Published: November 22, 2009 02:42 am      

Illini tear up Blue Hose

Illinois wins third straight

CHAMPAIGN — Illinois big man Mike Davis has plans of continuing to make a name for himself this season, especially within the Big Ten.

One name he wouldn’t mind having is ‘Double-Double Davis.”

The Illinois junior has 11 double-doubles in his career, and ranks second (behind Ohio State’s Evan Turner) in the Big Ten among active players in the conference.

After beginning this season with two double-doubles, Davis came within one rebound (12 points, nine rebounds) of notching his 12th in Saturday’s 94-48 blowout of Presbyterian College.

Despite attempts in the final minutes of the game to trick coach Bruce Weber and his staff into letting him back onto the court — including a joking suggestion that a teammate had picked up his fifth foul — Davis remained on the bench.

“I didn’t even know until I went out,” Davis said. “Coach Jay Price told me I had nine. I was like, ‘Oh man!’

“I should have got that in the first half when I was in there. I’m just happy that we got the win. That’s first and foremost.”

Davis saw only five minutes in the second half, partially because of coach Weber’s desire to keep the veterans accountable for their play, and partly because of the 28-4 run the Illini used at the beginning of the second half to distance themselves from the Blue Hose.

“Coach (Jerrance) Howard, at halftime, wrote some things on the board that we needed to emphasize in the second half,” Davis said. “He said the first four minutes. That’s what we did. We came out strong in the second half, knocked down some shots, played solid defense. That’s what we pride ourselves on and that’s what we did.

“We held them to 20 points. I was very pleased with our effort.”

Davis, D.J. Richardson (15 points, five assists) and Alex Legion (11 points) all scored in double figures, and four others came within three points of hitting the mark.

Demetri McCamey dished out 10 assists, but he shared minutes early in the second half with Jeff Jordan who made his first appearance of the year after serving a two-game suspension.

“Mike Davis could have had a double-double, but coach took him out and screwed that thing up, but we have a lot of versatility,” Weber said. “Alex comes in and gets double-digit scoring and Tyler Griffey is nine (points) and nine (rebounds). A lot of people can do a lot of things. I thought Jeff Jordan gave us a nice little spark, too. He can relieve Demetri when we need it.

“You’ve got to make the most of your minutes. I guess my vision this year into next year is that we’ve got a lot of people and we just keep coming at people. It’s going to be tough to go against us, at least I hope.”

Weber saw more positives from his much-talked-about freshmen, and while it was Brandon Paul (eight points) who has received attention early on, D.J. Richardson led all scorers in the first half with 12 of his 15 points.

With the freshmen remaining impressive in the eyes of Weber, the competition for minutes is likely to linger on the minds of the team’s top producers.

“That means everybody’s got to play their A-game,” McCamey said. “You can’t take plays off and you can’t be sluggish because you know you’ve got people on the bench that are better than you or that are going to give it 110 percent every time they step onto the court. It just makes you want to play that much harder.”

Finding minutes for players like Jordan (four points, five rebounds), Legion and Dominique Keller (eight points) is a problem Weber doesn’t mind having, especially if it means keeping everyone accountable for their play.

Saturday’s game was Illinois’ first contest in the Las Vegas Invitational. Next up will be a home game on Tuesday against Wofford before heading west to Las Vegas on Friday to take on Utah.

“Tuesday’s going to be a good test,” McCamey said. “They held Pittsburgh to a three-point game and they beat Georgia, so this is going to be a real good test for us to see where we’re at mentally and see what we have to work on for the things in Vegas.”