FanHouse ShaunPruitt

As MDS pointed out earlier, Eric Gordon and his family may have had the last laugh in Indiana's double overtime victory over the Illini in Champaign on Thursday, but they had to suffer through quite a bit of abuse while doing it. Be it the constant boos Gordon heard everytime he touched the ball, the chants of 'Liar" and "Traitor" as he calmly sank his free throws, or the beads thrown at his family in the stands, Illini fans acted like fools. Complete and total fools.

I'm an Illini fan, and just like all of them, I don't like Eric Gordon. I was just as upset when he reneged on his oral commitment for Indiana as anybody else. At the same time, I realize he's just a basketball player.

A 19-year old basketball player.

What I saw and heard from the Illini crowd last night embarrassed me as an Illinois fan. Though it wasn't just the fans whose antics I found a little disturbing. Chester Frazier's "chestbump" with Gordon before the game was out of line as well, and he should have been punished for it. Either by the refs or his own coaching staff.

The truth is that the Illini and their fans are going through a tough, and extremely frustrating season. They're 10-14 on the season, including a lovely conference record of 2-9, and things arent' going to get any better this season. Instead of placing the blame where it should be though, like on the players and coaching staff, the team and it's fans have redirected all their anger at Eric Gordon.

Somehow it's gotten in their head that he's the reason the team sucks this season. It's not the fact that Shaun Pruitt can't hit a single free throw, or that they're shooting 30% from behind the arc, in their minds it's because Eric Gordon went to Indiana.

And they should all be ashamed of themselves, I know I'm ashamed of them.

Things just keep getting better for the Illini this season. On Tuesday night they had to travel to Ohio State where they would be without their leading scorer and rebounder, Shaun Pruitt, after he was benched by Bruce Weber before the game. As you might expect would happen, the Illini weren't able to pull off a victory in Columbus, despite a late charge, with the Buckeyes holding on for a 64-58 win.

As for why Weber felt the need to bench his senior, the frazzled coach was a bit vague.

"As for Shaun Pruitt, it's a team matter, a family matter. It's being handled internally. We hope he has a positive attitude and we get him back involved with us. That's what we're hoping he'll do the rest of the week.

"It's how he reacts to everything. If he comes to practice and works his butt off, he'll be fine," said Weber, who indicated that Pruitt has not missed any practice time.

Since Weber wouldn't say what Shaun did, I'm pretty sure that gives me license to completely make something up, so I'll just say Shaun was either dogging it in practice, or maybe he mouthed off to a coach. I'll let you pick which one works best for you.

I'm leaning more towards dogging it myself, because when watching this Illini team right now, I see a team that looks like they've already given up on their season. If that's truly the case, Weber can't allow Pruitt, a senior, to get away with it. If Weber doesn't discipline him for it, he risks losing his entire team.

The suspension also cost Pruitt his streak of 87 consecutive starts.

On Saturday afternoon the Purdue Boilermakers blew up in the second half of their game against Illinois to overcome a 8-point halftime deficit, and beat the Illini 74-67 at Mackey Arena. Purdue exploded for 47 points in the second half, a large number of which came thanks to the sharpshooting of Keaton Grant.

Grant scored 14 of his 22 points in the final 20 minutes, which included a big three-pointer late that put the final nail in Illinois' coffin. What got Keaton so fired up for the second half? Apparently a member of the Illini was talking some trash going into the locker rooms at halftime.

"One of the Illinois players said something that really got us going," Grant said. "It had the same effect that it had last year when the same player said something at halftime."

"It was like, 'We're being disrespected at our home court.' An away team should not come into the home team's court and disrespect us.

"We were very disrespected by what he said. He said it as we were going into our locker room. Credit him for waking us up. It was all good. We just want to thank him."

Grant wouldn't say who the player was, but by the process of elimination, I've figured it out. Grant said it was a starter, but it wasn't either Shaun Pruitt or Brian Randle. He also said the same player did it last year, so it couldn't have been freshman Demetri McCamey. So it was either Trent Meachem or Calvin Brock, and I feel pretty safe in saying that it wasn't Meachem.

If only Brock and the Illini would work as hard at hitting their free throws and not making stupid turnovers late in games as they do at talking trash. Maybe then they wouldn't be 1-5 in conference play this season.

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The Big Ten Diaries recaps the previous night's action in Big Ten Basketball, but of course, you're probably smart enough to figure that out on your own.


Wisconsin Badgers 70 Illinois Fighting Illini 60

Since Bo Ryan took over in Madison, only one Big Ten team has ever come into the Kohl Center and beaten the Badgers. That team is Illinois, but I don't think many people thought the Illini would pull it off this time around, and they didn't.

