Wednesday, February 15th

Northwestern Wildcats 64, Indiana Hoosiers 62

MaximumSam: The Wildcats are alone in second place, two games back of Purdue, and hold the tiebreaker. There is a nonzero chance that Northwestern wins the Big Ten this season. I regret to inform you that the Rapture may be coming.

Thursday, February 16th

#5 Purdue Boilermakers (23-3, 12-3) at #36 Maryland Terrapins (17-8, 8-6), 5:30 pm, BTN

MaximumSam: Purdue starting to find themselves in must win mode. They still have a freebie game to lose, but with games against Indiana and Illinois still on deck, they probably don’t want to use it tonight. The first game between these two was a complete slog where the teams combined to go 5-34 from three. Hopefully such crimes against basketball won’t occur again. Maryland only has one loss at home this season, so this could be another fun one. Torvik goes Boils, 67-64.

#61 Ohio State Buckeyes (11-14, 3-11) at #44 Iowa Hawkeyes (16-9, 8-6), 8 pm, ESPN2

MaximumSam: Another day, another loss for the Buckeyes, probably. They are 1-11 over the past 12 games, though that “1” was a 16 point win over Iowa. Seems likely that the shots won’t fall quite as easily for them in at Carver-Hawkeye. Ice Likekele scored 18 in that game. He has scored 29 combined in all other Big Ten games. I’ll let you math wizards decide what the outlier is there. Torvik says Iowa, 82-77.