Sure, he doesn’t call NCAA Tournament games anymore ever since he left CBS for Fox. Yeah, most of the talk surrounding him lately has been about Fox’s grooming him as a soccer (and ideally, future World Cup) voice. But make no mistake: Gus Johnson can still freak out over a basketball game unlike just about anyone else.

Say what you will about college basketball before March, but it doesn’t all suck. Especially not this season, where for the fifth straight week now, the highest-ranked team in the country has lost. The victim: Indiana. The culprit: Illinois. The weapon: a buzzer-beater layup by Illini forward Tyler Griffey.

Celebrating after a touchdown is generally frowned upon in college football. But after scoring today, Illinois QB Nathan Scheelhaase not only celebrated, he tried to involve a referee in his celebration. Needless to say, it did not end as planned.

We don’t generally traffic in volleyball highlights around here, but there’s a first time for everything. This is that time. Last night, Illinois beat USC in five sets to make its first NCAA women’s volleyball championship match ever. And the Illini advanced in style.

This is a video of Illinois linebacker Jonathan Brown kneeing Northwestern’s Patrick Ward squarely in the groin. You’ll notice that he checked to make sure the coast was clear before he did so.

The coast was not at all clear, by the way.

A former Illinois star running back is under arrest, charged with a series of rapes that terrorized the campus from 1993 to 1995.

Last night, Indiana’s basketball program got a key win, narrowly defeating their border rivals from Illinois, 52-49. But more important than this was the fact that Gus Johnson was there…and he was excited.

Here’s a picture of the Big Ten conference’s new logo for 2011, which was just announced by commissioner Jim Delany on the Big Ten network. In addition to the unveiling of the new logo, the Big Ten also decided on new names for its divisions.

After all the hand-wringing over the “one end zone” rule for the Northwestern-Illinois game at Wrigley Field today, was there any question we’d see a score in the zone that wasn’t supposed to be in use? Of course not.

Remember that picture of Wrigley Field fitted for football – pictures you’ve probably seen more like as tomorrow’s game there between Northwestern and Illinois draws near? It was neat, right? Well, that game just got weirder.