Quick Recap
There were 17 Big Ten games last week, which included 8 on Saturday. It wasn't a week with many upsets as the top teams have clearly separated themselves from the rest.
John Blackwell hit a buzzer beater against Minnesota to steal a road win.
Michigan State dominated both Indiana and Washington this week as they've moved into having the number 1 defense in the country per Kenpom.
Purdue had two close games against Iowa and USC, but despite not playing close to their A games, they still ended up 2-0 and sit at 7-0 in the Big Ten.
Nebraska continued their dominance, moving to 7-0 in Big Ten play after a 35 point win against Oregon and a 19 point road win over Northwestern.
Iowa picked up a needed road win over Indiana, their best win on the season. They sit at 13-5 and 3-4 in the Big Ten, but they've beat just two Kenpom top 50 teams so far (UCLA and Indiana). They've had chances to win against Iowa State, Illinois, and Purdue, but haven't been able to close out games yet.
Diggy Coit went for 42 points against Penn State, in a game where he outscored the Nittany Lions himself in the first half.
Michigan took care of their west coast trip as they beat Washington and Oregon by 10 points each.
Road teams went 9-8 this week, and only 4 of the 17 games were decided by less than 10 points.
Score recap (Away Team - Home Team)
Wisconsin 78 - Minnesota 75
Indiana 60 - Michigan State 81
Oregon 55 - Nebraska 90
Maryland 71 - USC 88
Iowa 72 - Purdue 79
Illinois 79 - Northwestern 68
UCLA 71 - Penn State 60
Michigan 82 - Washington 72
Minnesota 67 - Illinois 77
UCLA 74 - Ohio State 86
Iowa 74 - Indiana 57
Rutgers 87 - Wisconsin 96
Nebraska 77 - Northwestern 58
Michigan 81 - Oregon 71
Purdue 69 - USC 64
Michigan State 80 - Washington 63
Penn State 73 - Maryland 96
5 Trends and Observations
1.) Jeremy Fears is now the scorer?
We all know that Jeremy Fears has emerged as one of the elite facilitators in the country this season. However, the question has been, what can he provide in terms of scoring?
Since the start of the new year, Fears has put up the following scoring statlines
- 14 points - 2/4 2s - 0/4 3s - 10/10 FTs
- 15 points - 6/10 2s - 0/3 3s - 3/3 FTs
- 15 points - 4/10 2s - 0/1 3s - 7/7 FTs
- 23 points - 7/8 2s - 1/6 3s - 6/8 FTs
- 19 points - 6/8 2s - 0/1 3s - 7/8 FTs
Now, does the jumper need to develop? Absolutely if he wants to take that next step as an elite player. However, he's still finding ways to score. He currently has a FTA Rate of 60.8, meaning that for every 10 shots he takes, he attempts 6 free throws. He gets to the line a ton where he's been an 89% shooter on the season. He's an elite foul baiter, and although some people may not deem it "ethical", it's still a skill, and he's incredibly good at it.
There's still a lot of room to grow in terms of efficiency, but aside from just the free throws, Fears also does a solid job of getting to the rim for his size. He's also been a really good finisher there at the rim, and over the last 5 games, he's shooting 11/15 (73.3%) at the rim and 19/29 on all shots inside of the paint.
Fears is such an elite facilitator that it'll be the thing teams worry about the most. As Fears continues to find ways to impact the game scoring the ball though, that's when he can help elevate this Spartans offense that at times can get really stuck in the mud.
2.) Wisconsin is starting to provide a bit of depth to the Big Ten
We've talked about in this Big Ten Roundup before that after the top 5 of the Big Ten (which has been ELITE), there really isn't much depth at all. Wisconsin is the team that's maybe starting to prove to have some.
The highlight is obviously the big win over Michigan, probably the single best win in the country so far. They're on a 4 game winning streak too though with wins against the following teams
- UCLA
- @ Michigan
- @ Minnesota
- Rutgers
Outside of Michigan, is it the toughest competition? No. But wins are wins, and when you look at their schedule in the future, they have the chance to extend this streak. Here are their next 5 games
- @ Penn State
- USC
- Minnesota
- Ohio State
- @ Indiana
The only one of those 5 games in which they won't be favored is at Indiana, but it's not like the Hoosiers have exactly been striking confidence into the college basketball world.
