Basketball Recaps: Purdue and Illinois play a thriller, Rutgers and Iowa commit a murder

First some recaps of all the games your favorite teams played during the early part of this week (offer not valid for Michigan State, Minnesota, or Penn State fans).

Monday, January 17

#4 Purdue Boilermakers 96, #17 Illinois Fighting Illini 88 (2OT)

BoilerUp89: Purdue survived the Illini in double overtime. Zach Edey won the battle of the big men with 20 and 8 and got Cockburn into foul trouble while limiting him to 10 and 5. Curbelo and Plummer had big games for the Illini though and every time Purdue opened up a small lead, Illinois would fight back and close the gap again.

MaximumSam: All Hail Verdonk

Indiana Hoosiers 78, Nebraska Cornhuskers 71

Buffkomodo: I’m going to break one of the rules we have at this site and harp on the officiating of this game. The officials were absolutely horrendous and ended up losing control in the last 8 minutes leading to multiple pushing matches and alleged leg kicks. There were plenty if eyebrow raising calls on both sides too so it’s not like Indiana got screwed uniquely. At one point in the second half, I actually thought Nebraska was getting homered at home. Absolutely disgraceful effort on the part of the officials. Now, onto the game.

Indiana secured their first road win! They did it without TJD for the last 6 minutes due to a fall and what most likely amounted to a desire to not stick TJD out there to miss free throws or foul out or something else? Just guessing there. Hopefully he’s good to go vs Purdue on Thursday. Everyone else played okay. Geronimo was really the battery late in the game that let Indiana seal the deal.
For a winless team in the B1G, it’s safe to say I’d rather not play them again. Nebraska played Indiana well both times and I’m very glad they played both those games without full strength McGowens. He’s good.

Now we go to game 2 of the week against our hated, bitter rivals of Purdue. If TJD is full strength, it might be an interesting game. If not, someone better hit some shots.

Tuesday, January 18

#19 The Ohio State Buckeyes 83, Indiana University (PUI) Jaguars 37

BoilerUp89: The Buckeyes get the easy win against Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis in a hastily contrived replacement game for one of the three non-conference games that Ohio State had to cancel when COVID ravaged their program in December. For reasons that remain unclear - possibly they were the only program available - Ohio State chose to play IUPUI who currently ranks 3rd from the bottom on KenPom. Although the game will be meaningless for the Buckeye’s resume, it did give them an excuse to sell 10,666 tickets and concessions to those who were in attendance. I’m not going to talk about the actual game because IUPUI is now 1-14 on the year with their single win being against D3 Spalding University.

MaximumSam: Hey don’t sleep on Spalding. They have wins over Greenville and Eureka. I think six or seven guys from this site are scheduled to play them in February.

Michigan Wolverines 83, Maryland Terrapins 64

#8 Wisconsin Badgers 82, Northwestern Wildcats 76

MNW: I’m pretty much out of things to say about this stupid fucking team. For all the kvetching we might do, the ‘Cats weren’t even tied in this one after Pete Nance (10 points in his first game back from injury) tied it at 22 with 6:40 to go in the first half. Chase Audige had a solid 23 (10/17 shooting, 3/4 from deep), Boo Buie had a chucker’s 19, Ryan Young with a workmanlike 13 off the bench but falls over too easily when hip-checked from his blind side and will POOR FUCKING WISCONSIN EVER GET A CALL? The absolute fucking whiniest fanbase on the goddamn planet that’s had a horseshoe shoved up its ass for about 30 years still somehow comes out of a road victory as the fucking victim.

Anywho, Northwestern lost again, and they probably deserved to lose again.

They’re bad at the wrong times, unlucky at the worst times, and there’s no respite on the horizon. Credit them for fighting, I guess, and un-credit them for not knowing or not being coached on how to do that better.

Kind of...: Northwestern shot pretty well from the floor; Wisconsin shot better. The refs didn’t call obvious fouls committed by NW on Johnny Davis, but made up for it by calling fouls that didn’t happen. Wisconsin had all five starters in double-figures, but Davis led the way, as usual, with 27 pts and 8 rbds.

Even without the ³⁄₄ court heave, Chucky Hepburn had a nice night. And Tyler Wahl continued to be an irritant (of the non-Davison variety). Northwestern has talented and potential, but play a flailing style of defense and the offense alternates between good movement and iso heat checks. Expect them to continue to pull the occasional upset and lose plenty of close games.

MNW: Jesus Christ if I see one more person bitch about refs under the veiled “but they were bad for BOTH sides!” tripe, I’m turning this blog around and no one gets Dairy Queen.

BoilerUp89: That’s fine. I’d rather have Culvers anyway.

Wednesday, January 19

Rutgers Scarlet Knights 48, Iowa Hawkeyes 46

BoilerUp89: Apparently Iowa and Wisconsin switched bodies. Wisconsin is allowed to score over 80, and Iowa played a game with less than 100 total points. This game was a clinic on how not to make shots.

MaximumSam: I didn’t watch this game, and thank God for that. With Him all things are possible.

RU in VA: It was, in a word - not great. Entertaining? Sure. A display of good basketball? Nope.

I haven’t seen that many airballs (by both teams) in a long time. Luckily, the good guys escaped with a win. The foul call at the end was a bit rough if you’re an Iowa fan, but Ron Harper driving the lane is gonna get that call every time.

misdreavus79: I just want to comment on the hilarity that is the Dichotomous Scarlet Knights.

Scenario: Fail to score 50 points.
At home: 2-point win.
On the road: 17-point loss.

COVID 19, Minnesota Golden Gophers and Penn State Nittany Lions 18