Trevon Hughes led the way for Wisconsin with 22 points, and senior Brian Butch also scored 16 points and dominated the glass for Wisconsin with 7 rebounds. Jason Bohannon scored only 8 points for Wisconsin, but six of those points came via the three-point shot after Illinois had closed the gap and started to build up some momentum.

For Illinois it's their fourth straight loss, a first under Bruce Weber, and they're now 0-3 in conference play. Still, if there's anything positive to be taken from this game it's that they shot better on Thursday than they have been lately. Though that's not saying much, as Illinois only hit 41% of it's shots, but they did hit 6-of-10 from beyond the arc.

Unfortunately for the Illini, on the night their outside shots started falling, they couldn't get any help on the inside as Shaun Pruitt and Brian Randle battled foul trouble all night.

Things started out well for the Illini, after jumping out to a 10-0 lead early it looked like Illinois was on it's way to it's first victory over a ranked non-conference opponent since 2005.

The defense was swarming, the shots were falling, and Illinois was finding every loose ball. Maybe it was the jet lag of coming from the west coast to play a game at 11AM in Chicago, but Arizona just didn't look like the ranked team early.

Then the Wildcats woke up.

Arizona then spent the rest of the game slowly chipping away at the Illini lead before finally taking over themselves late in the second half. They would eventually win 78-72 in overtime, but not without controversy.

As Illinois point guard Chester Frazier drove down court at the end of regulation, he was stripped by Arizona's Nic Wise who then called for a timeout. Unfortunately for Wise, Arizona didn't have any timeouts left. Of course, the officials at the United Center were a compassionate group of men, because rather than calling the illegal timeout and sending the Illini to the free throw line for the winning points, they just chose to ignore Wise's timeout call.

It probably wouldn't have mattered anyway, though. Have you seen the Illini at the free throw line? They wouldn't have made any shots anyway.

Shaun Pruitt, who wasn't expected to get that many minutes, led the Illini with 24 points and 9 rebounds. Illinois is now 5-3 on the season.

The Illini have a big game tomorrow against Arizona. Not only are they playing a ranked team, but they're doing so at the United Center in front of a national television audience on ESPN.

For those who tune into the game, and are familiar with the Illini, you may not recognize a few players on the court. That's because backup center Brian Carlwell injured his knee in practice this week,(No truth to the rumor that Jamar Smith got drunk and drove into it.) and is going to be out for three to five weeks.

Which wouldn't be a big deal, except for the fact Illinois' starting center, Shaun Pruitt, may have to miss Saturday's game as well.

[Bruce] Weber is preparing to face No. 22 Arizona on Saturday at the United Center without starting center Shaun Pruitt, who sprained an ankle in practice Sunday. Even if the senior from Aurora can play, it's unlikely to be his usual 30-plus minutes.

"It may end up being a game-time decision depending on how much progress he makes over the next two days," Weber said Thursday.

"He has lost a little mobility. [One day this week] he was in treatment three times. I don't think he'll be perfect for another week, but at least he can be involved minute-wise."

If Pruitt can't go on Saturday, freshman Mike Tisdale will be making the first start of his young college career. Tisdale is a 7'1 center who's averaged 3.7 points per game this season while playing eleven minutes a game. Obviously, he's going to need to perform far above that if the Illini are to have a shot at beating Arizona.

Going into this college basketball season, there's been a general consensus that the Big Ten Conference will finish up with Michigan State, Indiana, and Ohio State somewhere in the top three. I'm not questioning this thought process or anything, because it's one I whole heartedly subscribe to.

After watching Illinois handle Arizona State in Maui late Monday night though, I think we'd all be pretty foolish to write off the Illini in the Big Ten this season.

Granted, the Sun Devils went 8-22 last season, and this was their first game of the season, but the Illini were very impressive in their 77-54 victory. What I was most impressed with were the Illini newcomers. Ever since Eric Gordon left the Illini at the altar for Indiana, Bruce Weber has taken a lot of heat for his recruiting, but after last night I'm not so sure it's deserved.

Demetri McCamey and Jeff Jordan didn't take the game over, but both should provide solid depth for the Illini in the backcourt this season. The guys who really got my attention though were big men Mike Tisdale and Bill Cole. Both showed a lot of polish for freshmen, and if they move into the weight room, Illinois is going to have a formidable frontcourt for years to come.

You add those guys with a solid upper class that features Shaun Pruitt and Brian Randle (who if he could somehow manage to stay healthy would compete with D.J. White and Drew Neitzel for Big Ten player of the year honors) and you get a team that isn't going to make it easy on Indiana or Michigan State.

There are chinks in the armor though, because much like last year, this team still isn't very impressive at the free throw line. It was their achilles heel last season, and it's probably going to be the thing that keeps Illinois from overtaking the conference's big three.