All season, Purdue’s freshman class has been the talk of the Big Ten, helping the Boilermakers to a No. 15 national ranking and the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament.
Friday night at Conseco Fieldhouse, the unheralded freshman class of Illinois pushed the young Boilermakers to the side of the stage, leading the Illini to a 74-67 overtime upset and a berth in Saturday’s semifinals against sixth seed Minnesota.
“Coach [Bruce Weber] said we need somebody to be special, and fortunately I was that,” guard Demetri McCamey said. “All four of our freshmen helped down the stretch.”
But none more than McCamey, who put on a shooting clinic to save the Illini. The freshman from St. Joseph in Westchester scored 26 points, making 6 of 6 three-pointers and shooting 9 of 14 overall. Overall, the Illini freshmen outscored their Purdue counterparts 40-32.
Suddenly, despite their 15-18 record, the 10th-seeded, surprising Illini are two victories from an NCAA tournament berth that goes with a conference tournament title.
When a team picks mid-March to enjoy its best shooting night of the season by far — a season-high 61.2 percent from the floor — it can afford to dream big.
“It would be an understatement to say we’re pleased, with all the struggles we’ve had,” said Weber, whose team had lost games like this most of the season. “We’ve been through this drill over and over, and we got some great efforts. We needed somebody to be special, and it was Demetri.”
Illinois trailed 63-58 with 1 minute 12 seconds left in regulation after Chris Kramer made a layup, was fouled by senior center Shaun Pruitt and made his free throw.
Pruitt, who was dominant inside with 14 points on 7-of-9 shooting, responded with a layup of his own to make it 63-60 with 45 seconds left.
Then McCamey launched a shot over Kramer, the conference defensive player of the year. It went in for a tying three-pointer with 18 seconds left to send the game into overtime after Kramer missed a jumper with two seconds to go.
“I was just feeling good,” McCamey said. “I hit my first shot and was comfortable out there.”
In overtime, McCamey and classmate Mike Davis took over. With 3:51 left, McCamey made a layup off a feed from Trent Meacham to give Illinois a 65-63 lead. Then Davis fed McCamey for layup to make it 67-65. McCamey returned the favor to Davis to make it 69-66 and then Davis threw in an awkward, acrobatic follow shot to put Illinois up 71-66.
Meacham made one free throw and Calvin Brock ended the scoring with two foul shots with four seconds to play.
“McCamey made big shot after big shot, especially when they were down, and that was the difference,” said Purdue coach Matt Painter, whose team had beaten Illinois twice this season and fell to 24-8.
“When it got to overtime, we had some nice looks at the basket, but the ball just wouldn’t go in.”
Illinois couldn’t stop Purdue freshman guard E’Twaun Moore, and the East Chicago product led the Boilermakers with 22 points, but only one in overtime.
“Their team is all freshmen,” said Davis in an exaggeration. “We wanted to go out and match how they played.”
For the first time since December, the Illini are playing relaxed. But in the semis, they know they can’t repeat some aspects of this game — 23 turnovers that led to 23 Purdue points and 8-of-20 free-throw shooting.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” Pruitt said. “It’s sad we couldn’t do it earlier, but this was the time to do it. It was such a good team effort, I’m so proud of the freshmen. A team effort closed it out.”
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tabannon@tribune.com
