The following post was written by staff writer Kate Munson.

While the Illini (27-26, 6-8 Big Ten) may not have a particularly remarkable record, their offensive statistics are impressive.

The Fighting Illini are third in the Big Ten with a team batting average of .290. Senior shortstop Angelena Mexicano is leading the charge. She has belted 20 homeruns on the season, breaking the record she and teammate Shanna Diller set for most Illini long-balls in a single season when they each hit 16 in the 2007 season. Mexicano’s 20 homers are good for most in the Big Ten and the nation. She also has 53 RBIs for the Illini, second in the Big Ten, and is batting .367 on the season for eighth in the conference.

But she isn’t the only productive Illinois hitter. Lana Armstrong and Sarah Bryers are also in the top five of Big Ten run producers. And Shanna Diller is right behind Mexicano in average, batting .353 on the season.

So how can a team be close to the top of their conference in average and leading or in the top in individual offensive categories, especially RBIs, and still be below the .500 mark in conference play?

Look no further than pitching. As a staff, Illinois pitchers have a 4.09 ERA. Michigan has the lowest ERA in the Big Ten at 0.62. Indiana (13-31, 3-11) is the only team in the conference with a higher team ERA than the Orange and Blue at 4.79.

The following post was written by staff writer Bret Greenberg.

Tracy McGrady will have to put Houston on his shoulders and play a complete game to give the injury-riddled Rockets a chance to catch up with Utah in the opening round of the 2008 NBA playoffs. With injuries to All-Star center Yao Ming and starting point guard Rafer Alston, McGrady and his teammates have to pick up the scoring load. Luckily for the Rockets, Alston is expected to return later in first round from his strained hamstring. But it may be too late. Down 2-0 in a best of seven series, the Rockets are heading into the house that head coach Jerry Sloan built, where the Jazz had the best regular season home record at 37-4.

Houston’s shooters need to take some pressure off of McGrady. Former Illini guard Luther Head has struggled to find his shot off the bench in the first two games, shooting 1-9. This has forced coach Rick Adelman to keep him there. Head has seen 20 minutes of playing time in the first two games. During the regular season, he played about 19 minutes a game where he put up 7.6 points per contest. It’s time for him to find his playoff stroke and help his team.

The other side of this Illni playoff battle is former alum, and current MVP candidate, Deron Williams. Williams has been key at the point guard position for the Jazz, who just a year ago made it to the Western Conference Finals. The playoff run for the Jazz was sparked by a game seven win over the Rockets in the first round. This year, the Jazz may finish the Rockets in four.

Williams put up 20 points and 10 assists a night in the regular season, and has contributed 21 points and 7.5 assists a game in the playoffs thus far.

Williams though, has been suffering through a tailbone injury he sustained April 12 against the Denver Nuggets. He aggravated the injury against the Spurs in the final game of the regular season. On Monday, at the end of the third quarter, he came down awkwardly from a pick set by Houston’s Aaron Brooks. He was escorted to the locker room, but returned in the fourth quarter. He apparently wasn’t wearing his padded compression shorts.

The Jazz’s game plan to stop McGrady appeared to be successful in the first two games. Though the franchise guard put up nearly a triple double in game two, he was held to just one point in the fourth quarter, when it counted. The Jazz threw new, fresh defenders at him all game to wear him down. His legs didn’t look fresh in the fourth quarter of game one either, where he was held scoreless. The bottom line is, if the Rockets are going to make it out of the first round, Tracy McGrady will have to play the way he is capable of for all 48 minutes, and his shooters will have to step up and make some shots.

Depending on where your pro football loyalties lie, Brett Favre’s career affected your life in one of two ways. For the millions of fans that comprise “Packer Nation,” Favre’s arrival from the Atlanta Falcons in the summer of 1992 was nothing short of a godsend. The quarterback took a franchise that had fallen on mediocre times and turned it into a perennial divisional, conference, and league-wide contender, year in and year out. For everyone else, Favre was the face of the enemy, a monster that trampled the dreams of division rivals and playoff opponents on a regular basis. Favre looked good on the field only when buried under a pile of defensive linemen or tossing one of his NFL record 288 picks.

But behind the love-to-hate relationship many fans hold towards No. 4 is a sincere level of respect for an athlete that is truly an anomaly in today’s NFL. Favre personified the essence of sports, and not just because he didn’t run over traffic control officers or shovel thousands of dollars onto the floors of strip clubs. There’s something about the image of Favre racing around the field after throwing the game-winning touchdown against your favorite team, a huge smile painted on his face, that rouses a sense of awe at not only his ability to compete at such a high level, but the passion that allowed him to enjoy the game so completely after so many years.

