By Paul M. Banks is Founder/President of The Sports Bank.net

With the exception of his BFF Evan Turner, Illinois junior guard Demetri McCamey is perhaps the most written about individual athlete on The Sports Bank. Today “Baby Ben Gordon” announced his intentions to enter the NBA Draft sans agent.

So he will have a chance to return to college next season, and I think he will. Although this is a very weak point guard class, I don’t think he’ll end up a first round pick. So I’ll think he’ll back in Champaign next year. But I think he’s definitely doing the right thing by testing the waters.

Our good friends at Hail to the Orange found this exchange  on Illini HQ.com, it’s Bruce Weber discussing the reality of Cames’ possibly departure and how he’s preparing for it.

How concerned are you that he will leave?

I’m concerned. You know, if he’s a first-round pick, I’m happy for him. He’s got to go. Does it hurt us? Yeah, it hurts us. But a kid only has that window. If he’s not ready my concern is to make sure he does everything right, so he doesn’t get himself in trouble. Whether that’s the agents, taking care of his classroom stuff, so he doesn’t get himself in trouble. I don’t want him hurt for life because some guy on the street told him, “The NBA guys don’t know what they’re talking about, you’re a first-round pick.”

If you add another player in this (2010) class, what are you looking for?

One thing we’re looking for, obviously, is a backup point guard. Six weeks ago, or whenever it was that Demetri had that (good) stretch and his name popped up there, the first thing I said to the coaches was, “We better start looking ahead. Whether he’s a first-round pick or not, we have to look ahead.” We need to at least look around in case something happens. So a point guard. If we found somebody with a little toughness, I think we would look at that.

And here’s an interesting plea for him to stay on McCamey’s Facebook page. This was written on his wall

“1 more please 1 more we will have a chance at a championship richmond u griffey tisdale paul dj leonard bertrand please just 1 more year”

I’m sure Illini fans will agree. And just for s—ts and giggles, I felt it was time to re-publish my favorite Evan Turner quote ever. It’s about hit rivalry with McCamey and it’s from the first exclusive I ever had with Turner.

“We were just so competitive growing up, sometimes I’d be at the gym at night, leaving the gym and I say: ‘Yo fat boy I just put up 400 shots, I hope you’re doing the same thing, because when I see you I’m about to kill you.’ But you know he takes it all in fun. We take it all in fun. It’s about the need to push ourselves, back in high school it was like what did Evan do? What did Demetri do? How did he do? I’m gonna beat him. So it definitely helped us a lot,” Turner said about McCamey.

Paul M. Banks is Founder/President of The Sports Bank.net, an Upper Midwest sports webzine. He’s also a member of the Football Writers Association of America, the United States Basketball Writers Association and a sports writer for the Washington Times.com Communities and Walter Football.com

The f$%&ing selection committee can’t seem to get anything right.  Those idiots in their ivory tower stare at computers all damn weekend for one weekend a year and then make horrible decisions.  Florida?  Really?  Florida?  And Utah State?  How do they justify putting Minnesota in over Illinois, when Illinois finished better in the Big Ten?

Okay okay.  That was my initial reaction.  The reality is that Minnesota earned their way in by playing as well or better than the Illini in the tourney while adding a win in Champaign to their resume late in the season.  Utah State and Florida did not deserve to be there, but Illinois really hurt themselves by losing 5 of 6 down the stretch; essentially melting down when the eyes of the college basketball world were upon them the last few weeks of the season.  So if the selection committee isn’t to blame, then who is?

Maybe Bruce Weber shouldn’t get a pass, as the team took the floor night in and night out looking less than motivated.

McCamey, the supposed leader of the team, definitely deserves some share of the blame.  His atrocious defense and lack of any real leadership qualities besides a decent jump shot and streaky passing skills were a problem.

Davis and Tisdale?  I would have to say that one of my worst moments of the season was a few weeks ago when the Illini were on national television and I heard Steve Lavin explain how the Illini big men play “more of a European style of basketball”.  Ouch.  One big man like that can be effective, but two?  Who will rebound?  No one apparently, as the Illini got beat on the offensive glass all season long.

