Photo Credit: Nick Schultz for OTI.

How Quarantine Sparked a New Project

As the kids say these days, “I’m bored in the house and I’m in the house bored.”

I’ve heard that a lot around my house during Illinois’ stay-at-home order. I haven’t had much to do these last few weeks since graduating from Loyola University last month.

So, I decided to start “Off the Inbound,” a blog about Illinois college basketball. I’ll do my best to talk about all 13 programs — from Northwestern to Southern Illinois. I’m also hoping to start a podcast in the near future, where I’ll talk with the beat reporters and other guests who spend time around the programs. Stay tuned.

I decided to launch this today, June 1, because this is the day the NCAA is allowing basketball student-athletes to start returning to campus. I also understand sports aren’t anywhere close to important in society at the moment. But I’m still excited to get this thing going.

This came about through my time covering Loyola during my four years as a student reporter at The Phoenix, the student newspaper. I was fortunate enough to be there for the Final Four run in 2018, and I fell in love with college basketball. Now, I figure since I have nothing better to do besides play video games, I might as well find a way to stay around the college hoops scene. It’s too much fun and it’s a good way to keep myself busy. If you know me, you know I don’t like having nothing to do.

I hope you’ll follow along and interact with me on Twitter. I definitely want to hear from you. Who knows? You might spark a story idea. If you have any, my DMs are open. Otherwise, feel free to flood my mentions.

Let’s have some fun!