Two words fell out of my mouth this morning when ESPN.com refreshed on my computer screen: “Oh no.”
After years of harboring resentment towards Favre and his beloved Packers, my initial reaction was not one of celebration or relief, but of disappointment with a trace of remorse. Favre was a competitor, and, above all, a winner, that played with the same vigor whether his team was in first or last. You can say all you want about Favre the Packer, but there is little honest criticism one can offer about Favre the football player.

SportsCenter replayed a telling interview this afternoon that Favre did with Rachel Nichols. In his college days at Southern Mississippi, the coaches would often have a difficult time locating the ecstatic Favre after a touchdown pass. “Where’s Brett?” they would ask. After seventeen years of exhibiting the same youthful infatuation with the game, there will be something missing from the world of sports now that No. 4 has departed.

No matter your disposition, fans everywhere will have one question on their mind when the new season begins in September:

“Where’s Brett?”

With the recent flurry of trade deadline moves changing the face of the Western Conference, the annual complaints about the balance of power in the NBA has begun.

While ESPN and other sports media outlets gush over the talent that has made its way out West in recent years, the Eastern Conference has been effectively, and unfairly dismissed as the league’s pretenders. Funny that the top two records in the NBA belong to the Celtics and the Pistons. Granted, the East also owns the league’s two worst records, with D-Wade’s Heat and (Al Jefferson’s?) Timberwolves settling in quite comfortably in the NBA’s basement.

The farther down the East’s standings you glance, the more apparent it becomes that there is certainly a discrepancy between the records of the conference’s 4-8 seeds and their Western counterparts. The Warriors, currently in a dead heat with the Nuggets for the eighth seed in the West, would find themselves at the four spot in the East. There is no denying the fact that the West is a more competitive conference, but anyone who completely disregards teams like the Magic, Pistons, Celtics, and possibly even the post-trade deadline Cavs, is flat-out misinformed for a number of reasons.

Western supremacy has been a very popular system of belief since Michael Jordan packed his bags and left the East to fend for itself, but this one-sided approach to the NBA has spread like wildfire since the trade deadline. But how much really changed on February 22nd?

Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images

Pau Gasol’s move to the Lakers was an in-conference deal. While the big man has been lighting it up so far running the floor with Kobe Bryant, the top teams in the West all made key additions at the trade deadline, and I foresee the rest of the regular season, as well as the playoffs, functioning as a full-out brawl that will leave the West’s representative in the finals bruised and battered, the Laker’s dynamic duo included.

While the Gasol trade is widely considered to be one of the most ridiculously unfair trades in recent memory, the Suns’ acquisition of Shaq may be the stupidest. Steve Kerr was out of his mind giving up the 29 year-old, versatile Shawn Marion who can score, defend, and rebound with the best of them, for an aging, injury-prone center who takes five minutes to make it from one end of the court to the other. The East actually got better by shipping Shaq off, though Marion is most likely already planning his escape from Miami.

Though the Mavs scored big in acquiring Jason Kidd, they gave up a young, promising point guard in Devin Harris who was posting career-highs all across the board in his first season as a starter. The loss of center DeSagana Diop also raises some serious issues with depth in the Dallas frontcourt.

At the heart of the West vs. East debate is marketability. The best teams in the East are largely considered to be a defensive-minded group — a style of play that does not translate into the flashy, high-scoring product that has become standard procedure out West. Interestingly enough, the Spurs have used the East’s grinding, defensive approach to become the West’s most dominant team in recent years. In a way, Kerr’s trade for Shaq is a concession that the Western Conference’s run-and-gun style of play may look good on TV, but ultimately does not win championships.

The pre-game show for last Sunday’s matchup between the Suns and Pistons featured a nauseating 29 minutes of coverage dedicated to Shaq and the West’s trade deadline moves before the commentators clarified that there was, in fact, another team that would be competing that afternoon. Roughly two hours later, Jeff Van Gundy and Co. were left to discuss McLovin’s potential Oscar snub while the Piston’s bench padded a 34-point third quarter lead. Needless to say, it was a satisfying turn of events.

The common perception of the West as the dominant conference is really just a marketing smokescreen. Four of the past five finals matchups have featured either the Spurs or the Pistons or both — two teams that play “boring” basketball. Five of the top seven franchises in all-time finals appearances hail from the Eastern conference. While the West may have a monopoly on 30-something stars, the East boasts three of the league’s most exciting and productive young players in Dwight Howard, LeBron, and Wade.

