Making New Enemies

March 9th, 2020

When you think about Illinois basketball’s biggest rivals, who comes to mind? Indiana? Ohio State? Wisconsin? Missouri? Northweste… just kidding.

Who really knows how a rivalry truly begins or what validates it? When Illinois plays Mizzou there is a trophy on the line, but I don’t know how many Illini fans would say that they are the team they want to beat the most. After this season, I believe there is a clear front runner.

In two games between Illinois and the Iowa Hawkeyes there were 71 fouls. 71! Fouls do not mean everything and definitely don’t determine a rivalry, but if you watched the games you would know how chippy they got. Multiple technical fouls. Intense student sections. Even the coaches got into with, with Iowa Head Coach Fran McCaffery not making it through the handshake line after hearing it from Illinois assistant coaches in the game in Iowa City.

“We just don’t like each other. They want to kill us. We want to kill them.” These were Sophomore guard Ayo Dosunmu’s thoughts on the rivalry after the game. It was Dosumnu who once again came through for the Illini in Sunday’s game against Iowa, hitting a clutch mid-range jumper with 31 seconds to go to lift Illinois past Iowa and helping them split the season series against the hateable Hawkeyes.

Illini fan anger towards Iowa is not entirely new, especially for those longtime fans who remember the Deon Thomas recruiting fiasco, in which Bruce Pearl, then an assistant at Iowa and now the head coach of Auburn, recorded a phone call with Thomas, a highly recruited power forward from Chicago, in which Thomas seemingly confirms rumors that Illinois were offering him illegal benefits. This resulted in a one-year postseason ban and scholarship limitation for Illinois, as well as national scrutiny. And it all came from Iowa.

But today’s budding rivalry is more on the court. It’s distaste between the players, fans disapproval of Fran McCaffery’s antics, and all of the fun of playing in each other’s building once a year. Who knows how long this will last, but there is a very real chance we get to see these two teams match up again this season. If Iowa wins their first game in the Big Ten Tournament this weekend, it will be the Illini vs the Hawkeyes in a Big Ten rubber match.

Can’t wait.

Happy March, Everyone

March 2nd, 2020

I am throwing all journalistic objectivity out of the window on this one. Sorry not sorry.

I love Illinois basketball.

I have loved Illinois basketball since I was a kid. I remember coming home from Easter Sunday mass and watching the 2005 Elite Eight comeback against Arizona with my dad. I remember when Brandon Paul dropped 43 on Aaron Kraft and the Buckeyes at home. I even still remember where I was when Rayvonte Rice hit the game winner over Missouri in 2014. I remember the highs.

And I remember the lows. I remember when Eric Gordon decommitted and then went to Indiana of all places. I remember Malcolm Hill’s great career being overshadowed by zero tournament appearances. I remember when Cliff Alexander picked up the Illinois hat, just to put it back down and commit to Bill Self’s team. I remember the pain.

But the pain seems so distant now. Just one year removed from the losingest season in Illinois basketball history and I can’t help but to be overjoyed when I think about this team. There is NBA talent. There is vetern leadership. There is promising youth. There is depth off of the bench. There is everything needed to be a tournament team and it actually all came together.

Here we are, a starving fan base deprived of championship-caliber basketball, looking at a 20-win team and looking up NCAA Tournament ticket prices. We’re going dancing for the first time since 2013.

It is March and our team matters.

Oh, what a sweet feeling it is.

Getting Reps

February 24th, 2020

In sports, repetition is one of the essential parts of training. For basketball players, it’s getting shots up. For gymnasts and dancers, it’s running through a routine. For tennis players, it’s going over their backhand. No matter what sport it is, players practice by going through the motions until they perfect it.

Today in class we had the pleasure of having WHOI’s Sports Director, Trish Christakes skype in and share some of her experiences from the two years she has spent in Peoria working in television. A University of Illinois College of Media Alumni, she had fond memories of her time here and gave us aspiring journalists great advice. Among other tips, one of the points she drove home during her skype call was how important repetition is for broadcasters too.

We get a chance to practice in front of the camera usually twice a week thanks to ISN. Not that these don’t matter, but I love this class because of how many reps we get in front of the camera so we can get more comfortable when we’re making a living out of it. It’s pretty clear who is and who isn’t used to being on camera when you watch on TV. If you need an example, I recommend you watch the full “Boom Goes the Dynamite Video.”

I’ll have a package airing this week either about the Illinois Hockey team or the Women’s Basketball team. Make sure to tune in this Friday!

 

Behind the Shot Clock

February 17th, 2020

This last Friday our first episode of Illini Sports Night finally premiered! I thought everything looked great and I am so excited for what’s to come for this crew. I figured I would write a little behind the scenes look at what it was like making “Shot Clock” this week.

First I want to say thanks to Alex and Anthony for coming in and providing their insight for that. On top of that being the first time we’ve recorded Shot Clock that was Anthony’s first time on camera in Richmond so it took all of us a little bit of time to get in the groove of things.

The first time we ran the segment all the way through it went pretty well. I messed up the outro and there were some minor hiccups, but we essentially could’ve put that one into the show and it would’ve been fine. The only thing that differed from the first taping to the one you can see here is that Anthony won the version that didn’t air. I think he’s a little salty that I awarded the final point to Alex the second time, but Alex switched up his answer and I liked it better. Sorry Anthony.

Another fun part about filming this segment was experimenting with how the buzzer was going to work. Before we recorded, we were told that a buzzer noise would be added in post-production and so Jake Hasan, our wonderful producer, stood in as the buzzer noise for the time being. Turns out we didn’t have that buzzer noise so instead Jake’s version remained in the final cut, with a fun little animation to go along with it the second time around. 

Shot Clock got a lot of positive feedback and I am very excited to see how the rest of this season goes. Thanks to everybody for all of the kind words and tune in Friday to see our next edition!