Big Ten Men’s Basketball Weekend Recaps

Weekend recaps ahead.

#6 Baylor Bears 75, Michigan State Spartans 58

Battle 4 Atlantis Championship Game

Green Akers: MSU gave Baylor a half and change of a challenge, but ultimately Baylor isn’t a team MSU can run with for 40 minutes yet. I’m still encouraged overall, and the performances against Loyola and UConn are going to be nice resume items.

Point guard play still isn’t where it needs to be, but it’s a damn sight better than last year.

#3 Purdue Boilermakers 97, Omaha Mavericks 40

BoilerUp89: I didn’t watch this one as it was on BTN-. Purdue was down 3-2 and then went on a 29-0 run.

Purdue would go on to blow Omaha out in pretty much every category: 31 more rebounds. 30+% better shooting from the field, from 3 pt range, and from the FT line. The walk-ons got 3 minutes of play, but failed to score the 7 points needed to reach 100.

The starting lineup saw a change as Thompson got a black eye during practice this week, so he came off the bench in this one. The usual guys were in double digits (Edey, Williams, Ivey) and were joined by Newman in this game.

Unfortunately for Purdue they are unlikely to get that first ever #1 ranking in the AP poll on Monday because Duke will jump them

#14 Illinois Fighting Illini 94, UT Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros 85

He was a high school QB: Of the top 8 players in the rotation for Illinois, 7 have missed one or more of the first six games. Throw in Underwood’s penchant for slow starts and you get what we had here last week.

Seriously though, we have four guys capable of staying in front of someone on the perimeter. Williams can’t guard everybody. Without Frazier and Grandison, we go from a top 10 defense in the country to a team that gives up 85 points to a middle of the road WAC team.

Thumpasaurus: Oof. This team cannot be without both its point guards and beat anyone of consequence. Thank god for Kofi and Plummer. Gotta get a healthy point guard.

Iowa Hawkeyes 85, Portland State Vikings 51

Stew: Iowa had a very bad offensive performance in the first half against Portland State, but used a few big runs early in the second to run out to a giant lead.

Keegan Murray was his typical sword going for 23 points, 9 rebounds, and some blocks and steals. Twin brother Kris had a good game off the bench, and Patrick McCaffery was pretty efficient as well. In a game where Iowa shot less than 33% from 3 and 50% from the field, and had issues rebounding—this last one is pretty concerning—they still were able to win by >30.

LSU Tigers 68, Penn State Nittany Lions 63 (OT)
Penn State 60, Oregon State Beavers 45

Emerald Coast Classic — Third Place

misdreavus79: They gave LSU all they could handle, taking them to overtime, then ran out of gas at the very end. Doing that against a team that had been scoring 85 a game (held the Tigers to 58 in regulation), and winning each game by 30, was quite encouraging to see.

More importantly, they completely shut down Oregon State the next day, holding them to 17 first half points and leading by as many as 26 at one point in the second half. It would have been completely understandable if they came out flat in this game after the effort against LSU, but instead they came energized.

Something that stood out to me was that Penn State held both LSU and Oregon State to under 40% eFG rate, which is a good sign for the future. If they Lions can continue to be a nightmare for other teams on defense, disciplined defense, then they’ll have a chance with their short bench.

Something else that stood out, though, is that the Nittany Lions are now 350th in adjusted tempo. That’s out of 358 teams. That’s 50 spots lower than Wisconsin. Yes, that Wisconsin. Can’t wait for February 5th!

Louisville Cardinals 63, Maryland Terrapins 55

Baha Mar Tournament Championship Game

Nebraska Cornhuskers 83, South Dakota Coyotes 70

Jesse Collins: My favorite Husker—Keisei Tominaga—finally found his shot and if it stays around, that’s a huge boost to an almost historically bad start getting the arc as a team. We did not lose to South Dakota at home and somehow this is progress.

UMass Minutemen 85, Rutgers Scarlet Knights 83

Kind of...: Rutgers breaks out, scores 83 points. And loses. Blowing a 15 point lead with 9 minutes to go (KenPom win probability: 96.2%).

misdreavus79: Will you look at that: Rutgers also lost to UMass huh?

Indiana Hoosiers 90, Marshall Thundering Herd 79

BuffKomodo: While the first half vs Marshall left a lot to be desired, the Hoosiers didn’t fold and smacked the Herd in the second half for a win. Shots went down so that’s a plus. The turnovers are still a problem and XJ may just be as erratic as Devonte Green and I’m not sure if I can handle that.

That said, Trayce Jackson-Davis is a man amongst boys at going left. TJD set a new Assembly Hall scoring record, with his 43 points capped off by a somewhat poor taste windmill. Really not a big deal but I’d understand anyone who was a little upset about that.

Things get turned up as Indiana has to leave the Hall this week and boy oh boy am I excited!

Inactives: Michigan Wolverines, Minnesota Golden Gophers, Northwestern Wildcats, wisconsin badgers

Kind of...: Wisconsin enjoyed a weekend of sitting around admiring their Maui Las Vegas Invitational trophy enjoying the Kelvin Sampson self-own that was his declaration that the UW team that defeated his Houston squad doesn’t have any great players.

MNW: Northwestern didn’t score a single damn point all weekend. Chris Collins has a lot of work to do.

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The Big Ten-ACC Challenge starts tomorrow! Look for a preview coming soon.