CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) — With his team up by 11 late in the game Tuesday night, an Illinois fan sitting near the Vanderbilt bench barked a good-natured complaint at Kevin Stallings as the Commodores coach worked the referees.
“Come on, Kevin, call off the dogs,” the fan said. “The game’s over.”
“The game’s never over,” Stallings shot back. But then he conceded, “This one might be.”
Truth be told, the deciding points in Illinois’ 79-68 victory were scored in the opening minutes, when the Illini (7-2) posted a 9-0 run that left Vanderbilt chasing the rest of the game.
“It’s huge,” Illinois coach Bruce Weber said of the big run. “You make those jumpers, you’re feeling it, now you’re feeling good and get the crowd into it — and probably make them a little hesitant.”
Illinois rode the outside shooting of 7-1 center Mike Tisdale and the hot hand — both shooting and passing — of guard Demetri McCamey to the early edge and the win.
McCamey finished with 23 points and five assists to lead Illinois. Tisdale closed with 14 points and five rebounds, and he limited 6-11, 250-pound A.J. Ogilvy in check with eight points and three rebounds.
The Illini hit 61.8% of the first-half shots and 59.3% for the game.
Three days after a sluggish 84-77 win over Boise State, McCamey said the Illini made a point of getting fired up before the game.
“We got it going with the music in the locker room,” McCamey said. “We knew we had to come out and play well. They’re a real good team.”
That, Weber said, set the tone for the night.
“I think the start was important to set the tone for us and then freeze them a little bit,” Weber said. “Every time they made a run, we found a way to make a big basket.”
After falling so far behind early, Vanderbilt cut Illinois’ lead to seven in the opening minutes of the second half, using buckets from Jeffery Taylor, Ogilvy and Andre Walker to close within 49-42 with just over 16 minutes to play.
But with a chance to cut it to five, the Commodores missed their shot. Jermaine Beal took an awkward jumper that fell short of the basket as the shot clock wound down.
A little over five minutes later, the Illinois lead was 60-44 on consecutive three-pointers by freshman D.J. Richardson, Jeff Jordan and McCamey that pumped life back into what had become a quiet Assembly Hall.
Vanderbilt again chipped away at Illinois’ lead, cutting it to eight on a three-pointer by John Jenkins with 5:36 to play. He scored 11 points, all in the final 11 minutes.
But Richardson and McCamey closed out the Commodores. Richardson scored five consecutive points followed by a pair of free throws from McCamey that gave the Illini a 75-64 lead with 1:55 left. That gap was too steep for Vanderbilt.
“We got off to a bad start, and it just sort of stayed there the rest of the game,” Stallings said. “We couldn’t ever stop them with any consistency.”
Richardson, one of two freshmen starting for the Illini, finished with 16 points on 7-for-11 shooting.
“He shot the ball so well, way better than I ever anticipated,” Weber said. “(His form is) very consistent, and that’s the key to a good shooter, to have that consistent release. Right now he’s shooting with confidence.”
Vanderbilt was led by Brad Tinsley and Taylor with 12 apiece. Illinois held Taylor, who is averaging 15.4 points a game, to just two in the first half.
Stallings said after the game that Taylor had been sick for a couple of days, running a fever.
“He’s got a gear that nobody else on that court possesses except him on either team, but you didn’t get to see it tonight because it didn’t exist because of the way he felt,” Stallings said.
With Taylor dragging, Beal, a senior guard, did what he could to keep Vanderbilt in the game in the first 20 minutes with 3-of-8 three-point shooting and 11 points.
Illinois opened a lead of 12 points with 8:32 left in the half at 27-15 on a layup by McCamey, only to see Beal chop that gap back to nine with a three-pointer.
Six minutes later, Richardson’s jumper put Illinois up 39-26, matching the Illini’s biggest lead of the first half. But within seconds Beal fired from long range, slicing the deficit back to 10.
Beal, though, didn’t score in the second half. He hit just 4 of his 14 shots on the night.
