Exhibit(ion) A: Preseason Skirmish With Wayne State

Illinois played their first exhibition game Tuesday night at Assembly Hall against Division II Wayne State. The key word to focus on is "exhibition." You learn very little about a college basketball team from an exhibition game, especially a team like the Illini who have seven new players on the roster. Some new light is shed on individual players, but teams cannot be totally evaluated based on an exhibition performance.

With that in mind, the Illini still took to the court to take on an opponent other than themselves, which merits some discussion. I imagine that the main question most Illini fans have is which half will be more indicative of the team's play this season. The halftime score was only 35-32 in favor of Illinois and Wayne State even held the rebounding advantage 16-12. Illinois quickly righted the ship in the second half though, spurred by Meyers Leonard and Brandon Paul's offense. Illinois' defensive aggressiveness finally paid dividends, as they outscored Wayne State 44-19 in the second half.

If I were to give a semi-informed, educated guess, I would say this Illini team will consistently perform somewhere in between the two polarizing halves. Bear in mind, starting point guard Sam Maniscalco was held out of the game as a precautionary measure, as were three other players that figure to contribute to the rotation in Myke Henry (knee), Devin Langford (broken finger) and Crandall Head (suspension). Head coach Bruce Weber toyed with lineups for most of the game and any semblance of the projected starting rotation rarely played together. Add in that it's the first game for a young team with many new parts and there is some explanation to the sluggish start.

With this in mind, let's explore a few positives and negatives that I observed tonight.

Positive - Defense: After two consecutive seasons of lackluster defense, characterized by apathetic effort and laterally lethargic players, Weber and Co. have assembled a group that should thrive on the defensive end. The perimeter defenders do an exceptional job keeping their man in front of them (something McCamey and Cole struggled with often) and the post players are big-bodied and unafraid to mix it up on the block. The rotations on defense are noticeably crisp as well, including the half-court trap that James Augustine used to execute to perfection. The effort is there, too, with players diving for loose balls and concerted attempts at physicality. Unfortunately, this leads to our first negative which is.......

Negative - Foul Trouble: There were 49 total fouls in the game, 21 of which were committed by the Illini. While this is a necessary result of aggressive defense, it was extremely counterproductive at times and led to bailing out the Wayne State offense that was mostly inept in the half-court against the Illini's tight defense. I was extremely impressed by the defense but the number has to decrease in order for this team to succeed. There is absolutely no way this team will be able to keep up offensively with Big Ten teams who are shooting free throws in the bonus for the majority of the game. This will be something to keep an eye in the early part of the nonconference season.

Positive - Mike Shaw/Tracy Abrams: I'll start with Abrams, who logged major minutes at point guard with Mansicalco's absence. Weber has said often that Abrams is the ultimate competitor during game situations and that was very obvious throughout the exhibition. I was impressed by his poise. The freshman assumed the point guard position and dished five assists to no turnovers. Moreover, he's an above average dribbler and would have easily had the second-best handles on last year's team behind McCamey. There have been many naysayers over the years shoehorning Abrams as a shooting guard that would never really succeed at the point. I would argue emphatically to the contrary and, if anything, I feel more confident that he'll be leading the Illinois over the next four years.

Shaw also impressed when given a larger role in the wake of the frontcourt foul troubles. Shaw was easily the most active player on the floor and recorded twice as many rebounds (8) as Leonard and Tyler Griffey in comparable playing time. It was no secret why he got those rebounds either; Shaw wanted it more than anyone else on the floor, elevating and using his large frame to secure errant shots. If Shaw could puts forth similar effort all the time, the freshman will be an integral part of the frontcourt rotation.

Negatives - Nnanna Egwu: Much has been said about Egwu's inspired play in the offseason, including some speculation that he might receive minutes as the starter. Such speculation will have to be tempered for now, as Egwu only played 13 foul-plagued minutes before eventually fouling out. Egwu is skilled, no question about it. In 13 short minutes, Egwu scored 10 points, including 4-4 on free throws, and displayed some of that rumored motor by notching two steals and two offensive rebounds. Keeping him on the court will be the issue, though. Egwu will need to develop some defensive discipline in a hurry. The fouls he committed were mostly forced and could have been easily prevented. Egwu's offensive skill-set and 6'10" frame is extremely valuable in the frontcourt and will need to stay out of foul trouble to protect Leonard and Griffey.

