Tuesday, January 24th

Rutgers Scarlet Knights 65, Penn State Nittany Lions 45

Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports

MaximumSam: Rutgers stuffed Penn State into a trash can. Penn State went 4-26 from three, which for them is the equivalent of Iowa football getting no pick sixes. Rutgers had a balanced attack with four guys in double figures, and they remain in second place and two games behind Purdue.

BoilerUp89: Rutgers defense smothered Penn State by blocking 5 shots and preventing open looks all evening. The Nittany Lions aren’t a roster that is going to win any games when they shoot 15% from three and credit to Rutgers for holding them to that.

Illinois Fighting Illini 69, Ohio State Buckeyes 60

Ron Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

MaximumSam: Illinois pretty much stuffed the Buckeyes into a trash can, only limited by their strange desire to brick three pointers half the time. Otherwise, they extended their defense and made OSU work to get inside, which usually ended up bouncing off the rim. The Buckeyes ended up 18/50 from two, which is no good at all.

BoilerUp89: The Buckeyes only attempted 10 three pointers which is a low number for a team without a dominant post presence. Zed Key is good, but not a guy you are posting up 20 times a game especially when he’s nursing an injury.

Illinois won this game on the glass, outrebounding Ohio State by 14. That gave them the margin to overcome the Illini turnover woes and abysmal shooting night.

Wednesday, January 25th

#71 Wisconsin Badgers (12-6, 4-4) at #72 Maryland Terrapins (12-7, 3-5), 6 pm, BTN

Alex Martin/Journal and Courier / USA TODAY NETWORK

BoilerUp89: Both teams are in need of a win but only one will walk out of the gym with one tonight. Max Klesmit is likely to miss a second consecutive game and the Badgers missed his defense against the mighty Wildcats of Evanston on Monday.

Maryland is coming off a close loss to Purdue in which they shot 14% from three. While nobody will confuse them with a good shooting team, they are typically better than that. Wisconsin meanwhile is usually reliant on their three point shooting as they’ve struggled on offense everywhere else.

#51 Northwestern Wildcats (13-5, 4-3) at #106 Nebraska Cornhuskers (10-10, 3-6), 6 pm, FS2

David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

BoilerUp89: Your Northwestern Wildcats will look to keep pace with Rutgers as they travel to the intimidating environment of PBA. Nebraska will look to stay on the right side of .500 for the season. Julian Roper is out for tonight's game.

#29 Indiana Hoosiers (13-6, 4-4) at #197 Minnesota Gophers (7-11, 1-7), 8 pm, BTN

Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK

MaximumSam: All Hail the Unstoppable Hoosiers. TJD is wedging himself into the POTY conversation, which Zach Edey was pretty much dominating. Probably can’t afford to lose to Minnesota though.

BoilerUp89: MaximumSam brings up a good point about losing to Minnesota, but I’m curious to see whether TJD can be the conference POTY and lose to Minnesota in the same season. The people want to know, Hoosiers.

Trayce Jackson-Davis is on 1900 career points watch as he currently sits at 1898.

Mike Woodson (COVID), Dawson Garcia (bone bruise), and Pharrel Payne (concussion) will not be participating.