All year long, the Big 10 teams hear people calling the League the best in the country. Over and over. Sport radio guys, bloggers, regular fans. And all the guys on the floor begin to believe that. And, being a top-level brand of competition, they spend the entire regular season beating each other up. Night after night. Big game after big game. They dominate the rankings every week. But they also “spend” themselves and use up their energy.
And then... comes tournament time. And teams from the “lesser” or more ignored conferences are thrilled to be there on the big stage. It’s everything to them. It’s a chance to show they belong. It’s a chance to let people know they are “players” too. And they treat contests with Big 10 teams like their biggest game of the year (and for many of them, it is).
But the Big 10 teams don’t take these “lesser” programs seriously enough. They don’t prepare enough. They don’t bring the same level of passion to the floor before the ball jumps. They get complacent and satisfied. And before they know it, their tourney games with these “lessors” start to get out of hand and they have no answer for it and too quickly they go home looking lost and confused.
This season is a wake up all for the Big 10... or it should be. There are great ballers out there coming from everywhere. The old legacy Blue Bloods are leaking and creaking and grasping to hold on to their lofty perches. But the mid-majors and the “football” conferences and the once-great leagues like the Pac 12 are smelling Blue Blood in the water and they are pouncing. They aren’t going way and they like their new found riches.
This creates a great opportunity for the Orange and Blue. A seat as the Big Table is right there in front of them for the taking. They’ve got some real momentum and buzz and mojo and right now and they need to capitalize on it. They can either seize the moment and grab a Big Chair now or they risk slipping back again and letting these “lessers” and football schools shove them off to the side.
I think the Illini leadership knows this. These guys have done a remarkable job of taking a program from mediocrity to a Number One seed in a quick flash of time. With more development from the on-court raw talent already in house plus the additional of some nice shiny new pieces, that Illini seat at the Big Table is there for the taking.
And please, maybe a little less Big 10 hype and save more energy and preparation and passion for the tournament that really means something.