Basketball Weekend in Review: Purdue loses! Indiana wins! Purdue wins! Indiana loses!

Stuff happened!

Thursday

Indiana Hoosiers 68, then-#4 Purdue Boilermakers 65

BoilerUp89: Purdue got Trayce Jackson-Davis in foul trouble, but Rob Phinisee (hometown Lafayette, IN) clearly was offended by the mere notion of Purdue and had his best game of the season.

Purdue played without composure most of the game but especially in the first half, where they had 10 turnovers and a flagrant foul by Ivey. The Boilermakers had the lead late and chances to put it away, but 10 missed free throws (41% from the line for the game), a air balled two footer from Trevion Williams, and a potential game sealing defensive rebound batted out of bounds all left the door open just enough for the Hoosiers to take advantage.

It’s not the end of the world for the Boilers—as beating your rival 10 times in a row is extremely difficult—but it’s a frustrating loss for the fanbase nevertheless. Congrats to Indiana on their defense and congrats to both fanbases for making this the most watched college basketball game in FS1 history.

Buffkomodo: If you told me that TJD would play 10 minutes and have less than 10 points against Purdue and Indiana would still win, I’d call you crazy. That’s exactly what happened Thursday when Rob, XJ, and company rallied and won against Purdue for the first time in 9 tries. It was a fun, great game from start to buzzer.

Friday

Maryland Terrapins 81, Illinois Fighting Illini 65

Michigan State Spartans 86, Wisconsin Badgers 74

Green Akers: Seeing his team playing well below its ability, Tom Izzo used his Limit Break and took a bad loss last week so he could break out his trusty “We Got Fat And Sassy” line, and…&@$! me, it worked. Even with terrible offensive games from Gabe Brown and Tyson Walker, MSU’s depth, balance, and defensive game plan prevailed, as Johnny Davis needed 20 shots to get his 25 and the luckiest night of Brad Davison’s life was no help either.

Pick up another win over a conference title contender on Tuesday, and I’ll fully recant my ravings after the Northwestern loss.

Kind of...: Losing at home is never optimal, but UW has been over-achieving most of the year and sometimes you exhale because you got punched in the stomach. Six straight wins, four away from home? Get tagged in Columbus. Seven straight wins including @Purdue and vs. OSU? Get tagged by Sparty. It was clear they were a heavy underdog as soon as it was announced that Tyler Wahl would miss the game. UW is working with a very thin interior rotation as it is, and MSU’s size isn’t who you want to be short-handed against.

Then there’s the simple fact that Wisconsin just is NOT the most talented team in the B1G. Coming closest to fulfilling their potential? Perhaps. Just catch you breath and keep plugging away. At this point, according to KenPom, UW’s conference SOS has been #3. Illinois? #11. Sparty? #14. One of them is losing Tuesday. UW is still in the thick of it, even if they can look atrocious for stretches.

Minnesota Golden Gophers 68, Rutgers Scarlet Knights 65

WSR: WOOOOOOOO!

OK, back to being nervous about everything.

Iowa Hawkeyes 68, Penn State Nittany Lions 51

misdreavus79: What I thought would happen happened. Iowa was not going to have two atrocious shooting nights in a row, and, while Penn State did a good enough job on the Murrays for most of the game, the dam broke near the end. Both Keegan and Kris ended up with double-digit scoring outputs on the day, while Jalen Pickett was the only person who eclipsed 10 points on Penn State’s side of the ball. To make matters worse, turnovers reared their ugly head again, this time to the tune of 17. The Lions had lowered their average down to 12 (from 15 earlier in the season), but they’ve once again become an issue in the past two contests.

Oh, and if that weren’t enough, Penn State plays another team coming off a letdown! Gee, I wonder how that one will go?

Purdue 80, Northwestern Wildcats 60

BoilerUp89: Playing without Jaden Ivey, Purdue came out and handled business against the Wildcats. Northwestern did a decent job continuing to fight whenever they fell behind by 15 points and continually ate away at that lead, but once it got down to mid single digits the Boilermakers would inevitably extend the lead again.

As predicted by MNWildcat, Sasha Stefanovic had himself a game making a ton of threes. More importantly, Purdue held a power conference opponent to just 60 points. Also, the basketball historian version of me wants all of you to know that with this win Matt Painter tied Piggy Lambert for 5th in all time wins by a Big Ten coach and 2nd in wins by a Purdue coach. Would have been neat for that to happen against IU, but not everything can be perfect.

MNW: Yep.

Oh good, Ryan Young and Pete Nance take on Lurch and Stretch. I’m sure this’ll go well.

(In reality it’s because Whitey Baldonovich is going to go 6/7 from three or something and THEN the Monstars will do their thing inside once our will is broken. Whatever. I’ll be isolating and drinking in the basement, soooooo...)

It’s not fun anymore. They’re just consistently less than the sum of their parts.

Michigan Wolverines 80, Indiana 62

Buffkomodo: Complete letdown of a game. Indiana really had a chance to rack off 5 or 6 wins in a row but they came out flat, Michigan came out hot, and Bloomington is left with a familiar feeling of letdown. The season isn’t over though, and Indiana still had a great path at 10 conference wins and a NCAA tourney birth.