It’s a new year. We’re back. Thanks for reading our trial run last month. Some good stuff happened and some bad stuff happened (The Illini suffering the worst home loss in a decade-plus, for example), and we’re hurdling into 2019 like a recently-uncaged mongoose.

MTD fumbles New Year’s Eve again

I get that bus drivers need a holiday, too – and they deserve one. I also get that Champaign-Urbana’s public transit infrastructure depends on students, and when they’re gone, ridership becomes unsustainable in certain locations.

Something I’ll never understand, however, is how MTD annually abandons the public on New Year’s Eve – the same time that other (dare I say more robust?) cities amp up their public transit, even offering it for free. I assume they pay their employees an increased holiday wage or offer them supplementary time off.

It’s not that hard, MTD. Especially on the night when folks are trying to avoid either driving drunk or being on the road with drunk drivers.

We lost to Florida Atlantic at home

They were missing their three best players, lol.

At least Ayo is good.

We found it: Experts say this might be the most Urbana tweet of all time

Here are the participating restaurants for Restaurant Week 2019

(Smile Politely / Patrick Singer)

The News-Gazette went all-access at Willard Airport

No one’s really sure why but the pictures are kind of cool, I guess.

Tevian Jones to miss tomorrow’s game vs. Indiana

This’ll be the 8th game in a row for the highly-touted freshman. All the while, Brunderwood remains tight-lipped as to why and for how long he’s being suspended. The prevailing sentiment on Twitter seems to think it’s a 10-game suspension, which begs the question: why not announce that instead of keeping everyone in the dark for 1/3rd of the season?

It looks like we might have another transfer on our hands. I hope I’m wrong.