The words to describe this team right now are these: extreme caution. This is a young team that will have a lot of trouble scoring at times. But the effort is there, along with defensive intensity, and that can mask a lot of offensive problems and even help in creating offense. This team has a long way to go, but they have a bright future. Just remember Illini fans, caution. Extreme caution.

Stories To Wake Up And Inspire

This morning I awoke purposeless.

That's usually not the case. Normally, I wake up, roll over, see the sunlight through my window and take it as a cue to start my day. A shower and some morning reading ensues and then it's off to busy the day with class, errands and interactions with people around me. Normally, I accomplish these morning activities dutifully and with workmanlike purpose. This morning was quite different.

I laid in bed for another five minutes, knowing fully that since I already saw that sunlight, I had no chance of falling back to sleep. I tossed and turned a little longer, trying to muster a reason to get out of bed on this Sunday morning -- and none came.

Then my phone rang. It was a stroke of luck really; if I hadn't woken up five minutes earlier I probably would not have taken the call. It was my sister, Natalie.

Natalie entered her senior year of high school last week and I'm envious of that. Senior year was a transcendent year for me, a perfect combination of a lack of responsibility mixed with the authority of being the oldest in school with all of your friends and I tried to make the best of it. I hope Natalie has the same level of fun that I had and I'm positive she will.

The first step in her senior year was to attend the Back to School Dance. Most of you are familiar with high school dances. Vice Versa was the best because you get to dress up to a theme and everyone looked great, Prom was generally pretty fun if you liked your date, and all the other ones fell into a void of mediocrity. The Back to School Dance was exceptionally mediocre.

Peoria Notre Dame, my sister's current academic institution and my alma mater, has been on a crusade that dates back to my senior year against a prevalent form of dancing -- grinding. It's a perfectly reasonable crusade for a Catholic high school to battle against. Grinding flies in the face of most Catholic tenets and sets a pretty poor example to wide-eyed freshmen every year. Above all, grinding is the most uninspiring form of dancing ever created. I'm not even sure it can be classified as dancing. Seriously, it's a disgrace. Even a dance like the Bernie is far more respectable than grinding and loads more fun.

For some reason, grinding continues to grace us with its presence and high schoolers can't get enough of it. So as PND administrators are patrolling the dance floor trying to corral any outbreaks of that diseased form of dancing, my sister (also an opponent of grinding) tells me the majority of the senior class decides to simply leave the dance and not return. Apparently, the majority included every senior except Natalie and her friends. I mean, I guess that's one way to deal with things, but what a crappy way to handle adversity.

Anyways, Natalie and her cohorts find themselves in a difficult position. They still want to have fun at their last Back to School Dance ever, but were abandoned by their unimaginative peers. Luckily, with a little brainstorming, they concocted an antidote to their precarious situation. My sister and her friends approached some freshmen boys who were outlying the dance floor and started to dance with them; actual dancing, the kind that's fun and active and exhilarating. They continued this for the remaining duration of the dance.

At this point in the story, I'm no longer languishing in my bed. I'm actually sitting on the edge of my bed and smiling because I know my sister just made those freshmen's collective nights. In a perfect ending to the story, Natalie was walking back to her car after the dance was over and happened to see one of the freshman boys they were dancing with climbing into his parents car. She decides to give him a friendly wave and, in response, the boy blows her a kiss! Now, besides the fact that the next time I'm in Peoria I'm going on a manhunt to possibly end this kid's life, that's inarguably the coolest thing that he's ever done. His irrational confidence is going to be off the charts for about two weeks, ending when he sees his life flash before his eyes before getting laid out by that hulked-out, monster sophomore linebacker at football practice. Order will eventually be restored.

Natalie finishes telling the story and I confess that it's probably one of the better ones I've heard in awhile. I tell her to keep living the dream and joke that she should jot down the kid's address for my future reference.

After the phone call ends, I look out the window and the sunlight has a different, inviting quality to it. I make a coffee and bagel and head to my balcony, where I'm greeted by the most beautiful day in recent memory. A cool breeze is blowing through the trees, people are walking by with smiles on their face, and Maroon 5 is playing softly through the screen door. Some days are easy to start and others are much harder.

Sometimes, a morning story helps.

Blog Revamping

Quick service announcement: I started this blog with the intention of posting often, which is mostly the point of blogging and writing in general. I didn't write the catchy sub-header for the blog so that you would take a seat, get comfortable, grab a drink, and then wait around for two months before I innocuously post again. That's actually rather rude of me and definitely not fair to you, the readers.

