Big Ten Basketball Week Recaps, Women’s Tournament Results: Bad Week for Buckeyes, Good Week for Badgers

Wha’ Happened? Men’s Version

#9 Michigan State 91, Nebraska Cornhuskers 76

Anyways, I posed it to Andrew Kraszewski whether the Spartans should rest their starters and tank the Big Ten Tournament rather than trying to win a title that likely wouldn’t get them to a 1-seed.

AK: If I thought it would guarantee the injured guys are ready for the big dance, I’d have to give it some thought. But Kyle Ahrens has been hurt on and off for months and Nick Ward’s injury is a fracture, he’s either ready or he isn’t. They already have the double bye, so the most they play is 3 games anyway.

MSU did well to handle a flailing Nebraska team. If Kenny Goins and Matt McQuaid are going to play that well into tournament season, it may not matter that this team is down to 8 players, 4 of whom are non-impact freshmen.

Somehow, expecting those two guys to go 10/14 from deep doesn’t feel like a sustainable plan, but they picked up the team on an off shooting night for Cassius Winston. Winston doesn’t have many off nights, but if MSU gets as much of a response from the other guys when he does, they should be in good shape.

Minnesota Golden Gophers 73, #11 Purdue Boilermakers 69

Matt Haarms should’ve totally decked this kid:

Boilerman31: Congrats to Minnesota. They were the aggressors tonight. Where Purdue settled for jumpers, the Gophers drove to the hoop, drew contact, and hit their free throws. The Boilers broadcasted their passes and that led to run-outs.

Carsen Edwards was ice cold at times missing contested threes. Nojel Eastern did his best job cleaning up Carsen’s misses but it wasn’t enough.

WhiteSpeedReceiver: That was fun. Purdue wasn’t on, but we played our asses off and got a huge win that’ll probably get us into the NCAA tourney.

Boilerman31: To the haters that want to blame refs, I just want to throw up the following: 12-31 and 9-18. Those are the Boilers’ 3-point and free throw numbers.

Penn State Nittany Lions 66, Rutgers Scarlet Knights 65

For people like me who stopped paying attention at halftime, uh...why were you paying attention to begin with? Rutgers fought like a team who felt their NIT chances slipping away, but they’re up against it now.

Lamar Stevens was a black hole for the Penn State offense, taking 24 shots and only bothering to make 8 of them, while Geo Baker returned the favor for Rutgers, going 0/10 and 0/7 for zero, zilch, nada, not-a-fucking-thing.

God, this is such bad basketball.

Northwestern Wildcats 68, Ohio State Buckeyes 50

MNW: The Buckeyes had 4 FGs and 7 turnovers at half. That’s the kind of game this was—OSU couldn’t shoot, NU played the same good defense they have most of the reason, and a few more shots went down. I’m gonna miss the shit outta Dererk Pardon—20 points, 13 rebounds, and just hustle plays and rebounding all around.

Oh, right: These teams were a combined 9/46 from deep. You didn’t watch, and you made a good decision in doing that.

#21 wisconsin badgers 65, Iowa Hawkeyes 45

beezer07: Wisconsin somehow won by 20, Ethan Happ somehow shot like 60% on FTs, Khalil Iverson opened the game by taking a dribble and two steps from the 3pt line and then dunking.

Wisconsin is on the brink of a 4th place finish, just like old times. But I’m still very worried about the outside shooting. It’s been...bad on the whole for a couple months.

Stewmonkey13: I think I might be done with Fran.

I know he’s not getting fired any time soon. And I don’t think I’m going to vocally advocate for his firing. But it’s 9 seasons, 4.5 decent teams, the 3 best all collapsing at the end of the season. Just not worth the time or emotional investment. I’ll watch when I can. But probably not going to leave work for tourney games, or dvr them and avoid scores so I can watch the whole thing fresh. I don’t see payoffs here.

Indiana Hoosiers 92, Illinois Fighting Illini 74

Thump: Annihilated.
Candy: We didn’t suck!

Oh, and Ayo Dosunmu is being...coy...about his plans for next year. So that’s great, Illinois.

Wha’ Happened? Women’s Version

[9] Michigan State 68, [8] Northwestern 52

Credit Suzy Merchant and the Spartans’ preparation—they completely shut down Northwestern’s guard play, cutting off the outside-in game Lauren Pulliam likes to play with banger Pallas Kunayih-Akpanah. The Spartans advance for a rematch with Maryland, who they upset at home in January, looking to bolster their NCAA Tournament resume.

[13] Wisconsin Badgers 73, [5] Ohio State Buckeyes 63

That’s...it for the Buckeyes’ postseason hopes? We were helpfully informed that the Buckeyes lost a few non-conference games in what was widely considered a “throwaway year” due to the California fires, but this loss knocks them to 14-14.

[10] Indiana 66, [7] Minnesota 58

Similarly, there goes any hope the Gophers had of Dancing. Destiny Pitts continued her streak of 20-point games for the Gophers (that’s 8 games now), but Indiana got the ball to the hands of shooters Ali Patberg and Breanna Wise, both of whom were near-automatic from deep.

[11] Purdue 75, [6] Nebraska 71

I had Purdue as my Wednesday team to go the farthest, and while we can’t forget about wisconsin, the Boilers held off sub-.500 Nebraska with the 3/3 shooting of Lyndsey Whilby off the bench. This was the only one I didn’t get to have on in the background, so I’ll let our Purdue friends tell us if we missed anything good.

Back with bracketology, previews, and open thread later today. In the meantime, vote in the poll and let us know your thoughts on the games in the comments.