Yes! The Bulls are playoff bound for the first time in seven years and the White Sox and Cubs are just underway in the season.

I just don’t care.

It seems like while we try to brush off our Illini basketball hangover, make it through “One Shining Moment” without getting teary-eyed and keep our fingers crossed that Dee and Deron will hold a press conference announcing their return to Illinois next season, the sports world just doesn’t matter.

From what I’ve gathered from all my friends I’ve talked to, people just don’t care about sports right now.

We were so captivated by the “Season of the Century,” so now that it’s over, it’s like “What do we do with our time?”

I don’t know about you, but life isn’t as fun these days waking up knowing there’s not a basketball game that night or getting pumped for a big one the next day.

I don’t get the same energetic feeling looking in the paper, seeing “Chicago White Sox vs. Cleveland Indians” as I do “Illinois vs. Michigan State.” I’m a hardcore Sox fan, who’s been pleasantly surprised with their strong 5-2 start, but when I look in the paper and realize there’s still over 150 games to be played, the season just seems endless. And being that they are the Sox, it also seems hopeless.

What used to be so fun and also helped starve me from boredom was watching Cubs games to root against them, and then picking fights with diehard Cubs fans.

That’s no fun either, mainly because my Cubs friends don’t even care about the Cubs! Instead they’re still replaying in their minds Raymond Felton’s clutch three-pointer from what seemed like Chapel Hill. They still see Luther shooting to put Illini in front by one, but watching the ball clank off the iron. They still see Roger getting knocked to the floor by Sean May, but no foul being called.

So, yeah, the Bulls are good once again. That’s exciting, right? For some reason, the NBA just doesn’t do it for me; watching overpaid babies try their best to slam-dunk the ball, make a phat paycheck and score as many points as they can, while they aren’t overly concerned with their teams’ points.

Once the playoffs start, the first round seems to last for about two months. Even if the Bulls do make it into the second round, there are probably a lot of people who would have lost their patience with the off-days and spread out schedule that the beauty of the playoffs will have worn off.

There’s no doubt, I am a very bitter person right now.

Life used to be fun, sports used to be exciting.

The Illini spoiled us and made sports seem so wonderful. It made us forget the steroids in baseball scandals, the NHL lockout and the NFL being in the offseason.

But now we have what seems like nothing.

For me, the only thing that will get my passion going again will be if the Sox actually show they might make the playoffs, which is highly unlikely, so the only thing that can save me is the NFL.

If I ran the world, the Tuesday after the NCAA Tournament would be the start of the NFL season. That would make life a little more bearable at least, because this whole MLB and NBA thing aren’t entertaining enough.

Hopefully one day soon, myself and the rest of this campus will come to grips with the fact that Illinois did lose the championship game, the season really is over and isn’t coming back anytime soon and that next year we probably won’t make it through the regular season with just one loss.

For now, my excitement and anticipation will come down to anxiously awaiting Thursday nights to find out if Ryan and Marissa will get back together on The O.C.

Since there’s no sport to care about right now, there sadly is nothing new to write about.

But I still don’t know how Felton hit that shot.