Yes, the majority of the rosters in the East pale in comparison to the West’s, but the Pistons and Celtics have enjoyed considerable success in inter-conference play. Before dropping three games immediately following the All-Star break, the Celtics were a perfect 15-0 against the West. Detroit, meanwhile, is 15-7 in play outside of the East, including a 15-point road win against the Hornets on Dec. 5, not to mention Sunday’s 116-86 dismantling of Phoenix.

I recall the day during my senior year of high school, in the heyday of Shaq and Kobe’s dynasty in L.A., when I made a pre-playoff bet that the Pistons would win it all. While I was criticized for “giving away” my money against the mighty West, a month later I was the one collecting money. I knew the East was better than people let on. Three years later, I found myself making the same bet. Come June, I’ll be 10 bucks richer.

When did it become so trendy for people to hate hockey? I am deeply troubled by the local levels of disdain for a sport that has fallen out of favor not only in Chicagoland, but across the country as well. Frustrated maybe, more than troubled. As the so-called adopted child of pro sports’ “Big Four” (basketball, football, baseball, hockey), the NHL has had its long and strong tradition on the American sports scene overshadowed by 2004’s season-long lockout and the rising popularity of its Big Four counterparts. I’m not going to tackle the NHL’s image problems or preach to a Blackhawks fan base that is going on 48 years since its last Stanley Cup. I’ll keep it simple: Here are a few reasons why you should be at least mildly interested in what’s going on at the United Center when the Bulls aren’t busy losing there.

Reason #1: The Blackhawks used to be cool
It may seem like an eternity ago at this point, but it’s only been five years since the Hawks were serious contenders in the playoffs. In the 90’s and early 00’s, their roster was a grocery list of young, proven talent. If anyone can think of a better goalie tandem in history than the Eddie Belfour/Dominik Hasek combo the Hawks had at their disposal in 1990, I’d call them a liar. Roenick, Amonte, Belfour, Chelios, Zhamnov, Daze… these guys were nasty. You were probably too busy watching the Bulls 15-peat.

(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Reason #2: Bill Wirtz will never, ever run the Blackhawks again
Unless his head is locked up at some cryonics lab in Arizona with Ted Williams, waiting to be brought back to life. The guy was easily among the top-5 worst owners in professional sports. Maybe even in history. Now that I think about it, Wirtz and William Clay Ford Jr. are top-2. Nicknamed “Dollar Bill” because he was too cheap to keep any of the players I listed above, Wirtz refused to air Hawks home games on local TV because he only wanted to deal with the “real” fans who showed up to the games. This strategy might have worked out perfectly for Wirtz, had people paid enough attention to the team in the first place to realize he was blacking out games. It was like playing a game of keep-away with something nobody really wanted.
And what is the first move his son Rocky “Can’t Be” Wirtz makes when he takes over? He gets rid of the blackouts. There would have been massive rioting in the streets had Bill not already managed to turn the Hawks into a joke.
(Interesting Note: Rocky recently hired John McDonough, the former marketing director of the Cubs, as the new president of the Hawks.)

Reason #3: Do it for the kids
While the rest of the NHL pillaged his team year in and year out both in free agency and on the trading block, “Dollar Bill” had no choice but to accumulate high draft picks. In that sense, current Hawks rookies Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews were essentially accidents. Now they essentially own the rookie leader boards. Kane may not have a cool nickname yet (see: Sid The Kid), but his 45 points leads the current rookie class. Toews (pronounced “Tayvz”) leads all rookies in goals (15), which is incredible considering the center has watched the last three weeks worth of games from the owner’s box with a sprained knee.
This is a Hawks team with two highly touted teenagers that are producing mere months into their careers, which is more than the Bulls can claim about the four-year train wreck that was Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler.

ESPN’s E.J. Hradek has Kane and Toews as locks to become future superstars

Check these kids out.

Reason #4: As a Chicago sports fan, there’s really nothing better to do
-The Bears are only competitive once every three seasons so you still have two more seasons to go
-The Sox are going to be buried behind the Indians and Tigers in the Central for the foreseeable future so forget about their playoff chances
-The Cubs are the Cubs
-Unless John Paxson travels back in time to make that Kevin Garnett trade, the Bulls are doomed to lose much of their young talent in free agency and fall right back into mediocrity.

Instead of watching Kirk Hinrich and company spew basketball garbage all over the court for the next two months, pick up an $8, 300-level student ticket at the United Center’s Will Call and watch an above-.500 team play for a legitimate shot at the playoffs. The Hawks are suddenly filling the United Center on a nightly basis, believe it or not.

I’m excited about Blackhawks hockey and Chicago should be too.

I’m a Red Wings fan. And you should hate that.