The Shailesh-tival

I love the Illini. Seriously. The Illini men’s basketball team played Penn State last night, and I didn’t want to miss the action. I called all of the sports bars near my apartment and couldn’t find a single one playing the game. Finally, I found a BW-3 about 20 minutes away had would be showing the game (which tipped off at 9:00 PM ET). Unfortunately, the Michigan State Spartans were playing at 7, and the Pistons at 8, which meant that if the Spartans game ran late, I was out of luck for Illini tip-off.

Anyways, I left the apartment at 8:10 or so and got to BW-3 at 8:30 or so. The Spartans were ahead of Northwestern comfortably with 8 minutes left to go. The Pistons had 8 minutes left in the 2nd quarter. Anyways, I figured that maybe I’d miss the first 2-3 minutes of the Illini game, but the Northwestern Wildcats started fouling the Spartans with about 7 minutes left. When the Pistons went to halftime at roughly 9:00, the Spartans still had 4 minutes left in the game. Remember, that when I started watching, both teams had roughly 8 minutes on their respective clocks.

Anyways, the Spartans finally finish off the Wildcats at 8:20 and I ask the bar to put on the Illini game. Alas, it has started snowing and their satellite dish isn’t receiving a signal. Unfortunately, I’ve already ordered my dinner. So I down my dinner and head out, hoping to catch the end of the Illini game on the internet back at home.

I walk out of the bar to find that it’s snowed about 5-6 inches in the hour I was in the bar. I slipped and slided my car back to my apartment. I took about 40 minutes, and I was seriously scared of ending up in a ditch on multiple occasions. Anyways, I get home hoping to catch the end of the Illini game and I learn that I missed the end of it.

And how did the game end? The Illini blew a 14 point lead, at home, against the worst team in the Big Ten. They trailed 66-65 with 3 seconds left. They shot a desperation 3 at the buzzer. The shot went in, Orange Krush stormed the court and then the refs reviewed the shot and it turns out the ball was still in the shooter’s hands (the name of the shooter evades me right now) at the buzzer. The shot is called off, and Penn State wins.

This leads me to a few points:

1) Northwestern University — You suck at basketball. Stop delaying the inevitable. Michigan State is way better than you, you’re not going to overcome a 15 point defecit in 7 minutes. Get off the court and let me watch the Illini.

2) DirecTV — You should look into putting heating coils on the back of the satellites, kind of like the defrost on the back window of a car. I know that when I had DirecTV, I once had to clean the accumulated snow off of the dish to get my picture. That BW-3 probably didn’t have a signal well after the storm ended.

3) Orange Krush — You people are idiots. Even if that shot does count, Penn State is not exactly Michigan State or Wisconsin. If you were one of the people who stormed the court last night, you are an embarrasment. I realize some of you had no other option because you didn’t want to get trampled, and I understand, but the rest of you are idiots. And you’ll probably never admit, but deep down, you know who you are …