The serious turning point of the season

So I came out in huge defense of Bruce Weber, and some people agreed, some didn't, no big deal. I welcome all opinions. Yours just sucks. But, regardless, the team came out and let me down hugely, making me look kind of like a jackass. Which is nothing I'm not used to.

I didn't watch the game on Sunday. There were more important things at hand, such as the Bears game. I would pick a Cubs playoff game over the Bears regular season (luckily I don't ever have to make that decision) and I would pick a Bears playoff game over the Illini, and obviously, March Madness trumps everything.

But anyways, I can't accurately say how disgusted or enamored with some portions of the game. And I'm totally cool with that, because from the sounds of it, I should have been disgusted with all of it and enamored with less than none of it, even though that's not technically possible.

I mean, seriously, how is Rich McBride our leading scorer? Don't get me wrong, I think it's a pleasant surprise, since I pretty much hate everything about Rich McBride after I was such a huge fan of him during his freshman year. And then Brian Randle just disappears after beating ass in the Iowa game? So disappointing.

This team has been up and down all season. Initially we couldn't come out to a fast start and we would fall behind every competitor consistently. I think right around the Arizona game was where we turned that around. But, then we couldn't finish the game. Missing our two best players (arguably at that time at least), we thought we'd be in for great things when everyone got healthy.

But we still can't finish games. Up against Arizona, Xavier, Michigan, Michigan State, we just can't play in the second half. Hopefully this team will learn to play as well in the second half as it does in the first half, but so far this team has been a team that will only play one half well.

So tonight is a turning point for the season. If we lose tonight, at Minnesota, we can probably write off the NIT in addition to writing off the NCAA tournament. If we win tonight, we're home against Wisconsin and Indiana. Wisconsin is not an unstoppable team, and if Randle is able to lock up Alando Tucker (which is obviously no easy task) then we have a chance in that game. I don't expect us to win, but I hope it would be a closer game than against OSU.

Following that game is the home game vs. Indiana. The only other games we can lose this Big Ten season are to Wisconsin and atIndiana. If we lose anything else, I would write our chances of making the NCAA Tournament off.

It's not just the fact that we have to win those games though. The way this team is playing, they're making virtually every game look way more difficult than it should be. And they're also showing they can't win on the road.

So that's why tonight is a turning point. Come out strong, beat the shit out of Minnesota and prove that we can win big on the road. If we lose tonight, or if it's a close game, people will just be talking about how we barely squeaked by a shitty opponent and how we could lose to Penn State or Purdue or at Iowa.

And I probably won't have much of a rebuttal. I mean I will, because I'm a know-it-all jackass, but it will be even more far-fetched than usual.