So, as the title of this post has suggested, the blog will be undergoing a revamping process. The changes will not be physical, but ideological. I'm hoping, time permitting, that I will make 1-2 posts per week. As the sub-header (read: official mission statement) states, we'll be talking about life - current events, my memories, movie reviews, sports, my family - and having fun in the process. Hopefully, my productivity persists throughout the year and no road bumps are met on the way. As always, thanks for reading and stay tuned for the first post of the new era later tonight.

My Favorite Moment of Sophomore Year

A year ago I got the writing itch and decided to start a blog. My first post detailed the top five moments of my freshman year -- a compilation of events and memories that defined my first year in college. Heading into this summer, I fully planned on returning to the format and creating my list for sophomore year. I even started writing the post, getting through moments 4 and 5 before becoming increasingly bored and letting it sit around for awhile. Six weeks later, I tried to return to finish the post and couldn't do it. Something felt wrong and I quickly realized the reason why: I wasn't doing these moments enough justice with little 300 word write-ups that were brief summaries at best. Instead, I went to work on writing about my favorite moment of sophomore year in a little more depth than usual.

(Sidenote: the runner-up this year was Halloween weekend and, specifically, the Friday night of Halloween weekend. I came to the conclusion that Halloween is off-limits for this post in the future because, let's be honest, dressing up and celebrating is too much of a fun time to not be memorable. This year's Halloween spawned "Lonely Pokey" in which a too-drunk Derek, dressed in a Pokey costume, aimlessly meandered around the party we were at to the point that he looked incredibly sad and lonely. Trust me, it was hilarious. Our group, consisting of Bert and Ernie, Pokey and Gumby, and myself in gangster attire, then invaded an empty Geo's basement and started an awesome dance party, prompting the eccentric DJ to say, "It's like watching Saturday morning cartoons on acid!" Only three months until Halloween 2011!)

My favorite moment of the year was actually an entire day, the penultimate one of the school year for me. The day was the spiritual sequel to Picture/Jersey Night (yes, that night is important enough to be a proper noun from here on) in that we knew we had a limited time together before we went our separate ways for the summer. In fact, it was the last day the core group of us were together. Luckily, we were gifted an entire day to fill with engaging activities, and we did just that.

I had my car in the campus area for the past month, which opened up some avenues for us in terms of the scope of our adventures. Since I was parked in the Kappa parking lot, we made some idle chatter with our friend Molly before Derek, Brian, Jeff, Jack and myself piled into my tiny Mustang to embark on a journey to find a bowling alley. Unsurprisingly, the nicer bowling alleys were located in obscure places or were closed in the daytime, so we figured the Illini Union was a safe bet. After a pleasant round of bowling, we ventured to the nearest Old Chicago for some fine dining in our polo shirts and cargo shorts. It was on the way to Old Chicago that we made our major discovery of the night. Apparently, an unheralded member of Young Money, Jae Millz, has a penchant for rapping unintentionally funny things about the woman he's been with. I think this song sums it up nicely. I don't know where he comes up with some of that but, needless to say, it became our mantra for the night.

Shortly after dinner we took a leisurely drive to Wal-Mart to try on goofy hats, buy a ball for Four Square, and hear the worst story of all-time from a Wal-Mart employee. From there, we returned my car to the Kappa house (which became a sort of home base for us the rest of the night) and started up a rousing game of Four Square on the Quad. After an hour of Four Square, we made our way to Geo's for a refreshing and casual $1 bottle. I felt slightly weird doing such a blatantly adult act after a childish game, but it was a proper summer send-off to our favorite watering hole. We figured that an appropriate end to the night would involve returning to home base again to present a birthday gift to an under-the-weather Molly, and along the way we picked up Satyen Patel. I'm sure Saty made a lasting contribution to the day, but I can't really remember right now. As the wee hours approached, we dropped off Jeff, who had been a gamer all day even though he had a final the next day, and Jack, Brian, Derek, myself, and the nefarious Satyen strolled around campus conversing and sharing witticisms, trying to fend off the impending sunrise that would mean the end to an extraordinary day.

I realized during those hours that it was the first time in recent memory that I didn't want a day to end. Looking back, I also came to the realization that this memorable day was very comparable to an average day of my childhood, minus the driving and the casual beer at Geo's. Back then, all you needed was a game of Four Square and a couple of friends to have fun. Now, a day exempt of school, stress, or work becomes the most memorable day in a person's year, even though I would've classified it as a completely normal day ten years ago. It's a sad realization to come across, but I'm also grateful to have made the connection, if only because it made me appreciate this day a little more and hopefully paves the way in the future for more days like these. Nights like Halloween will always be remembered as special times, but there's something mysterious and exciting about the prospects of any regular day morphing into a memorable one. And with my friends, I wouldn't be shocked if it happens a couple more times before we graduate.

