Quick Recap
As the calendar flipped to 2026, we finally have Big Ten play again. Below are some quicker bullet points on what happened over the last week.
Nebraska had the biggest win of the week, and one of the biggest wins in their program history as they knocked off Michigan State at home.
Braden Smith broke the Big Ten assists record in a 16 point road win over Wisconsin.
Michigan played basketball again, and for the 10th straight game, they won by 18+ points as they beat USC by 30 at home.
Ohio State was able to pull out a gritty road win at Rutgers, keeping them right on the bubble, although there are plenty of games left.
Washington came out in a triangle and two defensively against Indiana, but Tayton Conerway and Conor Enright started 5/5 from three before the first media timeout and pulled Washington out of it. Indiana ended up shooting 12/28 from three as a team in a 90-80 win over the Huskies.
After being down 40-22 at half, UCLA was able to make it an interesting game against Iowa, before Iowa ultimately closed the door at the end. Stirtz put up 27 points, 5 assists, and 4 rebounds.
Minnesota is now 2-1 in Big Ten play after a road victory over Northwestern, dropping the Wildcats to an 0-3 start. Cade Tyson, Isaac Asuma, and Langston Reynolds all played the full 40 minutes. Reynolds had a career high 13 assists while only having 2 turnovers. The Gophers trailed 67-60 with 4:30 left before going on a 16-3 run.
5 Trends and Observations
1.) Braden Smith breaks the Big Ten assists record
Coming into the season, it was almost a certainty that Braden Smith would break the Big Ten assist record, with the NCAA record within realistic reach. Smith still has a bit to go for the NCAA record, although he's currently on pace to break that in potentially the 3rd post season game of this season.
Against Wisconsin, Smith recorded 12 assists as he was able to break the record previously held by Cassius Winston. Smith got it off a nice wrap around drop off pass to Oscar Cluff on the roll, and he then immediately started talking trash to some Wisconsin fan on the baseline.
Smith has been a maestro out of pick and roll all season and during his career. Right now, Purdue is averaging 1.19 points per shot when Braden Smith faces drop coverage, and they're averaging 1.18 points per shot when Braden Smith faces hedge. Both of those are elite numbers and shows that at this point in his career, Smith can simply do whatever he wants. Even against Iowa State, in a game Purdue mightily struggled, Smith quietly generated open look after open look for his team, and no one could convert.
Smith is now averaging 7.2 assists per game, which would also break the Big Ten assists per game record (since 1973-74), if it were to hold. Mateen Cleaves is 2nd at 6.63.
Against Wisconsin, Smith had 12 assists, and it marks the 8th time this season that he's cracked double digit assists. He's had less than 7 assists just one time this season, when he had 29 points and 4 assists in a road win over Alabama.
2.) Nebraska continues to be the story of the season
It was an ugly one, but Nebraska was able to grind out a home win over Michigan State in a game that saw just 12 total two pointers be made in total. MSU was 7/22 from 2, and Nebraska was 5/20 from 2. The 5 two pointers from Nebraska was the fewest made 2s in a win against a ranked opponent in the college basketball reference data base.
They followed it up with a gritty, 3 point road win over Ohio State, a game they almost let slip from their grasp. Despite shooting just 8/29 from three, the Cornhuskers shot 60.7% on the interior which has been a sneaky big strength of theirs this season.
Nebraska has maybe been playing slightly above their true level with their current record, but don't let that distract you from the fact that this is a very good team. The MSU win showed that they don't just have to rely on making a ton of threes to win games and their defensive system can make things very difficult on opponents. Teams are taking nearly 52% of their shots from 3 against Nebraska, the 5th highest rate in the country. What's different this year for Nebraska's defense though is that they're contesting more shots from three while also still limiting the fewest amount of shots at the rim in the country. Teams are taking contested catch and shoot 3s on 67% of their jumpers, up from 60.9% this season.
3.) Is it time to be concerned about Tucker DeVries?
After getting off to an incredibly hot start from three to start the season, DeVries has cooled down a bit. Since December started, he's shooting 15/60 (25%) from three across 7 games, and he's 6/33 (18.2%) over the last 4 games.
