the keys 139,296 times. Tyler asked me today how many words I've written over the years in the football previews (I've been writing 20,000+ words every year since 2013) and I think it's around 330,000 words. Add in the basketball previews (I write half, Tyler writes half) and I'm well over 500,000 preview words at this point. Maybe I'll give away a car when I reach my one-millionth preview word written.

(I won't.)

OK, let's get to players #8 through #5 to kick off game week.

GAME WEEK!