Brandon Paul scored 43 points Tuesday in a shocking upset win over a really good Ohio State team on only 15 field goal attempts. Paul added 8 rebounds and 4 emphatic blocks in the finest individual performance I have ever seen from a basketball player in the Orange and Blue.
Paul has been, at best, extremely inconsistent this year. He put the Illini on his back late in the win over St. Bonnaventure. His defense against John Shurna in the second half of the Northwestern game was a huge factor in the Illini grabbing that crucial road win.
The bad for Brandon Paul? He has been so bad offensively (29% from 3 heading into the Ohio State game, countless random passes to no one throughout the season) that during the Minnesota-Illinois game, I was a part of the Brandon Paul drinking game. Essentially, every time Paul made a mistake, we had to drink. And none of us were feeling good after the game.
But Paul is redeemed. With no shortage of hyperbole, Brandon Paul's performance against Ohio State made him immortal. I have been an Illinois fan for a very long time. I've seen Brian Cook score 20+ in a half. I've seen Dee Brown making 28 footers whenever he wanted against Michigan State in '06. I have never seen someone put together two flawless halves like Paul did on Tuesday. In fact, no one in the Big 10 has seen a game like that since Glenn Robinson was dominating the Big 10 at Purdue in the mid 90s. Someday, years from now, an Illini guard is going to be going crazy. Making threes with hands in the face, getting to the line, putting the Illini on his back. And the announcers will bring up Brandon Paul's night from 2012 as the measuring stick for how good of a game that future Illini is having.
Enjoy it Brandon Paul. Cheers from Murphy's Pub.
Let's hope that he stays hot after a 9 day gap between games. Penn State looks bad, but they somehow beat/killed Purdue.
ReplyDelete