A hard wind’s a-gonna blow

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends. It’s been far too long since we caught up.

How is the new year? Get any good holiday loot? I think I speak for all of us when I say I’m just so excited for classes to fire back up that I can hardly tie my shoes.
OK, that’s done, thankfully.

The IU men’s basketball team, it would appear, turned over a bit of a new leaf in 2009 as well. They’ve found a bit of confidence – in their ability, in teammates’ abilities, in the offensive and defensive sets they have finally begun to grasp.

Two consecutive close misses to start the Big Ten season have Hoosier Nation in a positive tizzy ahead of one of the most perennially anticipated dates on the conference calendar: the trip to the other Assembly Hall.

Being from Georgia, I can’t tell you exactly when the IU-Illinois game started to become a rivalry. I’m told by those in the know it probably began with the general and publicly recognized disdain held for one another by Bob Knight and Lou Henson.

Whenever it began, any hardwood matchup between the Hoosiers and the Illini gets fans on both sides of the border running hotter than the Fourth of July – steamier, too.

And with those two near-wins at Iowa – a place long unforgiving to the Hoosiers – and at home Wednesday night to Michigan, there is newfound faith that this bunch just might have what it takes to go into Champaign and shock the hated orange and blue.
Bad news alert: They don’t.

This team is better, certainly, than it was two months ago. And it’s fair to say that, if we’re judging based purely on quality of play, they’re better than I expected them to be at this point in the season.

But they’re not good enough to walk into Illinois and beat a team that for no apparent reason seems to view IU like the bullish big brother that’s held it down for years.

This goes back farther than Eric Gordon. To risk a Simmonsian comparison, IU is the Dottie Hinson to Illinois’ Kit Keller, the latter just burning with unspent jealousy because of the former’s accomplishments.

Well, those who love women’s baseball will tell you Kit Keller wins in the end, whether Dottie let her or not, and Illinois is going to do the same.

The Hoosiers don’t match up well, although that’s nothing new.

Illinois has the best field goal percentage in the conference, and they defend the 3-point shot better than anyone else in the conference as well, not to mention the six players 6-foot-8 or taller, including feature big men Mike Tisdale and Mike Davis (not that one).

If the brief Big Ten schedule to date has really taught us anything, though, it’s for all the polish these Hoosiers have put on their statistics, there are still intangibles they lack, and this one is gigantic: The Hoosiers have yet to feel hated.

Teams like IU always get the dark side of love, especially in years like this when it’s easy to do so, but this year’s team hasn’t honestly felt completely despised yet, and I just don’t think they’re going to handle it well.

Big Ten win No. 1 will come soon – very soon, in fact. Perhaps as early as mid-January against Penn State. It won’t come Saturday, though.

Illinois is coming to the plate, and there’s just no way the Hoosiers will hang onto this ball.

Osterman’s prediction: Illinois 85 – IU 68