The Demetri McCamey Game

I'm not sure what I just witnessed.

Wait, yes I do. That was a beat down. And the result was No. 11 Wisconsin's first loss to a unranked Big Ten team at home under Bo Ryan.

Wisconsin was cruising in the early going, but could not stop Demetri McCamey at any point in this game. Illinois embarrassed Wisconsin with the pick-and-roll. I did not see any real adjustment at halftime, which means the Badgers let the Illini stars beat them instead of forcing some of the unproven Illinois players to make plays.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin struggled mightily to finish any plays at the rim. Ever since Jon Leuer went down and Wisconsin put on it's "perimeter-oriented team" pants, you knew this game was coming. Wisconsin scored just one (!) meaningful basket in the final 9:56 of the contest. The Badgers settled for 30 attempts from 3-point land. [box score]

McCamey scored 27 points on 11-of-17 shooting while handing out 7 assists. He set up Mike Tisdale time after time, allowing the 7'1" center to have a remarkable shooting game of his own (8-of-11, 19 points). In fact, Tisdale's early buckets were about the only thing keeping Illinois from getting blown out in the first half. Wisconsin went into the break up, 35-33, on a Trevon Hughes 3-pointer.

Both Hughes and Jordan Taylor left their best defense in the locker room tonight. But their job was made nearly impossible because they could not trust their interior help defense to stop McCamey. McCamey caught fire hitting shots over the Badger guards and then simply toyed with Keaton Nankivil when there was a switch on the pick. When he's on, McCamey can drive or stop and pop; he kept Wisconsin off guard all night.

It was probably one of the most frustrating games of Hughes' career. His body language was awful and he couldn't get anything going. Pop shot a horrendous 22% (4-of-18) from the field. He led the Badgers into panic mode late with an increasingly poor shot selection once Illinois took command. He's got to learn from this game and get back into early-season form.

Jason Bohannon led Wisconsin with 15 points. His shot looked great. But no one else was effective. I am shocked that Rob Wilson did not play more in the second half. Among significant contributors, the team's offensive efficiency was the highest (1.07 PPP) when Wilson was on the court. (ed. note: Ryan Evans and Jared Berggren posted nice efficiency numbers over a small sample size)

Some interesting touch fouls at times during the game, yet none of the typical calls you expect around the basket. Wisconsin was visibly frustrated by this. But UW got most of the favorable calls anyway, so I'm not complaining.

Instead of rising to second place in the Big Ten, Wisconsin (18-6, 8-4) drops to fifth for now. Illinois (17-8, 9-3) takes one more step closer to Michigan State.

On the Stove Top: 2/8/10

Unfortunately, I still have not seen the Wisconsin-Michigan game in it's entirety due to the Camp Randall Classic festivities. I caught glimpses of the second half and apparently I missed all the good parts. Because neither team wanted to score in the final 10 minutes. [box score]

There's no doubt that Jason Bohannon has hit his stride. J-Bo destroyed Michigan with 64% shooting, adding four rebounds and five assists. In the process of leading UW's long-distance barrage, Bohannon passed Devin Harris on Wisconsin's all-time 3-pt FG and 3-pt FG attempts lists.

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Illinois is a team I feared would give Wisconsin fits after Jon Leuer went down, due to their skilled big men. But the other reason was Demetri McCamey, one of the few point guards around who can overpower a Trevon Hughes or Jordan Taylor. While Wisconsin seems to have figured things out heading into Tuesday's game with the Illini, McCamey is on top of his game also. The junior shared Big Ten Player of the Week honors with high school teammate Evan Turner for this past week. McCamey scored 23 point and dropped 11 dimes in Illinois' win over Michigan State.

Meanwhile, Illinois' front court has not been all it was cracked up to be this season. Mike Davis lost his starting job four games ago. Center Mike Tisdale will be playing at less than 100% versus the Badgers after injuring a different knee in each of the past two games.

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Yesterday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Jeff Potrykus blogged about Jon Leuer's Sunday shootaround with coach Gary Close. Apparently Leuer's wrist has been healing well enough to impress onlookers with his accuracy. It's a great sign, but there's still no timetable for his return. It's a big step from shooting to colliding with another 6'10" dude for 40 minutes.

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Rob Wilson got a little media ink last Friday when the Journal-Sentinel did a nice summary of his recent improvement. Wilson continued to play well on the road against Michigan, playing 20 turnover-free minutes. His scoring was down (5 pts), but he chipped in three rebounds and got to the line.

"He is tough driving into the lane," Bo Ryan said of Wilson. "He's got that little floater that when he is on the scout team we have a hard time stopping."

At the risk of jumping to conclusions, I hinted after the Purdue game that Bo was starting to transition away from heavy use of Tim Jarmusz now that some of his younger players are stepping up. Even though Ryan Evans only played 25 minutes in the next two games, Wilson has played 44 minutes to TJ's 45 minutes since then.

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Howard Moore continues to recruit Chicago. Illinois Prep Bullseye reported that Moore was spotted a couple weeks ago at a Chicago De LaSalle game with his eyes on junior Mike Shaw and freshman Alex Foster:

"Among the coaches in the gym were University Of Illinois head coach Bruce Weber, Purdue University assistant coach Rick Ray and University Of Wisconsin assistant coach Howard Moore.

"Weber was also there to get yet another look at De LaSalle's talented underclass duo of 6'8 class of 2011 forward Mike Shaw and 6'7 class of 2013 forward Alex Foster. Ray's main focus was on Foster, who has already received a scholarship offer from Purdue (as well as Illinois), while Moore was also taking a close look at both Shaw and Foster."

Shaw has been ballyhooed for years and would seem like an odd player to recruit considering the AAU handlers that seemed to be involved in his recruitment. That leads me to believe Moore was particularly interested in Foster, one of three Class of 2013 youngsters being hailed as the collective second coming in Illinois.