BEARS- PACK, ILLINI- BEARS, WE HOPE
So, what are your plans for the big game? Don’t answer that. It’s a trick question.
What we all should have learned by now about sports during a pandemic is that there’s really only one thing we can count on, and that’s not being able to count on anything. Schedules are set, symptoms are monitored, tests are taken, fingers are crossed, more tests are taken and did I mention fingers are crossed?
Inevitably, some scheduled games and events come down like the houses of cards they are. Take Ohio State- Illinois, a football game meant for Saturday in Champaign that was a go until Friday night, when the Buckeyes determined they had too big a
COVID- 19 problem on their hands to make the trip.
Or a better example: Ravens- Steelers in the NFL, which was supposed to be played on Thanksgiving, got moved to Sunday, then got bumped to Tuesday. Is this thing really going to happen? We can cross that bridge when it collapses.
Perhaps the most exciting thing about the coming week’s sports calendar is the early heat- up of college basketball. Look no further than Illinois- Baylor on Wednesday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
Who knows, though, if the Bears, who started the season ranked No. 2, will even get there? They had to bail on games in Connecticut after coach Scott Drew tested positive. Then they suddenly wedged in an unscheduled trip to Las Vegas to get some action in. Fingers crossed? You’d better believe it.
Every time we put a date, time and storyline in print, we’re rolling the dice. If this paper is going to keep publishing this column, maybe it should change its initials from CST to TBD. Here’s what’s happening: