Big Ten Basketball Week Recap: Maryland collapses, Rutgers topples IU

Holy moly, turns out the playing of some games goes into that bracketology thing?

So what happened?

Tuesday, January 14

Iowa Hawkeyes 75, Northwestern Wildcats 62

Stewmonkey13: Mediacom made it about impossible for me to follow this game very closely. But I know at one point Luka Garza was averaging about 2 points per minute. He was in foul trouble until about half way through the second half, but that didn’t stop him from dominating, with 27 points in 24 minutes. The supporting cast had a pretty even split with 5 other players having between 8-10 points. It’s a double digit road conference win.

MNW: As usual, both the promise and the pitfalls of Northwestern Basketball 2019-20 on display. Miller Kopp was balling in the first half until he wasn’t in the second. Threes were falling until they weren’t. Offense rebounds for Pete Nance and Kopp, stacking up until they stopped bouncing our way.

This is just not a good team, in terms of neither players nor coaching. They can get there, sure—I’d love to see Collins make adjustments in the offense they’re running—but I have little hope it’ll happen any time soon.

wisconsin badgers 56, Maryland Terrapins 54

DJ Carver: Somehow, someway Maryland was only down 5 at the half after having two separate scoring droughts of 4 and 5 minutes each. Wisconsin offense I guess. THEN somehow Maryland actually took a comfortable lead in this game and looked like they would actually pull the road win at Kohl Center. You guys see where I’m going with this.

With 10 seconds left and a 1 point lead, Maryland has the ball to inbound. Turgeon draws up one of his infamous inbounds plays and....Maryland turns it over without ever getting it inbounds! Fantastic! Then, to make things even better, Maryland allows a clean inbounds pass to Brad Davison in the corner to drain a 3. Amazing.

Oh, but it gets better. So there are about 7 seconds left on the clock, more than enough time to dribble down the court, hit a cut into the lane for a layup or to get fouled and tie this up. What’s Maryland do? Patented Anthony Cowan Jr. last 15 seconds of a game pull up three from the top of the key, brick. Lose.

Wrapping all of this up, Maryland had a timeout and could have avoided this entire situation but didn’t call it when they couldn’t inbound the ball.

beezer07: I watched nearly all of this game for once, and I have 3 major takeaways: First, Wisconsin’s D has been amazeballs the last month, with the exception of Illinois. Second, the Wisconsin offense is realllllllly going to struggle if last year’s best 3-point shooters, Trice and Ford, keep putting up 0-fers. Third, lol Brad Davison won a game single-handedly and you all have to just deal with it.

Bonus takeaway: Is there always this much time spent reviewing plays? I caught the end of Duke-Clemson and it was about 45 seconds of gameplay and 10 minutes of replays. Then in the Wisconsin game, they reviewed everything every chance they could. I’m in favor of getting stuff right but they need a much faster way to do it.

Wisconsin really needed this win. Micah Potter continues to be an offensive revelation, putting up something like 14 points on 6/7 shooting in 13 minutes played. He really needs to work on his pick and roll defense, as that’s apparently what sidelined him for the final 10 minutes of the game against Maryland, but his offense is legit. I’m not sure if Gard has the in-season offensive flexibility or coaching chops to switch to a Nate Reuvers-Micah Potter lineup, but those two guys are their best offensive players lately and they both need to get their minutes. Hopefully Potter’s D picks up as Wisconsin heads to Michigan State for a blowout loss this Saturday.

BrianB2: You already know how the game ended. I turned this on with completely no expectations, very little emotional investment, and they still managed to make me mad for about ten minutes. I have been one of the people holding out the longest to climb aboard the #FireTarkMurgeon train, but I am getting damn close.

MAYBEEEEE this year they are just having their patented third-of-the-season long slump in January, instead of February and March. A man can dream. Wait, we played Seton Hall and Penn State in January right? Good.

#21 Ohio State Buckeyes 80, Nebraska Cornhuskers 68

Jesse Collins: Nebraska tried, which is about as much as one could expect. After getting destroyed in the first half, they fought - not necessarily back mind you - until the end. Anyhow, now is a GREAT time to talk about Thor.

Thorir Thorbjarnarson is quietly putting together an excellent offensive turnaround season. Going into this year, Thor was 6/28 from 3, and 22/64 overall. This year? 27/56 from 3 and 47/95 overall. That’s kind of unbelievable. As a guy many thought of an afterthought - and really the only true carryover from Miles—it’s awesome to see him doing his thing. He was 5/8 from deep against OSU and in B1G play is 15/30 overall. Love this kid and look forward to seeing him continue to improve his shot.

BigRedTwice: I have nothing to add to Jesse’s recap, as I only caught the first half. But I also want to second my love for our Icelandic wonder. He’s turned into a real Northern light-bright spot on the team. Named Thor.

Wednesday, January 15

Rutgers Scarlet Knights 59, Indiana Hoosiers 50

Candystripes: Indiana keeps going through this weird stretch where the team will have some solid shooters, and then just a whole bunch of drive and kick guys with no true shooters. This wave is both an in-season happening and a season-by-season occurrence, which is both odd and concerning, give that this really started during the Crean years. Noted IUBB discussion site Inside the Hall pointed out after this game that the Hoosiers were 4-36 on field goals farther out than layups, which is yikes and a half.

The only “bright” spot that you can take away from that is that IU only lost by 9 while shooting like flaming garbage, but that really shows just how badly this team is when their shots aren’t falling with regularity.

Thump: Chief rugster correspondent reporting. Geo Baker returned earlier than I’d expected for an important home stand. What few open looks from outside 3 feet the Hoosiers saw, they missed. Are we approaching pikes peak? Rugerst really went after the boards again, I tried to tell you all that ruggert was a team this year but nobody wanted to discuss rugster. Why does nobody want to discuss rugster basketball

Let us use this recap as an open and public forum for the discussion of rusgert hopps.

ZuzuRU: Ha-ha HA HA. Rutgers is one of 13 D-1 teams that are undefeated at home. With Geo Baker back, and who had one of the greatest dunks of the year... OUR TIME IS NOW. WELCOME TO YOUR MOST FEARED TIMELINE.

Minnesota Golden Gophers 75, Penn State Nittany Lions 69

MNW: Daniel Oturu continues to score lots of points.

At one point the Gophers’ play-by-play guy commented that Mike Watkins looks like he’s 45, a statement I wholeheartedly agree with.

Aaron Yorke: Yeah, yeah. Mike Watkins always looks like he’s 45. It’s the DAD STACHE. He’s the next Greg Oden for sure. Or he would be if he was seven feet tall, but unfortunately, you can’t teach that.

Penn State got off to a great start on offense thanks to Pat Chambers finally starting Seth Lundy over Myles Dread. Lundy can shoot it really well, and I’m excited to see his role expand as the season progresses. Unfortunately, the offense hit the skids around the 17-minute mark of the second half. The three-point shots stopped falling and this team doesn’t get to the basket enough. Penn State ended up shooting better than Minnesota in this game, but it didn’t feel that way because PSU’s shooting dropped way off in the second half and the Gophers grabbed a lot of their own misses.

Daniel Oturu and Marcus Carr are nearly as good as Cassius Winston and Xavier Tillman, but the Minnesota duo are both sophomores.