Tenth Seeded Illini Advance to Seminfinals in Day Two of the Big Ten Tournament

Demetri McCamey went 6-6 from behind the arc and scored 26 points for the ten seed Illinois Fighting Illini in beating two seeded Purdue. Illinois has blown away expectations by advancing to the semifinals after a sub-par regular season. Purdue put up a good fight as E'Twaun Moore made five of his own three-pointers, but went cold in overtime. The Illini nearly tripled Purdue's overtime output as they won 74-67.

The Illini will try to pull another upset when they meet the six seed Minnesota Golden Gophers in the semifinal. The Gophers had a much stronger first half against the Indiana Hoosiers than they did on Day One against Northwestern when they trailed 34-21 at the half.

Leading by as much as 15, Minnesota seemed to have a handle on Indiana but came out of the half with little energy. As the Gophers failed to score for the five minutes of the second half, Indiana pulled close and finally gained their first lead of the game with 8:10 left in the game, 43-42. With two seconds left, Indiana's D.J. White sank a free throw to go up 58-57, but Golden Gopher Blake Hoffarber snuck in a two-point jumper to win the game.

On the other side of the Big Ten bracket, top seed Wisconsin dominated the nine seed Michigan Wolverines 51-34. In the lowest-scoring game in Big Ten Tournament history, Michigan was embarrassed as they made just ten field goals and sank just 20 percent of their attempts. Wisconsin's poor shooting (34 percent) seemed to be championship-quality compared to Michigan's flaccid effort. Joe Krabbenhoft led the Badgers to their eighth straight victory and a trip to the Big Ten semifinal.

In the next game, Michigan State and Ohio State battled to determine who would join Wisconsin the semifinal match-up. Spartan senior Drew Neitzel hit six three-pointers and led all scorers with 28 points, but the Buckeyes kept it close until the end. A couple of lay-ups from Othello Hunter pulled Ohio State to within three with two minutes left in the game, but Michigan State made six free throws in the final minute to seal the 67-60 victory.