By 7:40 p.m. Friday night Illinois knew what it had to do to win its first Big Ten tournament title:
Beat Minnesota, Ohio State–and probably Indiana–in less than 48 hours.
Consider the first third of that mission complete. Very complete.
Cory Bradford shot the basketball the way he used to shoot it as a redshirt freshman; injured senior forward Damir Krupalija returned to the lineup with an I’m-back flourish; and coach Bill Self tried hard to use every player on his roster as Illinois destroyed Minnesota 92-76. With their ninth straight win, the Illini advance to a semifinal against Ohio State at 3 p.m. Saturday at Conseco Fieldhouse.
By sweeping the season series 3-0 the Illini probably also sent the sixth-seeded Gophers home for good. Their 17-12 record makes their chances of getting into the NCAA tournament slim indeed.
Bradford knocked in five three-pointers on his way to a game-high 25 points before limping off the court with 3:14 to go, holding his right knee. “I’m fine,” Bradford said.
Krupalija, back after sitting out the last seven games with a stress fracture in his foot, added 11 points off the bench. Sean Harrington contributed 16 points and Brian Cook 13 to key a rout so thorough the third-seeded Illini (24-7) hardly needed their star, point guard Frank Williams.
“If you know Frank, usually when we’re scoring points, he scores the least,” Self said. “If it bothers him to shoot it, Frank certainly won’t look to shoot it. I’m sure he’ll be much more aggressive shooting it [Saturday].”
Williams had 11 assists but attempted only one shot all night with his sprained left wrist taped. Williams finished with four points–all on free throws.
Illinois made 13 three-pointers, shot 62.2 percent from the floor and converted 23-of-31 free throws.
“We just never got in the flow,” Minnesota coach Dan Monson said. “Illinois was so aggressive at both ends of the court. . . . I was just glad when we got to double figures.”
Minnesota crept to nine points down early in the second half. But with a smothering 16-2 run a little bit later the Illini expanded their lead to 22 points–. The exhausted Gophers would need a miracle to catch them. It never came. Dusty Rychart led Minnesota with 23 points.
Still, the Illini had plenty to fear en route to a the semifinal matchup with the Buckeyes:
There was the game time of 8:10 p.m. That’s a long time to be thinking about multi-talented Big Ten freshman of the year Rick Rickert. Cook, though, held Rickert to 10 points.
There was, of course, the opponent. Five days after beating Minnesota 67-66 on Williams’ buzzer-beating layup in traffic, the Illini weren’t eager to face off with the Gophers again.
Finally, there was Minnesota’s motivation. The Gophers were only three victories away from their only route to the NCAA tournament: winning the Big Ten tournament and the automatic berth.
In the end, though, there was nothing to fear.
