I Would Log Off Twitter If It Weren't For Illini Basketball

The Illinois basketball fanbase is unhinged.

We all know this. I generally do everything I can to avoid listening to the Fasteners Etc Altorfer Cat Postgame Show. I’m not in any of the chatrooms or message boards. I listen with deep admiration when 70-year-radio veteran Loren Tate calms people down or just generally dismisses them (“Well I don’t know about all that”) on Monday Morning Quarterbacks or Saturday Sports Talk.

This year, especially, I have some level of forgiveness for these, erm, unrefined behaviors. More than any season in my memory, we’ve had some highs and some lows. At one point, we truly thought Illinois could win the national championship, and at others we’ve truly thought they could miss the tournament. I’ve heard that Brad Underwood should be the Big Ten Coach of the Year (if not the national coach of the year) and also that he should be fired – not at the end of the season, but immediately.

The rashness of being a fan is one of the most fun parts of it; it’s one of the only places in life we can act this way and get away with it. If we treated romantic love or platonic friendships with this kind of consistent whiplash, I imagine most of us wouldn’t have any relationships left. It’s a healthy outlet (until it isn’t).

But I do have one vice that allows me to stare into the deep abyss that is Illini fandom: Twitter. I know Twitter is the bad place now, but it’s how I connect with my true loves, all of you.

While I’m not much of a poster on Twitter, I do see what you all say. And when trying to remember the ups and downs of this year in order to get ready for the NCAA tournament, I went on a journey I wouldn’t recommend to anyone: I went through the Twitter DMs of me and @217Showers for the length of the Illinois basketball season.

A lot of you said some pretty wild things! Remember when y’all went on a witch hunt to figure out who put Terrence Shannon’s jersey upside down? We were not very nice at all to Ben Humrichous, and it hurt his feelings! (Here’s this for anyone who needs it!). We came out full force against Coleman Hawkins and Luke Goode (people who brought us Big Ten championships!) and haughtily sneered at the transfers who left for not making it as far as we did (most of them transferred to worse schools so they could play more because we’re very talented; we should be glad for them for getting their shot!.

Remember many of you got aggressively mad at Orange Krush for (checks notes) not being drunk and mean enough? And then got mad when the security guards took away their alcohol? We also got super mad at the team for getting sick! In winter! When almost everyone I know also got very sick!! We got some thinly veiled xenophobia about how Illinois shouldn’t recruit players from out of Illinois. We got super mad at Kylan Boswell for burning sage (which he apparently does every game but got caught on camera once).

Of course, the Chief curse was behind all of this (sarcastic).

It is lent, and these are the confessional hours at St. John’s Newman Center on Campus. Some of y’all need them.

Twitter also brought moments of joy. Many of you are very funny! Some of you say really ridiculous things! Twitter can also bring us all together. A pretty good podcast resulted from a Twitter beef between Carp and the Boardroom Boys. We also had some good laughs together.

Remember when Kedric Prince made up a rumor that Morez Johnson Jr passed out during practice and then wrote a column to debunk it? What about when we decided that Illinois basketball players being TOO STRONG was making us bad at basketball??

Kasparas Jakucionis has some words for us: “Basketball is beautiful by itself, and we don’t need these kind of activities.”

As we approach the NCAA Tournament, I want to give a moment of appreciation for this team. I believe this is the most talented Illini team of my lifetime. We have two surefire NBA players, and three other top prospects. Kaspararas Jakuconis is probably going to be the best NBA player in Illinois history. Will Riley will likely have a long NBA career. Boswell is from Champaign-Urbana and has been on a tear. Ivisic (and players like him) are the future of basketball. Tre White sometimes has flashes of being amazing. Ben Humrichous, well, I probably need to fill out the form, too. Morez Johnson is a magnet for rebounds in a way I’ve never seen in my decades of Illini fandom, and I would give a stupid sum of money to NIL if you could guarantee it would go solely to bringing him back.

This team has produced some of the most fun wins I’ve ever seen. They could very well make the Final Four.

They’ve also produced some of the worst losses I’ve ever seen. We might be cursing at our screen Friday night.

In a time when the Free Agency-ification of college basketball has upended the sport, I love where our program is at. This team is very talented and cares very much. This is in my top three favorite Illini basketball teams of my lifetime.

Still, Illinois shoots a lot of 3s, and also really sucks at them for some unknown reason. Should we drive to the basket more? Yes. Should we get more free throws? Yes. So far, when we’ve put it together, we’ve been unstoppable. When we don’t, y’all go crazy. I do too.

I don’t know who is going to be on the team next year. I don’t know who is going to be on the team two years from now. And I think there’s a pretty good chance any single player might leave at any time. I hope they come back.

But at least one more time, we’ll get to see the most talented and most frustrating team we’ve ever seen take the court.

And I can’t wait for you to get your takes off about it.

You can follow Johnathan on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. He can be reached at jhett93@gmail.com

You can follow Champaign Showers on Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, and Instagram.