All posts by jakeh2@illinois.edu

Contributor Blog

Illinois Is Officially Chicago’s Team

Jake Hasan
Feb 27th, 2020

It might be time for the Northwestern Wildcats to think of a new catchphrase.

The Illini traveled to Evanston Thursday night and took care of business as expected in a 74-66 win against a Northwestern team that has notched just one conference win all season.

With the win Illinois jumps back into a tie for second place in the Big Ten standings, a position that has them in line to get a coveted double bye in the Big Ten Tournament. It also secures a winning season in the Big Ten for the Illini, the first time since 2010.

Pretty big night if you ask us.

With all that for once it wasn’t the Ayo Dosunmu show, and while the star guard was still a force (21 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists) the big story of the night was sophomore forward Alan Griffin. He didn’t start the game but Griffin ended it as the talk of Twitter, he had a career-high 24 points on 6-8 shooting from three (so close to being nice) to go with 7 rebounds.  Griffin continues his breakout season after only playing sporadically as a freshman, and he is one of the Illini’s most important players going forward.

Elsewhere, Kofi Cockburn continued his case to be the Big Ten Freshman of the Year by putting in 12 points and grabbing 14 rebounds of his own. This is Cockburn’s second double-double in a row and his third in the past four games.

Looking ahead Illinois has three games left before entering the Big Ten Tournament, and the next comes Sunday back in Champaign against the Indiana Hoosiers. Indiana lost Thursday night against Purdue, and as a team that is fighting for their lives to get into March Madness, they will be hungry for a win in Champaign on Sunday.

Contributor Blog, Headlines

Softball Ready for Upgrades

Jake Hasan
Feb 25th, 2020

Illinois Athletic Director Josh Whitman is a wizard.  Not for the first time (and probably not for the last time either) he’s convinced another family to make a donation to Illinois Athletics. It started with football and their new facility helped by the donation from the Smith family.

Then the anonymous donation to update the facilities at Ubben for basketball.

Then a donation from the Demirjian family for track and field and soccer.

Then the Atkins family who supported new baseball facilities.

And now the Atkins family, who donated $3 million to upgrade the softball facilities.

The new softball facility, which will be called the Rex and Alice A. Martin Softball Training Center, is going to be an addition onto the current facilities and add an estimated 13,000 square feet. It adds a full practice area: infield, batting cages and pitching cages. This will put Illinois up there with some of the top softball facilities in the nation. The project will commence later this year and will conclude in the Winter of 2021.

This is just the latest step in Josh Whitman’s plan to rebuild Illinois athletics. We all knew when he came in that football and basketball would be the two main projects for Whitman to work on. But he has also shown a lot of commitment to making other sports better too. All part of the plan to make Illinois more relevant across the board, and it appears he is succeeding. At the very least he is convincing donors to believe in his vision.

Can we get an announcement on that hockey project next?

Contributor Blog, Headlines

The First Solo Show: A Memoir By Jake

Jake Hasan
Feb 25th, 2020

So I volunteered to captain the very first solo show of Illini Sports Night because I figured if I failed spectacularly at least the bar would be low for eveyone else to clear. Team player here.

But now that it’s over I think the show we put out on Valentines Day was awesome and I’m proud of the work that we all put in.

No to say that there weren’t issues and kinks but this is still an extremely new project and hiccups are to be expected. You don’t expect an infant to get up and walk right away right? No of course not, all infants fall on their faces sometimes, and so will Illini Sports Night.

But we’re going to learn and we’re going to grow and by the time May rolls around I think we’re gonna have an awesome product for you all that runs as smooth and crisp as anything you’ve ever seen.

Already we have some awesome stuff, I love Shot Clock and no not just because I get to be the buzzer and there’s a little GIF of me (shoutout Ken). I think Nathan has a real grasp on what to make Shot Clock and we’re gonna have a lot of fun with it. I’m excited to see what he comes up with.

Mariah did a great job with  our Illini Story this week, just absolutely crushed the interview with Karen Howell. Giving people a platform to showcase themselves and their personalities is gonna be a lot of fun and give fans some great looks at athletes when they aren’t on their respective court/field/what have you.

So after the first week of solo shows, and the second week well under way, I’ll leave you with this:

Illini Sports Night is gonna be something. I can feel it in my bones. I have total and complete confidence in Mariah, Peyton, Nathan, Patrick, Tristen and all our reporters. And of course Ken in guiding us. Myself too I guess. So keep coming back and tuning in because we’ve got some really really cool stuff coming.