Camron Donatlan never said a word about it during the postgame interview.
But his coach had plenty to say.
Donatlan delivered 14 points, nine rebounds, five assists and a blocked shot Saturday as South Suburban College slipped past Waubonsee Community College 74-73 in the NJCAA Region 4 championship game.
The West Aurora graduate played with a broken middle finger on his left hand but still produced those big-time numbers for the Bulldogs (29-0), who clinched a berth in the national tournament.
“I give him a lot of credit,” SSC coach John Pigatti said of Donatlan. “It’s the middle finger on his shooting hand and that’s the key shooting finger.
“He made a couple of threes and has been toughening it out.”
The Bulldogs, who are ranked first in the country among Division II schools, needed every bit of those stats.
While Donatlan never mentioned the injury, Pigatti pointed out something else.
“He also was cramping up because it was hot in the gym,” Pigatti said. “He’s dead tired because I’m playing him 40 minutes a game. He just gutted it out.”
Some of that guts and toughness could from the 6-foot-3 sophomore’s football background.
When Donatlan was recruited out of West Aurora, it was for football. His college journey has been all over the map — literally.
He started out in 2018 at Wyoming, where he redshirted in football and participated in track. Then it was on to Iowa Community College, where he made the decision to switch sports.
“Every day after football practice, I would go to the rec center and watch basketball,” he said. “I would practice basketball. I said, ‘I need to go back to basketball.’
“It’s my first true love. I picked football because it was my only opportunity coming out of high school.”
The decision was final. The traveling was not.
He spent a season at North Central Missouri for basketball, then came back to the Chicago area to play with perennial power SSC.
“It’s been a real crazy, up-and-down career,” Donatlan said. “I was confused as an athlete. I had football. I was doing track. I loved basketball.
“I was just trying to be in that mode where I could do every sport. As you get older, you have to stick to one.”
He has good place to stick with the Bulldogs, who will be making their 12th trip to nationals. The tournament starts Tuesday and runs through March 19 at the Mary Miller Center in Danville.
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To get there, SSC had to fend off Waubonsee (19-8), which was led by Traevon Brown. Brown, who was Donatlan’s point guard in high school, had 13 points.
Donatlan thinks he has a good shot at going to his fifth college in five years as four-year schools are showing interest in him.
He said Tennessee State, Omaha, UNC Asheville and Wagner have been in contact with him, although the Nebraska connection might be in flux because 17-year coach Derrin Hansen was let go Monday.
A strong all-around player, Donatlan is averaging 19.1 points. He ranks 16th in the nation in rebounding with a 10.2 average. He’s third in the nation with 95 steals and 17th in assists with 149.
“I’m the type of person who can fit in wherever I go, honestly,” he said. “No one ever dislikes me. It hasn’t been a hard change to fit in.
“It was different though because I’m from a big city with Aurora and Chicago and I was in little cities in Missouri and Wyoming and Iowa. I like the big cities.”
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.