Well now that was exciting, no?

1. Pressey giveth and Pressey taketh away. Give Illinois credit. They challenged shots and forced a LOT of misses. Missouri shot a dreadful percentage, headlined by Pressey's 0-fer-until-late. Nineteen FGAs is probably a bit much most nights, but keep in mind that Haith played a short bench and neither Ross nor Bell contributed much in the second half. In truth, I'm more bothered by Flip's incessant need to split every double team and dribble the ball into trouble. But, the court vision. Wow. Sometimes you just have to live with a Flip-being-Flip kind of game--especially if he's going to play the way he did on defense. He put Brandon Paul in jail during stretches of the second half.

2. Jabari Brown sure does look the part. When I saw 18 points I was like, "He didn't score any kind of 18 points." I absolutely love that I barely noticed his efficient shooting game even though I thought I was paying attention to him.