Joe Sports

Hard to believe it's already the final week of the Big Ten regular season. Seems like we were all just downtown for media days and speculating about how great Illinois and Michigan State were going to be.

Anyway, with Saturday's games to go, here's how the 11 Big Ten teams have fared during this decade in league games only. Sorry for the unaligned formatting. That's on my wish list for Blog 2.0.

TEAM RECORD POINT SPREAD
Ohio State 63-16 +1044
Michigan 53-26 +488
Iowa 48-31 +429
Penn State 44-35 +438
Wisconsin 44-35 +207
Purdue 40-39 +89
Northwestern 37-42 -518
Michigan State 32-47 -188
Minnesota 30-49 -283
Illinois 26-54 -607
Indiana 18-61 -1099

John Shurna so wanted to be able to send the postgame text message.

Northwestern’s sophomore forward and Butler sophomore forward Gordon Hayward roomed together this summer when they (and Butler sophomore guard Shelvin Mack) played for USA Basketball’s gold medal-winning U-19 world championship team.

Before and during No. 11 Butler’s 67-54 win over Northwestern, Shurna and Hayward exchanged verbal jabs and inside jokes. Hayward, apparently, picked up somewhat of a fan club during their stay in New Zealand, so Shurna told him he’d import that fan club to Evanston tonight. When Butler came out to warm up at halftime and didn’t see any available basketballs, Hayward ripped into Shurna for the weak hospitality. And so on and so forth.

Two wins down, 36 to go for Illinois’ perfect season.

No. 23 Illinois didn’t prove a ton of things during its 80-61 win over Northern Illinois on Tuesday night -- other than the fact the Illini struggled to contain the dribble-drive and couldn’t keep the smaller Huskies off the offensive glass -- but that’s what these early-season games are for.

With three new guys in Illinois’ nine-man rotation (and junior F Bill Cole really should be considered a fourth because he played just 157 minutes in his first two years), performances and perceptions are going to shift from day-to-day. Or, in fact, from half-to-half.

Hi gang,

At 7 p.m. today, Northern Illinois and Illinois finally meet on the court. Considering both schools have been in the men's basketball arena since 1906 -- and the schools are just 170 miles apart -- their first meeting seems a little overdue.

Just for fun, I compiled a list of every in-state college, army unit, YMCA team, youth group and coffee klatch that Illinois played before it got around to battling the Huskies.

Augustana
Bradley
Cairo Athletic Club
Camp Grant (Rockford)
Champaign High School
Chanute Field (Rantoul)
Chicago
Chicago State
Chicago YMCA
Decatur YMCA
DePaul
Eastern Illinois
Evanston Reds
Great Lakes
Great Lakes Hospital
UIC
Illinois State
Illinois Wesleyan
Knox
Lombard
Loyola-Chicago
Millikin
Mount Vernon
Northeastern Illinois

After consulting with several health professionals, including a pair of foot specialists, Northwestern senior forward Kevin Coble has no choice but to undergo season-ending surgery to fix the mild Lisfranc fracture in his left foot.

Coble said Friday that such surgery would keep him off the court for four months, but that doesn't even take into account the rehab time necessary to return to action.

Coble also mentioned on Friday that he'd be interested in taking a redshirt year and returning for the 2010-11 season, but it's important to note that Lisfranc surgery isn't a slam dunk.

According to a page I found on footphysicians.com, there are additional issues involved with Lisfranc injuries. From http://www.footphysicians.com/footankleinfo/lisfranc_injuries.htm:

Just when Northern Illinois gets its first opportunity to play Illinois -- NIU has been playing basketball since 1900 and Illinois since 1906 -- the Huskies lose their best scorer.

What junior guard Xavier Silas thought was a soft-tissue injury turned out to be a fractured right hand. Silas suffered the injury with 18:18 left in NIU's game at Northwestern on Friday when Jeremy Nash went for the block and smacked him where the thumb and forefinger link, yet he played through it.

NIU says Silas won't need surgery, but will wear a splint and be re-evaluated at Dec. 1. At the minimum, Silas will miss Tuesday's game at Illinois as well as home games with Tennessee State (Friday) and Southeast Missouri State (Sunday) and a trip to Northern Iowa on Nov. 28.

Side thought:

Before we get into it, click here if you want referee Dan Capron’s explanation regarding Sherrick McManis’ clinching interception with 32 seconds to go: http://blogs.dailyherald.com/node/2924

WHAT THIS GAME MEANT
Northwestern’s 21-16 win ensures the Wildcats (7-4, 4-3) get to play in a bowl in back-to-back years for just the second time in program history. Early scuttlebutt suggests NU could be ticketed to the Champs Sports Bowl, which gets the third pick after the BCS pairings are settled. The Insight Bowl also looks like a sound choice since NU hasn’t played in Arizona. Nothing against the Alamo Bowl, but the Cats were in San Antonio in 2000 and again last year.

Hi gang,

If you saw the finish of Northwestern's 21-16 victory over Illinois, then you saw the officials rule that NU cornerback Sherrick McManis took the ball away from WR Jarred Fayson on a diving play with 32 seconds to go.

While most of the 60,000-plus inside Memorial Stadium thought the referees blew the call -- that Fayson made his diving catch and rolled onto his back to end the play before McManis came in -- here's the official statement from referee Dan Capron:

Just when I was researching the last time Northwestern went scoreless in the first half, Illinois redshirt freshman QB Jacob Charest picked an inopportune to throw his first INT.

To recap:
Pat Fitzgerald went against his character (he doesn't like to give the other team momentum going into halftime) and went for it on fourth-and-1 from Illinois' 43 with 1:12 to play. But Zeke Markshausen dropped Mike Kafka's short pass -- the Wildcats' third drop of the quarter -- and Illinois took over.

On the first play, Charest fired over the middle toward Rejus Benn...but MLB Nate Williams got in the way to give NU the ball at its 46 with 1:00 left. Five plays later, Kafka hit Markshausen for a 28-yard score. That put the Wildcats up 7-3 at the break.

A FEW THOUGHTS:

And here I thought I wasted four years of high school French and a year of college French. For some reason, it all paid off on Friday night in Evanston.

Among the many things we learned during Northwestern’s 77-55 season-opening win over Northern Illinois? That senior forward Kevin Coble has what currently is diagnosed as a mild Lisfranc fracture in his left foot…and that senior guard Jeremy Nash was “ a little bit of a dilettante” in coach Bill Carmody’s eyes.