The Illinois Basketball Oscars

It’s award season, people. While we detox from the holidays and return to the monotonous grind of life, we turn to Hollywood to judge our favorite celebrities to escape it all while we sit in sweatpants and scrape the bottom of a Ben and Jerry’s tub.

This is the internet, and we are a blog, so by law we must run a piece with our predictions for The Oscars. Much like the actual Oscars, we couldn’t find someone to host this piece, but I drew the short straw, so here I am.

We’ve got 10 predictions for the upcoming Oscars. Expert opinion. No bias at all.

Best Costume Design: Orange Flyin’ Illini Throwbacks

We asked, they answered. After sporting the white 1989 throwback uniforms the past few seasons, the Illini took the next step and brought back these beautiful threads.

After hoping there would be an entire redesign of the uniforms this season (#WhereAreTheBasketballUniforms), Illini fans would have to wait another year before an entirely new look arrived. However, the program made two huge improvements by eliminating the ‘zig-zag’ paneling and adding the beloved orange throwbacks seen above.

Best Sound Editing: Illini Fans Silencing Northwestern’s ‘Shrieking Girl’

Good job by us. I mean what the hell was that? How did society let that stand? There are rules here.

This is how you know there are no Northwestern fans watching their games on a regular basis. Someone would have stood up and said something. Instead, they had to wait for us to come to town and cause a fuss about these piercing cries.

If you don’t know what I am talking about, I’m sorry to do this, but take a listen:

After a tweet-storm from Illinois fans, and probably complaints from the Big Ten and BTN, Northwestern asked this girl to stop. Be better, Northwestern. And you’re welcome, America.

Best Director: Orlando Antigua

During this past calendar year, Antigua landed our unheralded, large, Eurasian son Giorgi Bezhanishvilli and helped to turn him into a potential All-Big Ten Freshman frontcourt player.

Perhaps more important, Antigua made his first big splash on the recruiting trail during his time at Illinois by landing four-star and top-40 big man Kofi Cockburn.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Headband Feliz

Brad’s dye jobs, AJ’s new movie-star beard and Trent’s Twists all made strong cases, but Andres’ cornrows and headband look takes the cake. He only sported it for a few games, but it left an impression on the committee (me). He needs to bring this look back.

Best Cinematography: The Ayo Chasedown Part I and Part II

Honestly, I don’t know what cinematography is. I’m sorry for that. But this is the coolest thing I’ve seen this year, and I assume cinematography is — broadly speaking — making things look cool.

Part I

Part II

Best Animated Feature: ‘The Jacket Throw’

The soft release. The form on the follow through. The face of pure evil. The profanity. Perfection.

Underwood is known to yell and to make his face a frightening shade of red, and he put on quite a show at the United Center vs. Ohio State, but the jacket throw vs. Michigan was unique and undoubtedly deserves the honor. I’m sure we will see Brad try and top it over the remainder of the season.

Best Foreign Film: Giorgi Bezhanishvilli

There are no words to explain the joy this man has brought to Champaign. He hails from the country of Georgia and has injected life into a nearly lifeless program. Protect him at all costs.

He is the definition of genuine and a true gift from the basketball gods.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Ayo Dosunmu vs. MVSU

Since Braggin’ Rights, Ayo has definitely been playing the lead. But against the lowly Delta Devils, Dosunmu put up a career-high 9 assists and 9 rebounds.

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Trent Frazier vs. Gonzaga

We haven’t seen much of it lately, but the second half of the first game in Maui was a vintage Trent Frazier performance. Making deep three after deep three, he simply willed the Illini back into the game against a top-five team. He ultimately missed a late potential game-winning three, but that doesn’t make his performance any less impressive. Frazier poured in 29 points, and 27 of them came in the second half. He made six threes, seven free throws and collected five steals in the best individual performance by an Illini so far this season.

Best Picture: ‘Cheerio, Giorgi-o’

It’s rare to see a foreign film also win best picture. But that’s how electric Giorgi has been. Credit to @ALionEye for cropping the original photo down and continuing to photoshop ‘Cheerio, Giorgi-o’ into different photos all year long.

Who was snubbed? Let us know in the comments!

For vintage inspired, high quality, and well-designed University of Illinois apparel, check out Fourth and Kirby, and look for the TCR Collection while you’re at it!