Most of you probably don't know this, but I love watching basketball. Although the NBA is good, I've invested myself into college basketball which means that March is one of my favorite months. Along with the great weather that we have been experiencing, March means that the NCAA basketball tournament is going to begin. It's like a new beginning for a lot of teams; records don't matter anymore, rankings mean next to nothing, and everybody begins with a fresh slate. Cinderella teams that nobody has ever heard about can finally make their mark during March. All of this fares well for my favorite team, the Illini.
Illinois started the season ranked in the top 15 and expectations were very high. The team has four experienced seniors, an athletic sophomore class, and on top of all of that a highly touted freshman class. It seemed like a recipe for success, and for much of the season it was. They started off with a great record of 13-1, beating teams that they were projected to beat while pulling out a few surprises along the way. But then things started to fall apart. For whatever reason (the media claims that outside distractions, lack of competition in practice and unhappiness over the how many minutes players played per game), the team just stopped winning games. They lost against lowly teams like UIC and Indiana and were unable to win consistently. Since the beginning of January, the team has been unable to win consecutive games and it really seemed like the sky was falling. There were questions of whether the Illini would even make it into the tournament, and after finishing with a 19-14 record, I had my doubts as well. Luckily, the state of college basketball this year has been weaker than usual which means that when March rolled around the team found themselves comfortably in the tournament with a 9 seed.
Like I said before, March is like a new season that is five games long. Win five games and you are the champion. Doesn't sound too hard, does it? But apparently it is, because yesterday marked the first day of real competition, and man did madness rein free. Of the16 games that took place yesterday, seven games were decided by five points or less. Louisville, a team that many expected to reach the elite eight, lost against a 13 seed. Princeton, who got into the tournament off of a buzzer beater against Harvard, almost pulled off the upset against Kentucky. The so called "top dogs" of college basketball had their hands full yesterday against supposedly inferior teams. And as the Illini get set to play tonight, they go into the game as an underdog. With how abysmally bad the season ended, it seemed like a sure thing that they would lose. But after watching yesterday's games filled with drama and upsets, I have a lot more faith that they can come out on top tonight.
Win this game against UNLV and the seniors who have never won a tournament game have redeemed themselves. Win the next game against Kansas and it will compensate for the past four years without a tournament win. Because it's March, these crazy ideas aren't actually as obscure as they seem. There is a reason that it is called March Madness, and hopefully the Illini can fully embrace that and win a few games. With all of the craziness that happened yesterday, all I know is that you should always expect the unexpected (which in this case is the Illini actually winning a game).
Friday, March 18, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
From Paper to the Big Screen
One of the perks of being a second semester senior is having time to do whatever you want. One day while surfing the internet I came across the Oscar nominee list and it was crazy how many movies were based off of novels! With all of the "free" time that I have now, I decided to check some of them out.
I started with The Accidental Billionaires, the book that the movie The Social Network is based on. If you haven't heard of either, they are about the making of facebook and the struggles that occurred at Harvard between all of the people involved. Although the book was okay, I found myself comparing it to the movie and to me there was no competition of which one was better. The movie brought to life the personality of Mark Zuckerberg, the struggles of being a college student striving for success, and the sacrifices that you have to make. The movie was a little exaggerated, but it was thought-provoking and there was a clear moral that they brought across. The book on the other hand seemed more biased, and although it was informational and written as an interesting story, it just wasn't as good.
After finishing that book, I decided to read something more fun: Eat, Pray, Love. Though not an Oscar nominee, there have been great reviews about the book and it has been a best-seller for a really long so I decided to check it out for myself. I'm in the middle of reading it right now, but from what I have read it's pretty good. I can't imagine leaving everything I have worked for in order to fulfill my dreams of traveling, but that is exactly what the main character, Elizabeth, does. Recently divorced, she decides to travel to Italy and fulfill her dreams of speaking Italian, travel to India to reach her spiritual side, and travel to Indonesia for reasons that are not yet apparent to me. I've been pushing myself for so long to get good grades so I can get into a good college and become a successful person, but she proves that success isn't everything. Like the essay we just read for class said, working hard all the time makes us forget about the important things in life. Elizabeth was unhappy with all of the stress in her life, so she decided to idle for a while and just enjoy what life has to offer.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but hopefully I will finish the book by spring break so I can check the movie out and not feel bad about spending two hours of my life relaxing rather than completing homework.
After I finish this book, I plan to move on to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I watched the movie a few years ago and it was too serious for me....but now that I older and seemingly more mature I'm going to give the book a chance. A discussion in genetics made me remember this book about an infant born as an old man who ages backwards. Although the plot is obscure, F. Scott Fitzgerald is a good author from what I can remember of The Great Gatsby, and now that I am losing motivation to do homework this seems like a good way to pass the time.
I started with The Accidental Billionaires, the book that the movie The Social Network is based on. If you haven't heard of either, they are about the making of facebook and the struggles that occurred at Harvard between all of the people involved. Although the book was okay, I found myself comparing it to the movie and to me there was no competition of which one was better. The movie brought to life the personality of Mark Zuckerberg, the struggles of being a college student striving for success, and the sacrifices that you have to make. The movie was a little exaggerated, but it was thought-provoking and there was a clear moral that they brought across. The book on the other hand seemed more biased, and although it was informational and written as an interesting story, it just wasn't as good.
After finishing that book, I decided to read something more fun: Eat, Pray, Love. Though not an Oscar nominee, there have been great reviews about the book and it has been a best-seller for a really long so I decided to check it out for myself. I'm in the middle of reading it right now, but from what I have read it's pretty good. I can't imagine leaving everything I have worked for in order to fulfill my dreams of traveling, but that is exactly what the main character, Elizabeth, does. Recently divorced, she decides to travel to Italy and fulfill her dreams of speaking Italian, travel to India to reach her spiritual side, and travel to Indonesia for reasons that are not yet apparent to me. I've been pushing myself for so long to get good grades so I can get into a good college and become a successful person, but she proves that success isn't everything. Like the essay we just read for class said, working hard all the time makes us forget about the important things in life. Elizabeth was unhappy with all of the stress in her life, so she decided to idle for a while and just enjoy what life has to offer.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but hopefully I will finish the book by spring break so I can check the movie out and not feel bad about spending two hours of my life relaxing rather than completing homework.
After I finish this book, I plan to move on to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I watched the movie a few years ago and it was too serious for me....but now that I older and seemingly more mature I'm going to give the book a chance. A discussion in genetics made me remember this book about an infant born as an old man who ages backwards. Although the plot is obscure, F. Scott Fitzgerald is a good author from what I can remember of The Great Gatsby, and now that I am losing motivation to do homework this seems like a good way to pass the time.
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