10/27/11 Morning Dump- a quick rundown of Illini related stories from around the media landscape

On this, the 300th day of the year, we’ve got the first injury of the Illini basketball season, and the first time I’ve ever heard Nathan Scheelhaase sound angry.

Late starts dog Illini

Scheelhaase said. “Early on in the game, it’s kind of taking us a while to get revved up and get going and we can’t have that, especially (Saturday) against Penn State. Guys should be pretty excited. If they don’t have energy, something’s wrong. They probably don’t have a heart.”

An interesting factoid: Penn State has held its last two opponents scoreless in the second half. The Fighting Illini have only scored in the second half against its last two opponents.

Illini’s Langford out 4-6 weeks

As omen’s go, he was hit with a bad one this week when freshman Devin Langford broke his finger at practice Monday and underwent surgery on Wednesday. If Langford is out 4-to-6 weeks, as projected, his return won’t come until sometime in December at the earliest.

This might have some implications for our roster situation. I’m torn on whether Langford should redshirt-recent developments with Joe Bertrand (our most recent redshirt) seem to indicate that it might be a good idea. However, we have another redshirt candidate in Djimde.

Illini soccer seniors leave lasting impressions

it will be the last regular season home game for the senior class, which tallied a career record of 45-27-7 and two NCAA appearances.

If I’m not mistaken, the current team has the longest winning streak in program history. Get out there and support the seniors!

Illini picked sixth in pre-season basketball poll

Team, total points (range of predictions)

1. Ohio State, 288 (1)
2. Wisconsin, 248 (2-5)
3. Michigan, 233 (2-6)
4. Michigan State, 219 (2-6)
5. Purdue, 194 (2-9)
6. Illinois, 150 (4-9)
7. Minnesota, 142 (3-10)
8. Northwestern, 115 (6-11)
9. Indiana, 111 (5-12)
10. Iowa, 86 (6-12)
11. Nebraska, 60 (8-11)
12. Penn State, 26 (11-12)

A pretty broad range of predictions-OSU is the unanimous #1, then, there is chaos. The Illini basketball squad is a pretty clear cut #6; no member of the media picked them higher than 4th, while all of the teams above them had at least one believer in second place possibilities. Of all the teams ahead of the Illini, I think Michigan is probably the most overrated.