What a weekend for Illini sports

First of all WE’RE GOING TO A BOWL GAME.

Now that we got that out of the way here are some highlights from the single-biggest football comeback in University of Illinois history:

And here are some good tweets:

On Friday night, basketball defeated Grand Canyon University. Here are the most important takeaways:

1 – Grand Canyon was giving off some serious fake-university-actually-a-megachurch vibes. Here’s a screenshot from one of their commercials aired during the game:

Which would be pretty normal. Except Grand Canyon University isn’t non-profit. It’s a for-profit scheme, and this ad is intentionally lying to everyone.

And that’s according to the Trump Administration, lol.

2 – This happened:

3: Here are some highlights:

And then last night we lost to Arizona – bummer :,(

Giorgi really has to get going – he had six points, one rebound and five fouls last night. Yikes.

OK now that sports are out of the way here’s the bad news

The News-Gazette announced a slew of layoffs this weekend – some, like nearly-four-decade veteran Paul Wood, have poured their hearts and souls into the newspaper. Others, like city government reporter Adalberto Toledo, have provided an invaluable service to the Champaign-Urbana community. The full extent of the layoffs is not yet known – I reached out for comment and will update as need-be.

When the Gazette was bought by Community Media Group, a media conglomerate known for re-structuring to make a profit, the writing was on the wall. This week, however, we’ll see it play out in real-time.

The Gazette also announced that they’ll be ceasing the print edition of the Monday paper – a hallmark loss for a once-proud journalistic enterprise. Interesting that this announcement appeared in the Daily Illini – and was buried in the Gazette.

If you can, subscribe to your local paper, even if you hate the right wing editorial board.

C-U is losing the most valuable oversight we have when we lose good reporters at the Gazette.

Talking election reform with Ben Chapman

(Julie McClure / Smile Politely)

Listen to Champaign City Councilperson Matthew Gladney on this week’s I Have To Ask

WTF is happening with Illini football?

They’re good now. That’s what’s happening.

(Smile Politely)

Thank you, Bloomington-Normal. Very cool!

(The Pantagraph)