LamarCheeks

Jesus, Justin -- make one. Those are not hard shots.

At this rate, it'll take 90-plus to win this.

Oh Trace -- not only did you let your guy open in the corner, but you fouled him on a 3. ... Freshman mistake!

An athletic 6-10 guy who can take his game outside ... How nice to have that at your disposal.

He's just not quick enough. That's why he can't leave him. Or else someone needs to guard him.

Brunk vs. Urkel is a huge mismatch, especially if Brunk keeps dropping off to help. Can't leave him even for a second. He's too damn good.

Brunk on Urkel isn't working. Urkel is too athletic and too versatile.

Twerps 69 Good Guys 65

From 1980-97, Bucky didn't beat us -- anywhere. ... We ran off 31 straight against them. ... Kinda hard to believe now.

If you listen to Izzo, he probably thinks this is all because of Sparty ... P.S. -- LOVE that emotion from Joey!

He's from Chicago. Hope he doesn't end up in Champaign. ... Bloomington might be a nice fit, though!!!

I just watched it again, too, and Tillman didn't even touch Hunter at the end. I guess it's fine to have the two extra points, but still ... Also, I wish they'd make some sort of rule as to what can and can't happen with under a second left. It's too difficult for the clock operator and officials to accurately monitor such situations. With six-tenths of a second to play, Winston caught the ball, turned and shot a 65-footer. Now, it didn't matter if he made it or not, but I just don't think it's humanly possible to do all that in just more than a half-second. I thought that years ago, when they first started indicating tenths of seconds, they said if there was :00.7 or less to play, all you could do was tip the ball. When there's less than a second to play, I just don't think it's humanly possible to catch the ball and take a jump shot. (Also, I cannot believe how fortunate we were that Tillman's tip rolled out. Reminded me of the game at Michigan in 2013. Crazy that the ball didn't go in.)

Was working tonight, so didn't get to see much of the game. Just listened to Archie's and Izzy's post-game pressers ... Man, Izzy is one angry, bitter old cuss at us, and I'm guessing it's because we fired his buddy, Crean. He's probably pissed about that on two fronts: 1) They're friends; 2) He probably figured that nine times out of 10, he could beat Crean. He said that tonight, a kid who hits 12 percent makes the 3 to put us ahead. I'm presuming he's referring to Al? He wasn't shooting great, but was better than 12 percent. ... And he said MSU has to take everyone's best shots and everywhere they go, it's a sellout and the fact that our fans were supposed to wear red shirts was, essentially, a tribute to how tough MSU is -- because those kinds of promotions are usually reserved for weekends. Huh? Last year, he fussed about injuries after both games and fussed about how a crummy shooter like Justin Smith went off during the game in Bloomington.

And after both games last season, Izzo fussed about injuries. Hell, we had more than our share of injuries last season, too. Rob never was quite right after his concussion, Race was limited all season because of a concussion and obviously, we didn't have Jerome all year. And Romeo pretty much played all season with an effed up thumb/wrist. ... The second game, he said they ran out of bodies and ran out of gas and got killed by a guy who made four 3-pointers all year. ... That's basketball, Tom. When you're the No. 6 team in the country, aren't you supposed to figure out ways to win games like that? ... Man, I would love to beat these guys by 10-15 points. Don't think it'll happen, but would love to see it.

Sparty 73 Good Guys 69

De Sousa suspended indefinitely. Does that mean one game, like K did with Grayson Allen?

Dang. Flipping back and forth between Toiletmakers-Illini and Twerps-'Cats. ... Last I looked, it was 'Cats 55-50. Now, it's Twerps 58-55. Am guessing the Cats' magic has run out -- at least for tonight.

Dakich, who's the color man in West Lafayette for Toiletmaker-Illinois game: "I love this crowd. To me, this is the best place in college basketball." OK, Danny boy -- whatever you say.

I have heard the story about Herbert demanding we hire Sampson. I didn't realize he thought Kelvin was black. He is Native American (Lumbee Indian), so I guess he would've satisfied Herbert's demand for a minority ... I would've been fine with Beilein, but I would've wanted no part of Stallings. First, he hadn't really accomplished anything. Second, he's a Purdue guy. Man, I'm just not comfortable with a Purdue person coaching us (although Moren so far as worked out ... but Versyp was a huge mistake). I do remember hearing Stallings' name bandied about after Davis resigned. If memory serves, the main connection was that Greenspan (our AD at the time) had hired him at Illinois State ... Sampson is a good coach, but our team had somewhat of a thuggish image under him. I remember seeing a story that with the exception of Eric Gordon and D.J. White, pretty much everyone on the team was smoking a lot of dope. And this is what always bugged me about Kelvin: When he took the job, he was told to stop the extra texting and phone calls -- whatever it was that got him in trouble at Oklahoma. And he didn't stop! I realize that what he got busted for is no longer a violation and it almost seemed a silly one back then, but the reality is -- it was a violation. And he kept doing it -- when he was told not to.

It was added about 5-6 years ago.

I'd say Maryland probably is a little better than us, but sheesh -- we're making it easy for them.

We've had -- I think -- two shot-clock violations, a 10-second violation and about a half-dozen (if not more) other turnovers in the backcourt when we couldn't beat the press. Get that cleaned up and we might have a chance. Can't have that many empty possessions.

Playing passively. Missing easy shots. Not grabbing loose balls and available rebounds. ... If we don't get these things corrected, this'll get out of hand in a hurry.

Down 16-15 after a quarter ... Not bad considering our start. ... Missing some easy buckets, though. Need to start hitting those.