With 12 Big Ten games to go, an 11-6 Illini basketball team has five senior starters healthy and optimistic and a bench that is improving.

In the wake of Sam Okey's walk-out at Wisconsin, consider how other Big Ten teams have been impacted.

The Badgers are unexpectedly without their best two players, 1996 Freshman of the Year Okey and 1997 Wisconsin MVP Ty Calderwood ... 1996 All-Big Ten forward Jess Settles couldn't recover from back trouble at Iowa ... Indiana saw 7-foot Jason Collier follow Neil Reed's route out of town ... Ohio State should, but doesn't, have Damon Stringer at guard and Jermaine Tate up front as debilitating multiyear attrition continues.

And Penn State saw Dan Earl sidelined again, this time by a knee injury ... Northwestern is so thin from the loss of Carvell Ammons and others that coach Kevin O'Neill permits only three starters to shoot ... and the departures of Maurice Taylor and Brandun Hughes left Michigan, at this point, with one quality substitute.

So if Illinois entered the season without what many considered "first division talent," that no longer may be the case in a conference that began an unexpected swoon in March 1995 and hasn't fully recovered since.

The league is 10-17 in NCAA play the last three years after going 35-17 the previous three. There are wins to be had by the team that sticks together.

McClain coming on strong

The most encouraging aspect of Tuesday's 68-58 loss to Purdue was the way Sergio McClain mixed it up.

Gradually building confidence after the "mental block" he suffered in San Juan, the freshman from Peoria is correcting some false impressions.

Those who feared he might be weak as a perimeter defender can forget it. McClain not only defends, he attacks. He has the quickest UI hands since Kendall Gill.

And no current Illini is more proficient at penetrating from the wing.

"He has made a lot of progress since the UCLA game," coach Lon Kruger said, "although he has only occasionally shot well. He's doing a good job in setting up his teammates. When he begins to finish his own plays better, he'll be even more of a threat. If he can affect the game the way he does without scoring, you know how much he'll mean when he starts scoring.

"You always try to put the ball in the hands of guys who can make plays. But we need to do it more in the flow of the offense than in isolating Sergio and asking him to beat somebody off the dribble."

Playing roughly half of four Big Ten games, McClain hit 9 of 21 from the field with 19 rebounds, 10 assists and six steals.

"Shooting was a concern when I was younger, but by my senior year I was over 50 percent from the field," the Peoria Manual product said. "I felt like I could nail those perimeter shots. But I also got a lot of layups, and it's much harder to get them now with these giants around the hoop. For the most part, I'm looking to pass when I get in there. Coach Kruger wants me to pull up and shoot more. He has never told me not to shoot."

How harrowing was it to go 0 for 10 at the free throw line in the three late-November games in San Juan?

"After the first few, I was feeling sorry for myself," he said. "And I put more pressure on myself. It was a mental block. I was going through a transition, and I was just out of it.

"The low point lasted all the way from the UIC game (Nov. 24) to the Clemson game (Dec. 13). I talked to my dad (coach Wayne McClain) after every game, and he told me to keep working and good things would happen. I finally started coming out of it. It felt good to get that three-pointer at Iowa ... man, it had been a long time."

Illinois will look more to McClain on both ends.

Reports from the juco ranks

Festus Hawkins returned to Westark, Ark., after the holidays in time to garner 15 points and 12 boards against Seminole and shows averages of 19.5 points, eight rebounds and 67 percent field goal shooting.

At Southern Union, Ala., future Illini Cleotis Brown opened 1998 with perhaps his best game, pouring in 30 points (10 of 14 baskets), six rebounds and four steals against Gaston State. He's averaging 23 points and 7 rebounds, and making a run for top honors among Alabama junior colleges.

Both are on track to graduate without summer school, Brown moving through the second of three quarters and Hawkins entering his final semester. If they don't falter, they'll be here this summer.

Loren Tate writes for The News-Gazette.