By Paul Schmidt
Was the game a must win for the Illini? A road game against the number four team in the country? Probably not.
That’s what would have made winning the game all the more impressive.
The Illini hung tough, even leading for much of the game but fell short against Purdue at Mackey Arena, losing 75-65.
The loss drops the Illini to 17-10 overall and 9-5 in the Big Ten, and probably ends all talk of the Illini winning the regular season Big Ten title. They are in a tie for fourth with Wisconsin, and with three teams in front of them to pass, including Purdue (who holds all of the tie-breakers), it would seem like a pipe dream to wish for that title.
The Illini were led by Demetri McCamey, which you can file under business as usual for the Illini. He finished with an unbelievably impressive 16 assists — tying the best mark in the nation this season — dishing out an almost impossible 11 in the first half alone. Somehow, the Illini got no points from McCamey in the first half, instead getting points from literally everyone else on the court, with Mike Tisdale, Mike Davis, DJ Richardson and even Brandon Paul all stepping up and hitting big shots.
As it turned out, the key play in the game for the Boilermakers was a simple mistake by freshman DJ Richardson. He overplayed an inbounds pass to E’Twaun Moore, who then drove by him and kicked to a wide-open Keaton Grant, who drained the three and gave the Boilers a 59-56 lead and the momentum they would need to bring home the win. They would never trail again.
It is also necessary to mention that, as Steve Lavin stated with two minutes left in the game, ‘Home court advantage was in effect,’ with the officials. Two awful calls went against the Illini with about three minutes left — a phantom moving screen call against Mike Davis where Chris Kramer flopped, and Bill Cole’s fifth foul, a block that was called a charge when Kramer did it twice earlier in the game.
What does this mean for the Illini’s tourney hopes? Again, it wasn’t a win-or-go-home game for the Illini, as winning in a venue of this magnitude can’t honestly be expected of most teams. However, at some point, they have to earn some wins to offset those terrible early losses.
The losses to Georgia, Bradley and Utah, though all close games, were inexcusable — a good team has to eventually win those games in order to be a tourney team. Since the Illini didn’t do it then, they have to — HAVE TO — find some quality wins now to offset those losses. The Wisconsin win was great, the Michigan State win good, but that probably, in the end, won’t be enough. The game at Value City Arena against Ohio State became all the more important as their last chance to put up an unexpected victory.
11-7 in the Big Ten is still easily possible, which would put them at 19-11 overall. Enough to get in? Hard to say. They would certainly be in the conversation for a berth, but that’s all that could be said for sure.
The problem is, can we expect anything of the Illini? All we know for sure is to expect the unexpected.