:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/26728807/20140112_pjc_bb6_120.0.jpg)
On a night when Northwestern's players wore shorts that looked like a bored teenagers biology notebook, somehow the Illini managed to be the ugliest thing on the wood. You don't win games when you shoot 27.7% from the field. You just don't. Other than Tracy Abrams, not a single Illini player actually managed to look good.
It ... can we just pretend that we didn't watch any of that? Because holy shit was it awful. You could have spent your Sunday evening learning a new skill, bettering yourself, or being around people you love. And literally all of those options would have been smarter decisions. You wouldn't have watched two teams feebly flail about, throwing a tiny ball at rims that refused to cooperate.
There really isn't anything to actually recap. It was an ugly game from both sides. The Wildcats were just less ugly. Coming into conference play, we'd all abandoned the fear of what was going to happen to the Illini this season. They were flying high and a trip to the tourney seemed like a legit possibility.
That died tonight. This is an NIT team.