It was a game they had to have, and one that certainly looked like they wouldn’t get. Bruce Weber’s Fighting Illini, likely the most talented team in the Big Ten–and it’s highest scoring at 75 per night–were held to 51 points in a road game at Indiana and didn’t score over the last 2:41 of the game.

That’s bad, right?

Well, ugly, for sure, but not bad. Considering the Illini defense held Indiana scoreless for nearly the last 10 full minutes of play. It was the kind of ugly, grind it out road win that good teams win, and for the second time all season–and the first since a St. Louis whuppin’ of then high-flying Mizzou–the Illini look like what they’re supposed to be.

The game had all kinds of sub plots.

– Deron Williams was locked up against his old high school teammate and Big Ten scoring leader Bracey Wright.
– Dee Brown was going to have to finally figure out that Williams, Roger Powell and James Augustine are all better than he is—that doesn’t mean Dee’s bad, because Illinois is hands down the most talented team in the league, they just don’t always play like it.
– Nick Smith was going to have to try and not relive the game in Bloomington last year when George Leach used him like a tissue.
– Luther Head was going to have to realize that the six threes he made on Saturday were a happy fluke.

-Williams, and then Head, combined to hold Wright to nine points.
-Brown was only three of nine from the field, but only committed one turnover and largely played the game like his pants were warm, not on fire.
-Smith was helped out by the fact that Leach couldn’t make a layup, but cashed in a huge play when he blocked Indiana’s last realistic shot for the lead when he swatted away a Wright three pointer.
-Head played very well and “only” launched four threes. The front end of consecutive one-and-one’s that he and Brown missed in the last :30 were scary, but Brown’s hustle play to pull down a rebound of Head’s clanker probably won the game.

The Illini are now 14-5 and 5-3 in the Big Ten. The remainder of their Big Ten schedule is horrendous with home games against Michigan State, Wisconsin and Northwestern and road trips to places they don’t like very much like Iowa City and West Lafayette.

But they finally showed a sign last night that we’ve been waiting to see. When the tough got going, they got tougher. Indiana’s perfected the art of the fold up this year and did it again, but that shouldn’t take away from the Illini’s accomplishment.

The season has still been much less than what we all thought it’d be, but ever since the embarrassing loss to Northwestern the Illini look like a team you won’t want to draw in the Big Ten tournament…or (gasp!) the NCAAs.

Scott Boras is a whiz. Really, if I ever need an agent for anything, he’s my guy. Yesterday he managed to spin a phone call from Dodger pitching coach Jim Colborn to Greg Maddux into Greg receiving five different contract offers including the Cubs.

The most confusing part of the Tribune and Sun-Times articles are the fact that Teddy Greenstein thought Jim Colburn was the pitching coach of the Dodgers–and that Mike Kiley wrote this piece of shite paragraph. While you read it, I’m going to go get the Rosetta Stone so we can translate it.

Dodgers pitching coach Jim Colborn phoned Maddux to get a foot in the door, and manager Jim Tracy discussed the possibility of Maddux coming west with his brother, Mike, who pitched for the Dodgers when Tracy was the team’s bench coach in 1999.

What does that mean? “Coming west with his brother, Mike?” Mike is the pitching coach for the Brewers! Did they move to LA, too? I know they’re for sale, but I thought they had to stay in Miller Park until 2032?

Besides, if Greg wants to play in towns where Mike pitched, well, hell, that could be just about any place.

Because you come to me for my calming influence, I’ll calm you right down.

Basically, the feeling is that if any offer is the same as the Cubs, the Cubs get him. If it’s more, Maddux will think hard about just taking the extra cash.

I know you don’t like to hear this, but here it is. Greg Maddux, at 38, is not worth $9 million a year. That’s just stupid. Honestly, the offer the Cubs made seems a little on the high side to me. Even Boras seems to know it, which is why he went into his intangibles rant on Monday when he talked about how Maddux is the most brilliant mind in baseball and used stat comparisons of guys like Kevin Millwood, Mike Hampton and Damian Moss and how they fared better when on the same team with Maddux. That was laughable, considering that most likely they all fared worse without Leo Mazzone and the Braves bullpen, than they did without their old Jedi teammate.