Dropping Everything, If Only For A Second

Usually, I kick off the summer blogging season with a post about my Top 5 moments from the previous school year. That post will be appearing by the end of the week but since I decided not to write at all until the middle of the summer, I'm not really interested in chronological blogging at this point. What broke me out of my summer slump was a particular experience that happened on the Peoria County roadways today, and as with any moment that gets me thinking, I felt the sudden compulsion to write about it immediately.

I was cruising down a two lane road around sunset hours. My windows were down, and the music was at deafening levels (A Tribe Called Quest, I believe) as I comfortably soaked in the summer evening. Before long the quaint driving was interrupted by faint sirens and flashing lights in the distance. The road was not crowded but there were more than a few motorists out driving and, noting the impending presence of an ambulance, pulled over to the side of the road in a hurried fashion. I unconsciously did the same without a moment's hesitation -- it's an obvious sign of common decency to stay out of the way of an ambulance on duty. Once the ambulance safely and swiftly passed me, I flipped on my turn signal, pulled back onto the road and continued my pleasant summer drive.

As I drove, I couldn't help but be pleased about the event that just transpired. Not the fact that the ambulance was en route to a situation where someone was likely in great distress, but the fact that myself and other motorists stopped everything we were doing in order to make it easier for a group of people to resolve a dire situation that was bigger than all of us. We are almost always hellbent on envisioning how to accomplish things on a daily basis to fit our convenient schedule that rarely do we take the time to assure someone else's convenience. But that's exactly what happens when we encounter an ambulance with sirens blazing. I tried to find an equivalent to this phenomenon in other walks of life and the only comparison I could draw would be national anthems before sporting/important events. The national anthem is usually a formality, though; an expected step in a process to begin a baseball game or a high school assembly. In the case of a speeding ambulance, it is always unexpected and still we act accordingly with the utmost unselfishness.

And it is that feeling of unselfishness that stuck with me for the remainder of my summer drive, inspiring within me hope that even in a society of increasing nonchalance that a group of people can in tandem accomplish something for a greater good, or a good that may not be directly related to them. We'll never know who that ambulance was for, but maybe our selflessness contributed to saving a life tonight. It's enough to make you smile as the summer sun sets, if only for a second.

Easter Traditions

Note: I've noticed recently that I frequently blog about holidays, and I'm not sure why. I made myself a mental note for the future that there is more to write about than holidays and how much I love my family (they are inextricably linked), but tonight I am going to relapse and write about a holiday again. Also, I noticed my blog posts tend to be really long, so I apologize for my chattiness. Onwards!

As I type, the famed Easter Bunny is frolicking through many a front yard hiding eggs in hard to find places. If you ask my baby sister Katie what her favorite part of Easter is, her eyes will widen and she'll shout, "EASTER EGGS AND JELLYBEANS!" As her godfather, the two things that I have made sure she learns is to love God and to love jellybeans. Since I retired from the Easter egg hunt many years ago, I have graduated to the position of filming the hunt with the family video camera. (The documentarian in me wants to shoot the Easter egg hunt as a clash between my brothers who are in it solely for the candy and my sisters who are doing it for the wonder of finding eggs left behind by the Easter Bunny; in short, a classic example of the difference between greed and innocence. This idea gets shot down relatively quickly by the parents, who cite "creative differences" and threaten to shut down filming. Typical.) The Easter egg hunt is always entertaining, but has lost some luster since I stopped participating. I had to find a new favorite thing about Easter, and I wasn't sure what that was until a few days ago.

Few would expect that the best part of Easter would include Mass in the morning, but to me it has a special quality. It starts as we enter the church in a single file line that would make the Von Trapp's jealous. I typically bring up the rear because I have a knack for corralling the little kids when they fall behind. The search for an open pew is always a difficult one, but in a very un-Bruch Family move we always arrive early for Easter Mass and there is usually a wide open pew. A wide open pew is essential because my family is rolling 10-deep (11 if my grandma shows up) and not all pews are designed to fit that many people. Luckily, my parents starve us and we are skinny enough to all squeeze into a pew as one unit.