I will tell you one thing that deserves no blame at all, but instead a round of applause: The Illini home crowd.  Game in and game out, even when the team did not show any heart, Assembly Hall was jumping with crazy passionate fans ready to go balls out for their team.  They deserve a lot of credit, and possibly an apology from the entire team.  Not every team has that kind of support, there were a lot of road games this year where the Illini looked up and saw empty arenas.  Not in Champaign.

I’m not going to follow the Illini’s “miracle” run in the NIT this year, but there is some Illini news that might cheer you up.  One of our top recruits coming in next year, the 7-foot Meyers Leonard, led his high school team to a state championship.  Here is a beautiful highlight of him putting the ball on the floor and throwing down a nasty dunk from his Illinois state championship run:

He better not be “European-Style”. We already have two of those.

So this Illini team is for real.  I mean don’t get me wrong, they are about as inconsistent as they come, but they can legitimately beat good teams.  All “buts” aside (I know Kalin Lucas was out and the win came at home, but MSU is still is a top 5 team in the country, or was…), the win over Michigan State put the Illini on the map.  It was one of those games that can be the turning point in a season, and the Illini rose to the challenge.  With Wisconsin, OSU, and Purdue coming up back-to-back-to-back on the schedule, a loss here may have started a slide that would drop the Illini to 7-7 in the Big Ten and the schedule isn’t exactly a cakewalk after that either.  Instead, they sit at 8-3 with a signature win against a top team in the country.

Now that is all great, but what will it really mean come tournament time?  Can the Illini make noise?  The inconsistencies have been a problem all season, and they are a result of the team’s soft and inconsistent front court as well as a green backcourt.  So how could a team with two skinny forward/centers and diaper dandies on the perimeter go deep into the tourney?  Demetri McCamey is how.  Until this season, he has been a player who took terrible shots, had a bad assist/turnover ratio, and seemed more focused on his one-on-one moves than on helping the team win.  While he still takes awful shots (and I mean awful), somehow the shots are going in.  His ability is unquestionable, but can he lead?  Can he make his teammates believe in him?

McCamey is frustrating to watch at times, and Bruce Weber knows it better than anyone.  As Weber revealed in an interview early this season:

“If you study him over the course of time, he has very good games and a tendency not to be real consistent, this goes back way to high school and AAU and that’s where he’s got to mature. He has the big one and then average, average. He needs to be more consistent if we’re going to be a very good team because he can do things that other people can’t do.”

McCamey seems to have turned that corner though, eliminating the terrible games and minimizing his own mistakes.  Will it be enough to carry a team with 3 freshman getting big minutes and a starting frontcourt that can’t seem to get a rebound for long stretches?  It’s tough to tell at this point, but you can be damn sure that if he isn’t clicking, this team will be losing in the first round, no matter how high a seed they get.

Illinios moved to 23-6 on the year with a win against Minnesota last night.  It was a typical Big Ten battle, with tough defense and a lot of physical play.  The 51-42 win is not pretty to most, but to teams like the Illini wins don’t come any more gorgeous.

Bruce Weber was fed up with the questions about ugly wins after the game.  “I’m sick of hearing all the jokes,” he yelled. “We guard, we prepare, we play our butts off in hostile environments.”  Assembly Hall was anything but hostile last night helping Illinois to yet another home win.

Mike Davis had another double-double, Meacham had 13, and McCamey had 10, but it was the defense that won the day.  After Minnesota came back for a one point lead around midway through the second half they were held to one point the rest of the way and none over the last six-plus minutes.  That’s an unreal defensive stretch.

That brand of defense is what makes Illinois so dangerous in the postseason.  Even when the offense is terrible, the defense can keep the team in the game and even shut it down to the point where it seems to convince the offense to mount a comeback.  Not to mention the Chester Frazier factor.  He was up to his old tricks again, holding Minnesota’s leading scorer Lawrence Westbrook to just four points.

Now it’s on to a giant match-up with league leader Michigan State on Sunday.  After a six point loss in East Lansing earlier this season, the Illini can make up for it and draw within a half game of the Sparties with a win.  If Illinois can keep it even on the glass, I think Frazier can keep Kalin Lucas down enough to get the win.

The win last night, paired with Michigan’s upset of Purdue, moves Illinois back into second place above the Boilermakers by a half game.