Over the last 5 games, Wisconsin is shooting 36.4% from three on over 30 attempts a game. On the season, they're shooting 34.4% from three on similar volume.
Despite the defense actually being worse over this stretch, the offense has taken big leaps, and when that's combined with some tougher shot making down the stretch, Wisconsin has found themselves on a 4 game winning streak despite winning those four games by an average of 5.8 points.
3.) How worried (or not) are we about Michigan and Purdue?
Michigan and Purdue are a combined 33-2, so the answer to the question is "not worried."
But with elite status comes nitpicking and over analyzing, and although both teams went 2-0 this week, neither did it in the dominant fashion they had been doing for large portions of the season.
The defense has fallen off some for Michigan as two of their five worst defensive performances have been over the last week, based on defensive efficiency. Of note, 3 of their worst 5 have been the last 3 games.
A big reason for this has been their inability to defensive rebound, having their two single worst defensive rebounding rates over the last two games.
Purdue had their offense slip against USC, posting just their 2nd game all season with an offensive points per possession at 1.0 or less. It was a weird game overall that featured foul trouble, TKR no-showing, and Braden Smith tweaking his knee early in the game. The Iowa game from earlier in the week was Purdue's 6th worst offensive performance of the season.
However, all of this needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Purdue's offensive performance against Iowa (Purdue's 6th worst of the year) netted them 1.23 points per possession. That is a top 10 rate in the country. Michigan allowed 1.01 points per possession against Oregon this week, their 3rd worst defensive rate on the season. That's a top 50 rate in the country.
So yes, Purdue and Michigan both haven't been playing to their elite level. However, they're (largely) winning games despite not playing at their best. Revisionist history will ultimately decide how people view this, but there's an argument that it's impressive these teams are still winning despite clearly not playing close to their A+ games.
4.) Does home court matter this year in the Big Ten?
As of now, the home team is currently winning just 50% of the conference games. If that were to hold, it'd be the lowest win percentage for home teams in Big Ten play in the Kenpom era (1997). The next lowest percentage was in 2014 when home teams won 57.4% of conference games.
Since the 4 west coast teams have been added to the Big Ten, the home teams are winning just 56% of home games, a noticeable drop off compared to the early 2020s in which home teams won well over 60% of the games. (Side note - wild that I can refer to "early" 2020s and it actually be the period of time we aren't currently in).
This drop off in home winning percentage would probably be counterintuitive to what would be expected, since there's a perceived notion that the home teams should be dominating in these west/east coast trips that involve very long flights. Let's look at the data.
Above shows the combined record of UCLA, USC, Washington, and Oregon when they have to travel east (Road) vs when an east team has to travel to them (Home). It does not include any games that involved 2 of the 4 teams listed. This includes last season and this season data.
The west coast teams struggling on the road makes sense, as they're winning just 32.5% of games.
However, they're actually slightly under .500 when they're the HOME team. Obviously, it's a very small sample size, but my guess is people would think that win percentage would be higher. One thing to note though is that the west coast teams haven't been great in general through 1.5 seasons in the Big Ten, which would cause them even more losses.
Which brings us back to the original point of does home court matter as much this season in the Big Ten?
Below shows the wins and losses for home teams for last season and this season, during Big Ten play. Overall, home teams are winning 56.1% of games. When you account for "No Travel" - games that feature either two west coast teams OR two non-west coast teams - home teams are only winning 54.3% of games.
At the end of the day, it's hard to say home court doesn't matter when there's plenty of historical data to show it does. However, it's interesting that teams have been able to take care of business on the road a lot more.
Side note - I'm 99% sure that the data is accurate, but I did do it all very late at night, so please let us know if the data is off.
5.) Big Ten schedule outlook
As we currently stand, here are the number of teams with each amount of losses in the Big Ten
- 0 - Two (Purdue, Nebraska)
- 1 - Three (Michigan, Illinois, Michigan State)
- 2 - One (Wisconsin)
- 3 - Two (Ohio State, UCLA)
- 4+ - Ten
We're going to mainly focus on the 5 teams with 0 or 1 losses, although it's not entirely impossible for Wisconsin, Ohio State, or UCLA to go on a run (it is highly improbable).