At this point, the entire congregation is staring at us, marveling at the size of our family and pondering our various ages and how we function together. Normally, such scrutiny might cause embarrassment, but I could not care less. With my position at the end of the pew, I simply glance to the side and see everyone of us kneeling in our best attire, and I smile with pride. Seeing all of us together is a rarity and I savor every minute of it. I can't help but to imagine myself twenty years from now looking down a similar pew, still beaming with pride at my own wife and children. These are the thoughts that count in life.

The mass progresses smoothly until the sign of peace, when chaos breaks loose within our pew. Katie is crafty and knows that as a five year old, she can hop onto the seat and move down the aisle giving everyone a comfortable handshake. For the rest of us, we have to make due with reaching as far as our arms can stretch and sometimes the cheesy two-finger peace sign has to suffice. By the end of it, our family has mostly reshuffled within the pew and I find myself smiling again. I simply cannot help it.

Throughout the rest of the day we engage in other fun activities and I make sure that Katie and I have eaten every possible jellybean before we are sick to our stomachs. Still, nothing really comes close to that feeling of togetherness that I felt during mass, crammed into a small pew. It's exactly what was intended for us and it's moments like these where I love being a part of a big family.

Illini Fever

Later tonight, at approximately 8:20 p.m. central time, the Illinois Fighting Illini basketball team will take the court against the UNLV Runnin' Rebels in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

At approximately 8:45 this morning, I awoke. And I was nervous.

I had plenty of reasons to be nervous on this cloudy, mild morning. I could have been apprehensive about the events of the preceding night, or the impending email I am to receive today telling me whether or not I am officially transferred into the College of Media as a print journalism major, or the fact that the days are slipping away faster than my brain can process. But today I am nervous for only one reason: the Illini basketball team, the very team I've been rooting for since practically my birth (I secretly wish I was born with jaundice just so the doctors could have confirmed from my orange-tinged skin that I was an Illini the moment I left the womb).

This is our first Tourney game in two years and only our second game in the past four years. Obviously, this has been a cause for concern and numerous columns, blogposts, message boards, etc. dedicated enormous amounts of ink trying to diagnose the recent futility. But that all disappears at 8:20 tonight. The tweets, the anger, the elation, the frustration - it will simply become white noise as we watch the game unfold.

My upbringing as an Illini fan taught me to be an optimist. My father, a graduate of the University of Illinois and devoted fan for 40 years, is a cautious optimist. He believes that the team deserves faith, regardless of the situation, and that a rational look at the team will yield a cautiously optimistic view of each game, season to season. Unfortunately, I was raised as a rabid Illini fan, so naturally I'm more of an enthusiast/apologist than optimist. But optimists get nervous sometimes, too.

I know our team is good. I know this simply because I've watched every game this year. We beat North Carolina by ten. We hung with an uber-talented Texas team until the final minutes of overtime. For all intents and purposes, we lost to Ohio State by only one point. The Gonzaga team that smoked St. John's last night didn't stand a chance against us in their own backyard as we pummeled them with aggressive defense and lights-out shooting. I know our team is good.

I also know that our team has a serious mental issue that makes us look like a bad team. We couldn't close out a vastly inferior UIC team. We displayed our usual pitiful rebounding effort as we lost to Penn State on a last second offensive board/tip-in. We resembled a group of 7 year olds trying to play basketball in the last 7 minutes of the Michigan game and blew a lead that sent every Illini fan into a fit of fury.

But neither of those things matter anymore. Nobody knows if we are a good or bad team, because we're in a new season - a new season where our record is 0-0. Throughout the season, my dad kept saying, even during the past 3 months of basketball hell where we don't know what personality our team is going to take on a game-to-game basis, "just get this team to the tournament." He thinks this team has a lot of talent, but he knows mentally something has been off. His theory is that this team will finally get its head straight with the prospects of a long off-season and no more collegiate basketball for the seniors, and the team will rise to the occasion with a renewed level of focus that will match their noticeably high talent level. And this is coming from a cautious optimist!

So as I continue to bide my time the rest of the day, watching other basketball games with a detached interest at best, I will send out one final plead to this Illini squad. Play to your potential. Forget all of the past season; every dribble of the ball, every second of the game. Feel the weight of a merciless fan base rise off your shoulders. Play loose. Meet the opponent eye-to-eye with confidence.

My dad and I will be watching as we always do. We'll curse when Brandon Paul inexplicably turns the ball over, and cheer when McCamey hits an Eff You Three. And maybe, just maybe we'll pull a win out.

But maybe we're just doomed optimists.