INDIANAPOLIS – He isn’t a freshman anymore, at least that’s what everybody was saying with the testosterone flowing, and after scoring 26 points to lead his team against Purdue 74-67 Friday night, Illinois guard Demetri McCamey is proving he’s a lightning rod, too.

“I hit my first shot, then shot it again and kept shooting,” McCamey said. “I was feeling good.”

Right when Illinois needed it Friday, with its postseason hopes on the line, he sent a shock through his team’s system. With Illinois down by three in the final seconds of regulation and against the No. 2 seed in the Big Ten Tournament, the freshman guard stepped up and drained a three-pointer with 18 seconds remaining to tie it at 63.

He said afterward that the ball, from the second it touched his hands at the end of regulation, was destined to fly.

“There was no doubt,” he said. “As soon as Chester gave me that pass, as soon as it touched my fingers, I got a good arch on it and let it fly. It felt good, and I saw it going in.”

In the overtime period, McCamey added four more points early on, consecutive layups in the first 90 seconds – to give his team steam. Four free throws by Purdue kept them within five with less than a minute to play, but as the seconds ticked off the clock, Purdue missed all of its shots and Trent Meacham and Calvin Brock added free throws of their own. Head coach Bruce Weber said it was about time the winning ways showed up.

“It’s been disappointing because it should have been here (all year),” he said. “I wish the journey wouldn’t have been so long.

“But we’re getting hot at the right time.”

Two more wins in as many days would give the Illini an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament. It’s something the Illini coach has thought about.

“This year, we’re just fighting for our basketball lives to see if we can do something like Iowa did, winning four games and getting in the Tournament,” he said. “I think we’re good enough. We showed we can compete with anybody.”

McCamey wasn’t the only freshman that stepped up in the win. Mike Davis, filling in for the fouled-out Brian Randle, scored 10 points in the contest, four of them coming in the final period.

“They ain’t freshman anymore, not after this,” forward Rodney Alexander said.

One play in particular, with Illinois up by only three in the extra period with a minute to play, injected a shot of momentum. Davis followed a missed lay-up, reaching low and bringing the ball back above the rim before dropping it in, to make it a two-possession game. Frazier said afterward that it was Davis’ shot that swung the momentum to the Illini for good.

“Demetri made plays tonight. Nobody wants to give up on the season,” he said. “But Mike Davis was huge. He does everything so sound, he came in and hit some jump shots in the first half and had a big tip-in in the overtime when Demetri missed the layup. I mean, I give him a ton of credit for that.

“That was a big momentum swing,” he added. “We were up three and that made it a two-possession game. That was big. The clock was winding down and after that, I figured if we got one more stop we would win the game.

Illinois guard Calvin Brock joked that he wished the pass hadn’t been so low. Had it soared as high as Davis did, Brock said it would have been a sure-fire slam dunk.

“He got high but he had to reach down to pull the ball back up,” Brock said. “I wish it was higher because I wanted him to dunk it.”

Davis said he was just glad to put it in.

“Two points are two points, especially in a game like this,” he said.

Mike Tisdale and Jeffrey Jordan, also freshmen, added to an 11-0 run in the second half that. Jordan and Tisdale both nodded in approval when center Shaun Pruitt looked their way and said, “the freshman were huge tonight – Mike and Jeff, they did everything they were asked to do.”

Jordan, still smiling from the glowing things Pruitt had to say about him, said his play gave the two guards ahead of him the break they needed.

“I knew Chester and Demetri were going to need some replacements,” he said. “I hope I drained Purdue’s guards a little bit. We had great bench play as a team and kept everybody fresh.”

After the game, head coach Bruce Weber said that Jordan’s steady play while in the game – he finished with just four points in 15 minutes but was active on defense – could make him a valuable addition down the stretch.

“Jeffrey Jordan got some minutes, and now maybe he got a little more confident so we can get Chester in and out,” he said. “We’re probably going to have to watch that tomorrow.”

Jordan said that Davis’ play in the final period was an inspiring display.

“Davis played great in that overtime,” Jordan added. “We all know he can play like that and hopefully he’ll continue to get more minutes down the stretch. I think people will look at our bench tonight because they’re bench hardly played at all. Davis can get some accolades. He really played well.”

Brian Randle sat in the locker room after the game, happy for the second time in two days after sitting through a season that had the Illini on the outside of every major postseason tournament. After seeing his team come together in a matter of hours after Thursday’s upset of Penn State, Randle said he believes.

“I think there’s no more pointing fingers, no more blaming everybody else,” he said. “We were all just worried about ourselves before. Everybody had a point in time where the focus on the team was lost. Now, we’re starting to figure out what it takes. You play well, you play hard, you play with heart and you’re going to be in a good position. Somebody’s going to step up. “

Randle speculated that it was the YouTube videos the team had been watching since arriving in Indy that triggered the switch in morale.

“There’s one video, this professor is dying of pancreatic cancer and he gave this lecture,” he added. “This Kevin Garnett interview he did with the Timberwolves and how he shed tears over losing. It seriously was about the team. I don’t necessarily know that those were the deciding factors in us winning. But since coming down here and since we watched those, I think we have a different mindset.”