Good Reads: 1/10/19

Illinois plays Michigan (#2) at home tonight

Tip-Off: 7 PM

TV: FS1

If there’s one thing that could make this season salvageable in any way (besides recruiting), it would be to topple Michigan at home tonight.

Here’s the thing about playing a team with a fan/alumni base who non-ironically refers to themselves as the “Harvard of the Midwest” or the “Leaders and the Best”: no matter how bad we are, a victory over them feels intangibly sweeter than any other. In a season devoid of bright spots, this could be a defining bright spot.

Plus it feels similar to when we took down Indiana (#1) in 2013. The line for that game, per Derek Piper, was Illinois +7. The Illini are 9-point underdogs tonight. Lest we forget:

Just saying.

Listen to The Champaign Room‘s preview podcast here.

No matter what happens tonight, we’ll always have this picture:

Golden Corral is coming

Champaign-Urbana (and specifically C-U’s internet community) has been obsessed with getting a Golden Corral for a while, with questions about it dominating Tom’s Mailbag at The News-Gazette for what feels like millennia. It’s been a pretty strange phenomena, with Facebook comments stretching as far as they eye can see.

Today, however, is a new dawn for the Champaign-Urbana buffet game.

Congrats, buffet lovers (I never thought I would type that sentence). At long last, your fight has paid off.

(Ben Zigterman / The News-Gazette)

You should volunteer at Allerton Park

Someone mercifull put a stop to the shrieking Northwestern fan

(Teddy Greenstein / Chicago Tribune)

Too little, too late for Illini fans.

Listen to this shit. It happened whenever the Illini drove to the basket. It happened whenever Northwestern touched the ball. It happened all the time.