I bring this all up because the top teams simply haven't played each other much, outside of one team. Here are the only matchups between the top 5 teams that have already happened.
- Nebraska @ Illinois
- Michigan State @ Nebraska
Nebraska sits at 7-0 despite being the only team to play 2 other top 5 teams.
Per Kenpom, here is the conference strength of schedule for each Big Ten team (18 is easiest Big Ten schedule so far, and 1 is hardest)
- Michigan - 18
- Purdue - 17
- Illinois - 16
- Michigan State - 14
- Nebraska - 7
It's natural for the top teams to have the easiest conference schedules, simply because they can't play themselves.
As we start to get close to halfway through the Big Ten schedule, little things like this can really add up. Despite having the 7th toughest Big Ten schedule so far, Nebraska finds themselves at 7-0 still.
The other factor in who could win the Big Ten is who exactly does everyone still have to play. Below is the matchups left just between the top 5 teams.
Nebraska (3) - @ Michigan, Illinois, Purdue
Purdue (4) - Illinois, @ Nebraska, Michigan, Michigan State
Michigan (5) - Nebraska, @ MSU, @ Purdue, @ Illinois, MSU
Michigan State (4) - Michigan, Illinois, @ Purdue, @ Michigan
Illinois (4) - @ Purdue, @ Nebraska, @ Michigan State, Michigan
There are two ways to break this down, to me.
- Nebraska has just 3 big time matchups left, Michigan has 5, and the others have 4
- Purdue and Nebraska have just one of these matchups each on the road. Michigan State has two road matchups. Michigan has three of theirs on the road.
Unfortunately with unbalanced schedules, point number 2 really comes into play. Nebraska has already gotten one of their big road matchups out of the way by beating Illinois, so they only have one left. Purdue probably got the best draw of the bunch, having to only play each of the other top teams once for the season, and only one of those is on the road (at Nebraska).
Team of the Week
Michigan State Spartans
In a week where there weren't many big time matchups in the Big Ten, and teams like Purdue and Michigan had some issues, Michigan State took care of business by dominating Indiana with a big 2nd half, and then going out west and beating Washington on the road.
Nebraska gets the honorable mention for basically doing the same thing that Michigan State did this week.
Player of the Week
Pryce Sandfort - Nebraska
vs Oregon
- 28 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 turnovers, 2 steals
- 2/4 2s (50%), 7/11 3s (63.6%), 3/3 FTs (100%)
@ Northwestern
- 22 points, 2 rebounds, 1 turnover
- 2/3 2s (66.7%), 5/10 3s (50%), 3/3 FTs (100%)
Week Schedule
Note - All times listed are in Eastern Standard Time
Game of the Week
Illinois @ Purdue - Saturday, January 24th - 3:00 - FOX
Tuesday, January 20th
- Minnesota @ Ohio State - 6:30 - Big Ten Network
- Indiana @ Michigan - 7:00 - Peacock
- Rutgers @ Iowa - 8:30 - Big Ten Network
- Michigan State @ Oregon - 9:00 - FS1
- Purdue @ UCLA - 10:00 - Peacock
Wednesday, January 21st
- Maryland @ Illinois - 7:00 - Big Ten Network
- Washington @ Nebraska - 9:00 - Big Ten Network
- Northwestern @ USC - 11:00 - Big Ten Network
Thursday, January 22nd
- Wisconsin @ Penn State - 7:00 - FS1
Friday, January 23rd
- Indiana @ Rutgers - 6:00 - FS1
- Ohio State @ Michigan - 8:00 - FOX
Saturday, January 24th
- Maryland @ Michigan State - 12:00 - CBS
- Nebraska @ Minnesota - 12:00 - FS1
- Illinois @ Purdue - 3:00 - FOX
- Northwestern @ UCLA - 6:00 - FS1
Sunday, January 25th
- Oregon @ Washington - 3:00 - Peacock
- USC @ Wisconsin - 4:00 - Peacock
