Five of the last eight games between Illinois and Penn State have been decided by five points or less. The Illini's struggles with the Nittany Lions continued last night in Creepy, er, Happy Valley. more ›

Derrick Rose missed his third game in the Bulls' last five nursing his turf toe injury, but the team's depth has been on display and they've been getting healthier elsewhere. more ›

Brandon Paul's record-setting night led Illinois to an upset of the fifth-ranked Buckeyes and pushed the Illini's Big ten record to 4-1. more ›

The Red Wings rallied from a 2-0 hole to beat the Blackhawks in overtime. DePaul is now 3-54 lifetime in Big East play. NIU capped a stellar season by winning the GoDaddy.com bowl. more ›

Hawks 109, Bulls 94 more ›

The Blackhawks returned to the Wells Fargo Center for the first time since clinching the 2010 Stanley Cup there. And Hell froze over at Allstate Arena last night as DePaul snapped an 18-game home losing streak in Big East play. more ›

The Blackhawks couldn't solve Kings goalie Jonathan Quick at the United Center last night, while Northwestern ran into a Buckeyes buzzsaw in Columbus. more ›

If last night's Big Ten opener against Minnesota is any indication, Illinois is in for a long haul in conference play. more ›

DePaul improved on its best start in 12 seasons and the Blackhawks entered their holiday break with the best record in the National Hockey League. more ›

Northwestern's men's basketball team continues to fatten on non-conference competition. more ›

The Blackhawks won their second straight overtime contest while Illinois made easy work of Coppin State. more ›

University of Illinois-Chicago 62, Northern Illinois 55 more ›

Illinois 48, St. Bonaventure 43 more ›

Northwestern now has a better idea of how it stacks up against ranked opponents and it isn't good. more ›

Phoenix 4, Blackhawks 1 more ›

Illinois 90, Chicago State 43 more ›

Bill Carmody's Wildcats improved to 4-0 on the season and won the Charleston Classic in Charleston, SC, thanks to Drew Crawford's 27 points. Crawford scored 72 points in Northwestern's three games to earn tournament MVP honors. more ›

The Blackhawks couldn't see the smoke for the fire on Friday night against the Calgary Flames. more ›

The Big Ten may not be as popular as the SEC or The Big East, but it has some of the best teams in college basketball this season and more drama than TNT. more ›

The NBA Draft played out pretty much as we expected for former University of Illinois basketball player Jereme Richmond, who declared for the draft in April to the surprise of many. more ›

The Big Ten announced locations for their conference tournaments and championship games through 2015. Chicago host a number of them. The biggest of prizes -- the Big Ten football championship game. more ›

Every year, there are guys who we all know are going to jump to the NBA after their freshman year at college. Many of these "one-and-done" players would've likely gone pro straight out of high school had the NBA instituted new draft eligibility rules a few years back. Rules that were enacted specifically to prevent kids from acting foolishly. For every Derrick Rose or Carmelo Anthony, there's a Korleone Young or Leon Smith. more ›

While we had to wait and see whether Butler could complete its Cinderella run or whether UConn could close out an incredible postseason streak, the winner of the 2011 Chicago Tournament Challenge was never in doubt as not one competitor had either Butler or UConn winning the NCAA Championship. Now that UConn has cut down the nets, we can officially declare our winner. more ›

Well, the weekend's play sure didn't play out as expected. By the time the Final Four was decided yesterday, all of the one and two seeds were sent home. Top seed Duke exited on Thursday and overall number one Ohio St. was eliminated on Friday in the Sweet Sixteen rounds. Two seeds Florida and North Carolina, as well as one seed Kansas were bounced in the Elite Eight. Meanwhile, Butler surprises by making the Final Four again and Virginia Commonwealth, an eleven seed who had to play into the field of 64, joins them. UConn and Kentucky round out the Final Four. Needless to say, the chaos has wrecked everybody's brackets! Of the six million entries in ESPN's Tournament Challenge, only two correctly picked the Final Four. more ›

With the first weekend's slate of NCAA basketball tournament games complete, the Sweet Sixteen is set. We saw local teams like Illinois and Notre Dame bow out, as well as top-seeded Pitt. Meanwhile, a quarter of the Sweet Sixteen is filled with double digit seeds -- including three in the Southwest region. more ›

You've still got time to enter Chicagoist's Tournament Challenge. Fill out your bracket and compete against Chicagoist staff and readers for the chance to celebrate your own shining moment. We've got almost 60 entries already, and in past years we've had over 100 compete. There is a prize for the winner! more ›

March Madness is here! The conference tournaments concluded yesterday and now the NCAA Tournament's field of 68 (yes, 68) is set. So it's time once again for Chicagoist's Tournament Challenge. Fill out your bracket and compete against Chicagoist staff and readers for the chance to celebrate your own shining moment. But winning's not easy. The past couple of years, we've had over 100 entries in our pool, and last year's winner, K. Oser, finished in the 99.9th percentile of all ESPN Tournament Challenge entries. Our staff experts didn't do quite so well. I finished 35th while former editor-in-chief Marcus Gilmer placed 51st. more ›

March Madness is upon us, but before we can get to the Big Dance, we've got to play the little ones first. The Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament opens play today in Indianapolis. more ›

Given how low DePaul basketball has sunk in recent years, it's going to take more than just "chin up" rhetoric for coach Oliver Purnell to rebuild the program. As it stands right now, DePaul simply has no business being in the loaded Big East. Eighth-ranked Notre Dame handed the Blue Demons its 22nd straight conference defeat, an 83-58 thrashing at the Allstate Arena. Irish coach Mike Brey brought his team to Chicago in advance of Tuesday night's blizzard and the foresight to not fight the storm to get to Chicago last-minute proved wise. Ben Hansbrough led an energized Irish squad with 24 points as DePaul was simply outmatched. more ›

The Bulls improved to 21-1 when holding opponents to under 90 points. plus, Northwestern gave Ohio State all it can handle; Loyola no match for Cleveland State. more ›