Illinois 73, Indiana 71: Big Ten basketball is very bad and please stop making me watch it

Indiana played a basketball game tonight. It could’ve, perhaps in a parallel world, been an important one. An opportunity to keep some fleeting hope of the NCAA Tournament alive, an opportunity to pull to 6-3 in the Big Ten — something all but completely unforseeable after the Hoosiers got dumptrucked by regional Indiana commuter schools twice in a two month period earlier this season. An opportunity to win their second game out of three in the last six days. And yes, you’re reading that right. Indiana has now played three basketball games in the last six days. If that seems dumb, it’s because it is, for reasons we’ll discuss more tomorrow. It has to do with Rutgers, of course — the conference’s ever-growing black hole sucking the rest of the league into a deep space vacuum. (Rutgers, if you’re reading this, eat shit!)

Anyway, Indiana lost to Illinois tonight. By two points. 73-71. Perhaps If you’re reading this, you might be thinking — wow, a close matchup between two big-time programs! Border rivals! I really missed a good’un! This is not the case. This game was booty. It was ass. It was terrible. It was the mascot, the hallmark, the magnum opus for a league producing aesthetically pleasing, enjoyable basketball at roughly the same rate as the Big Fucking West. Here are some highlights from this Extremely Butt basketball game:

• At one point in the second half, both teams went more than 7 minutes without making a single field goal.
• Both teams combined for 47 fouls.
• Indiana committed 18 turnovers.
• The final 10 seconds of crunch time featured three missed free throws and Devonte Green dribbled the ball of his foot or some shit to end the game.
• The game’s third leading scorer at halftime was a member of the general Indiana student population a handful of months ago.

Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnghhhhhhhhh.

This was Indiana’s last big opportunity to salvage something known as ‘momentum’ heading into the Purdue game Sunday and push some way back into the at-large conversation for the NCAA Tournament! It did not go well! Instead of any of that, Indiana lost to a winless-in-conference-play Illinois team. The season, for all intents and purposes, is over if you measure success by NCAA Tournament bids.

Juwan Morgan, who’s the only thing on this team worth writing about right now and should be First-Team All B1G, led all scorers with 28 points on 12 of 14 shooting while adding 9 boards.

Here’s three very quick things about this game, because I’ve had exactly three Michelob Ultras and I want to go to bed.

Make free throws.

Illinois made free throws — shooting 71% as a team. Indiana did not — making 55% as a team. This is bad analysis!

Lmao, season’s over now.

Did you want to make the NCAA Tournament this season? It was possible until tonight! Enjoy sobbing yourself to sleep!

Just please god end this season soon.

Remain sane, and stay off my twitter timeline: Archie Miller is a good-enough coach, the roster isn’t great, and there’s not much to extrapolate from this season other than to hope it ends soon.