Andy’s note: This should have been posted a couple of days ago, but I’m a dope.

In case you missed it, the Illinois basketball team has put itself back to the top of the heap of the Big Ten regular season race with wins over Michigan State and Wisconsin in the past two games. (And you can see the fun of the Wisconsin game, through a Desipio GameCast.

Most of the credit for the turnaround has to go to head coach Bruce Weber. He has the team playing the way he wants. The aggressive defense and the solid, if unspectacular, offense has Illinois at 17-5, and a half-game back of Michigan State in the Big Ten race.

The problem now is some nasty and vindictive Illinois fans will now get on those of us that may have doubted Weber?s ability to lead this particular team earlier in the year. I had no doubts about Weber?s ability to coach basketball; I had doubts about whether or not his kind of leadership and media relations was the right one to follow (And, the talk-radio circuit sure had their field day with the ?funeral? stuff, although that quote was mostly taken out of context).

Heck, on this site, Andy Dolan criticized Weber profusely after the Northwestern loss, which was the low point of Illinois fandom?s emotional roller coaster this year.

After another Big Ten loss at Wisconsin, the team had to circle the wagons. The coaching staff kicked the team out of practice after an argument. It was then this year?s unsung hero stood up to make sure the team didn?t go the way of the 2003-04 Missouri Tigers.

That person was Jerrance Howard. The reserve guard almost never sees action, but this club?s only senior took the rest of the team for a player?s meeting hours after being thrown out of practice. After that meeting, the team seemed to collectively decide that winning was much more fun than being stubborn, and the only way to win was to follow the coach?s lead.

And Weber didn?t do anything to make sure the tenuous peace branch was broken. After the Luther Head driving incident, Weber had been criticized for letting too much information out about it too early. So, Weber decided any tale of the practice argument shouldn?t get out for a while (It took a couple weeks for the story to even get out). And, for the homestretch where Illinois would play five road games out of eight for the Big Ten, Weber seemed to decide to simplify the offense, which to that point had mostly just confounded his high-low, Bill Self-recruited players. The team has run more sets down the stretch, and guys now seem to know where to be and at what point to be there. And the defense got more intensity, and has held teams to 36.5 percent from the field in their last six wins.

But, was the staunch criticism of Weber deserved in the first place? Yes, Bruce Weber was 103-54 at SIU in five years. That was an amazing record to have, if you know what shape the SIU program was in when Weber arrived. But, and this is not meant as a slap to SIU in anyway, but coaching at SIU and comparing that to the attention and criticism coaches get at Illinois is not comparable. It?s like asking a nine-year old basketball prodigy to go from the blacktops of his grade school to score 35 points a game in a seven-game series against the current Lakers or the Jordan Bulls.

The Providence game was bad, but what caught most Illini fans? goat was the Northwestern game. Illinois led the game at halftime and simply let it get away, seemingly without any leadership from any of the floor generals or from the bench general. So, and it probably will catch me some grief, the criticism was deserved. But, since that disaster, Illinois has gone 7-1, with their only loss at Wisconsin. And now all the adoration Weber receives for changing his team (With the assist from Howard) into a contender is deserved as well.

And since January 14, 2004, my how have things changed. Illinois is on the upswing, Kansas is quickly swirling down the sink, and Bruce Weber (and the team) has taken to wearing orange like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model takes to wearing paint. No, not THAT literally. But you get the point. It?s amazing: Bruce Weber, in just over a month, has turned from possibly the most hated sports coach in all of Illinois not named Dick Jauron to possibly the most liked sports coach in all of Illinois.

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The Cubs signed Greg Maddux. The key question is, how many Mickey Mouse watches are the Cubs required to give him in that contract?

Albert Pujols signed a seven-year, over $100 million dollar contract. He?s now signed through his 93rd birthday.

The Red Cross visits Saddam.
I honestly hope the only thing they give him is a band-aid.

Ralph Nader jumps into the Presidential race.
He?ll join Dennis Kucinich and they can combine to get 0.0001% of the votes in November.

Finally, the Pistons couldn?t play Rasheed Wallace last night because they didn?t get the trade paperwork into the NBA office in time and in proper order. So, now, Jerry Angelo has a partner in paperwork incompetence.