I hope Maddux comes to Chicago. He’s still a good pitcher and you can never have too many. But the late-thirties Maddux isn’t a savior. He’s a nice addition. And knowing Jim Hendry, if the Cubs need pitching as the season goes along, he’ll go find a team that’s out of the race and trying to dump a good, but pricey hurler and the Cubs will fleece that team like they were the ’03 Pirates. It’d be easier to just sign Greg, and while I still think that’s exactly what will happen, I won’t lose any sleep over it if it doesn’t.

As long as Greg doesn’t go pitch for the Cardinals, that is.

Friday night is the last-ever episode of “Ed” on NBC. This is troubling, and ridiculous, considering that “Ed” is one of the very few good shows that NBC has. It’s funny, it gets good (not great, but for NBC VERY good) ratings whereever they put it and none of the “stars” on the show are big stars. In other words it’s good, cheap, TV. This is why NBC is in third place. They’d rather show you expensive crap than good, cheap stuff. This is why when I travel to California with my NBC buddies I drink the Two Buck Chuck and they drink the $950 Bordeaux. We get just as hammered, but I always have more money left over for hookers.

How much of that was out loud?

Anyway, I’m not here to make the case that “Ed” is one of the great shows in TV history. It’s not. But it’s legacy will be that for four years they managed to pull off a show in which you never disliked the two main characters, even though they were in a frustrating “everybody knows they should just do it and get it over with” relationship, and the show managed to create a number of very likeable, funny peripheral characters.

Probably the biggest losses when “Ed” leaves the air won’t be that we don’t get to hang out with Ed Stevens and Carol Vessey, but that we don’t get to see Dr. Mike Burton, Dr. Walter Jerome, and the always entertaining Warren P. Cheswick. As for Phil Stubbs? He lives on forever on VH1 in “I Love the ’80s Strikes Back.”

But in my heart, the reason I’ll always remember Ed is that it was the show that always got the music just right. The two classic examples involve Ed and Carol (who else) accompanied by Pete Yorn’s “Just Another” and The Old ’97s “Question.”

So, two days early, I say a fond farwell to the denizens of Stuckeyville, Pennsylvania. We’ll miss every crazy assed one of them.

And, I hope I can remember to set the stupid VCR so I don’t miss the finale.

Teddy Greenstein can’t spell the name of the Dodgers’ pitching coach, but he buys the line that five teams are in the running for Maddux. Whatever.

Man, Rick Morrissey is not funny.

The defense led the way as Illinois stunned a hapless Hoosiers team last night. Hee hee.

Scott Skiles got fined for criticizing Jess Kersey. I’d like to see somebody get fined for sticking that little SOB in the trunk of a car. Or maybe Jess is too busy cashing in his first class plane tickets to get kidnapped?

I think Rabih Abdullah could have gotten off the hook had he just pled “guilty of uncoordination”. Anybody who’s seen him try and catch a football would agree.

Herb Gould is fired up about the Illini.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to urinate on Bobby Knight. It’s like Satan taking pot shots at Osama bin Laden. There are no winners here.

The Bulls are trying to deal Marcus Fizer for Keyon Dooling. Pardon me, I’m off to get my playoff ticket order in.

What did the Dolphins expect? They gave Dan Marino a title and no job. I don’t blame him. Though it had to be tempting to take the position just to see if they’d let him fire Wanny.

Why do people put up with Bob Knight in the first place?

By the way, just how much Knight ass kissing did Jay Bilas do on ESPN last night? If I closed my eyes, I thought for sure it was Billy Packer.

Stewey says Knight just keeps embarrassing himself. Gee, ya think?

Tom Verducci with a pedestrian recap of the baseball offseason. I could have written this article on the back of a McDonald’s bag during a layover at O’Hare.

Can I just say right now that people who really care about college football recruiting really give me the creeps?

Rosie O’Donnell’s new book is being put on hold. Now I have no idea what to buy all of my favorite lesbians for Valentine’s Day. Damnit!

Democratic frontrunner John Craggy…er, Kerry is in charge now. Now all he’s got to do before the convention is…not die. I’m not sure he’s up to it.

Anybody get a postcard from Jim Edmonds on how his vacation in Thailand is going?

Sounds more like a shotgun honeymoon than a shotgun wedding.

“You going to get a haircut?”
“Nah, just a little trim.”

Happy Valentine’s Day (a week early) from America’s finest news source.