New Podcasts:
The 200 Level - Barnstormin’ (2/18/21)
The 200 Level - Déjà Buie (2/16/21)
Champaign Is Also A Band - Lovenloops (2/12/21)
I Have to Ask… - Andy Quarnstrom (2/12/21)
I Have to Ask… - Chaundra Bishop (2/10/21)
News Thing
Mary Miller picked up a Twitter ratio for the ages this week due to an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quote-tweet. Here’s the original zinger.
And the chaser
Ever since Mary Miller aired her first of many campaign ads, it was pretty clear that she was going all-in on everyone’s favorite conservative dog-whistles, but what’s most shocking is how quickly she has embarrassed central Illinois on the national stage. Honestly, it’s remarkable. She’s barely been in office a month!
Also this week, Rodney Davis has reportedly “not ruled out a run for Governor” depending on how Illinois’ electoral maps are re-drawn later this year. Doesn’t exactly seem like a winning strategy for Rod to run as a downstate Republican in a solidly blue state but I guess we’ll see. New electoral maps, which will probably affect Illinois 13th district, are expected sometime in late Summer or early Fall.
Speaking of elections, the Champaign County consolidated primary election is happening this-coming Tuesday (2/23). You can check if you’re registered and learn more about candidates through the Champaign County Voter Alliance here - it’s a really impressive and comprehensive guide.
Sports Thing
We, Illini fans, do not deserve Ayo Dosunmu.
Is it possible to tangibly measure the effect that Ayo Dosunmu has had on the Illini basketball program over just two-and-a-half years? One can look at all the stats they want to (they’re good), or watch clips all the late-game daggers (they’re great), but that still doesn’t capture the intangible effect that Ayo has had on dragging Illinois’ sleeping giant fan base from a cynical quagmire.
Without Ayo Dosunmu, there likely is no Kofi Cockburn at Illinois. Perhaps no Adam Miller, either. It’s hard to imagine the Illini getting to an NCAA tournament or garnering a national AP ranking without Ayo, given how strong the Big Ten has been recently. But these are all hypotheticals. What’s not hypothetical is Ayo’s effect on the fan base as a whole.
Last year, when we could still go to games and were blissfully unaware of anything COVID-related, I remember saying to my fiancée that State Farm Center was going to be “the house that Ayo built,” in a tongue-in-cheek way.
Now, ironically with no one there to witness, it is certifiably the house that Ayo built, no tongues and no cheeks. Kids from Rockford to Cairo will grow up loving basketball for the rest of their lives because they watched Ayo and Kofi play, just like many of us did with Dee, Deron and Luther or the Flyin Illini before them. Bill Murray is probably rooting for us from home. Opposing teams (*cough* Iowa) seek Illini fans out on social media to talk smack. They didn’t used to do that! The Illini didn’t use to threaten anyone! Now they do. Thanks, Ayo.
But what may be even more impactful than all of the work Ayo has done on the court is the context in which all of this is happening. The pandemic has revealed to us a new threat previously only imagined in movies (and warned about by scientists). Many of us have altered what we consider to be “normal” so much over the past year that we’re starting to forget what “normal” even was in the first place.
But one thing has felt normal this pandemic winter: Illinois basketball and their continued upward trajectory, due mostly to Ayo Dosunmu.
It’s cynically trivial, really. Even as we begin to turn a corner with this disease, people are dying every single day from a novel virus, millions are out of work, and we care (and sometimes protest) about unpaid amateurs playing sports for our enjoyment during an unprecedented public health event.
But damn it, it’s fucking fun. It’s fun to watch Ayo + company take our recently-crumbling program and turn it into something relevant. It’s fun to be the lead on Sportscenter. It’s fun to see tweets about building a statue of Ayo. It’s fun to be a Final Four contender. It’s fun to feel optimistic about something.
We’ll always remember this shitty year, but we’ll also get to remember this season, and how impactful it was to have a distraction, a bi-weekly appointment that could produce some pride as the world burned around us.
And while we’re still on the subject, I don’t know there’s a better feeling in sports than, in a close game, having a player that is totally confident in the moment. The last time Illini fans remember having that feeling probably looked something like this:
Music Thing
Everyone be great and have a good weekend. C-U soon.