I'll just start with a list. And maybe I should just start and end with the list. The list will speak for itself. It's March now, we all know what March means for college basketball fans, and this Illinois fan would like to tell you where we stand as we enter March in 2023:

• Luke Goode broke his foot in October.
• The flu bug ran through the team in December.
• Skyy Clark left the team in January.
• RJ Melendez violated team rules and was suspended.
• Terrence Shannon suffered a concussion and missed two games.
• Strep throat ran through the team in February.
• Matthew Mayer experienced "caffeine poisoning" and missed two days of practice.
• Jayden Epps suffered a concussion at practice which caused him to be held overnight at a hospital.

And that's not mentioning the result of a single game. Beat Texas? Lose to 11-17 Ohio State. Beat UCLA? Lose to Missouri by 22. Sweep Wisconsin? Swept by Penn State.

It's now March, the month where you're hoping to make a big run, and yesterday gave us "Mayer drank too many Monster energy drinks so he hasn't been at practice and Jayden Epps was in the hospital overnight after a concussion." What is even happening right now? I get that injuries and suspensions happen everywhere (well, not at Alabama), but this borders on the absurd.

Thankfully, the school released a statement at 5:30 pm yesterday saying that Epps "going down at practice", as Brad Underwood had put it, was related to a concussion (with as vague as Brad Underwood was at the press conference, I was in a full panic that he had some cardiac event or something). To clear up what I tweeted at the time, I had quote-tweeted something from Fox Illinois' Dante Furco where he was quoting Mayer, talking about Epps, saying they weren't sure if "he'll play basketball again". Furco then deleted that tweet because he hadn't written out the quote correctly. Here's his correction:

My apologies, accidentally scrambled a few words up in my tweet. Here is the full cliphttps://t.co/72rnN95s5w

— Dante J Furco (@DanteFurco) March 1, 2023

I didn't delete my tweet (even though the quote tweet inside had been deleted) because I feel like the point held. The actual quote: "We don't know if he's going to have to quit basketball". Maybe Mayer is just wildly speculating there, but the way Brad Underwood spoke of the mood at practice after Epps "went down" (and then his overnight at the hospital with his family being called into town), this seems to be a very serious situation. Well beyond just "they tested him after contact to the head and it revealed he had a concussion."

Which means that we enter March in a completely different place than the last two years. I'm not comparing rosters there -- we just had back-to-back 1st Team All Americans, and without those two, we were always going to take a step back -- but in 2021 and 2022 we entered March with most everything put behind us:

+ Rough start to the Big Ten schedule in 2021 and a big drop in the polls after the Maryland and Ohio State home losses but then everything clicked and we rolled into March as the hottest team in the country (climbing all the way to #2 in the polls).

+ Very rough start to 2022 season (Kofi suspension, Curbelo concussion), but then things clicked in February once again. Curbelo returned, Luke and RJ really stepped forward, and we finished February with dagger threes from Trent on back-to-back weekends in the state of Michigan. That led to two home wins in March (and a share of the Big Ten title).

+ 2023 was the third consecutive season where we began 13-5 (it's true - look it up). And, like the two previous seasons, a few of those losses were of the "HOW did we lose that game?" variety. So I think fans were hoping for, maybe expecting, a similar surge. Not a 2021 "climb all the way to #2" surge, but a run through February. After our loss to 11-17 Ohio State on Sunday, however, meaning we're 6-5 since the 13-5 start, the calendar turning to March feels completely different this time.

And when you add in all of the other stuff listed above (no Clark, now no Epps, Mayer hasn't been practicing, etc.), it just feels like we're entering March like a lamb (after back-to-back lions the last two years). And as I type that, I realize that I landed on something here and I now should do what I never do and end the article very abruptly. Ready?

~2021? In like a lion, but went out like a lamb against Loyola.
~2022? In like a lion, but went out like a lamb against Houston.
~2023? In like a lamb, but.........