DeVries is a tough shot taker and maker, and there's naturally going to be plenty of variance within the shots he takes. He's now at 34.5% from three on the year, which is just below is 36.2% career three point percentage.
One positive is that DeVries is shooting a career high 53.8% from two, although he's taking over 2x as many threes as twos.
Last season, DeVries got off to a very hot start from three before getting hurt and missing the last 75% of the season. It's natural for a shooter to have a shooting slump, and there should be some confidence that he finds the shooting form again, but Indiana does need it badly. They don't have much depth in the front court, but DeVries ability to stretch opposing 4s out of the paint put teams into an interesting dilemma. Even against Washington, the Huskies at times had to move from their two big lineup in order to try and have more speed to matchup with the Indiana guards and wings.
Indiana plays at Maryland and then follow it up with a home game against Nebraska. Both of those defenses are ones that generally want to force teams to take threes, so DeVries should have plenty of opportunities to get them up this week.
Gotta shoot your way out of a slump.
4.) The mid(dle) of the Big Ten
Right now, it feels like there's a fairly clear top 5 in the Big Ten in some order.
- Michigan
- Purdue
- Illinois
- Nebraska
- Michigan State
I'd also argue that Iowa looks the most poised to be the 6th best team in the Big Ten currently, although they're not nearly as proven as teams in the top 5.
If we're going to work under those assumptions (and if you wanted to argue some other team should be in the top 6 instead of Iowa, there's probably a decent case for it), that leaves the rest of the Big Ten as a big question mark.
Teams potentially in this range would include -
- UCLA
- Indiana
- Wisconsin
- Ohio State
- Washington
- USC
You go through this list, and I find it hard to have confidence in any one team. USC probably has the best resume, but they've looked like a different team after Rodney Rice was ruled out for the season. They lack a lot of depth, and the defense isn't where it needs to be right now.
UCLA has had the flashes that they can compete against anyone, highlighted by a 4 point loss against Arizona. However, that's also their flaw. They have kept it close against a couple good teams, but their best win is a 2 point road win against Washington.
Indiana, Ohio State, Washington, and Wisconsin have all looked good against bad competition, but all have struggled as soon as they've started playing better competition.
Per BracketMatrix.com (updated through January 2nd), here are the Big Ten teams that'd be in the tournament
- Michigan - 1 seed
- Purdue - 2 seed
- MSU - 3 seed
- Nebraska - 3 seed
- Illinois - 4 seed
- Iowa - 6 seed
- USC - 6 seed
- UCLA - 9 seed
- Indiana - 11 seed
- Ohio State - 11 seed
- Wisconsin - First 8 Out
- Washington - First 8 Out
If things break right, the Big Ten could find themselves with up to 12 teams in the tournament. However, I also think there's a scenario where the Big Ten only ends up with 7 teams. In that scenario, USC would fall off in large part because of the injuries, and this middle of the Big Ten fails to secure a lot of wins against the top of the Big Ten.
However, it is the first week of January, so there's plenty of time for teams to figure things out.
5.) 2 point distance stat
Over the holidays, Kenpom added a new stat to his site labeled - 2P Dist. This is just the average distance a team takes on all their 2s, and the average distance teams shoot from two against them. Below I've compiled the Big Ten data (through 1/4).
The "OFF 2P Dist" and "DEF 2P Dist" are the averaging distance (in feet) that teams take their 2s from offensively and allow defensively. The general rule would be that you want your OFF 2P Dist to be as small as possible and your DEF 2P Dist to be as large as possible (although there are exceptions).
"OFF Rank" and "DED Rank" are the national rank of the offensive and defensive distance (1 being the best, 365 being the worst).
"Avg Rank" is the average of the OFF Rank and DEF Rank.
"DEF - OFF Dist" is a stat I put on here that is simply subtracting the average offensive distance from the defensive distance. Since you want to take close 2s and force long 2s, the general rule would be to try and have the DEF - OFF Dist to be as large as possible.
Now that the semantics are out of the way, we can actually get into the data.
Michigan is elite offensively and defensively in this category, and it should be of no surprise. Their defensive scheme is built on forcing long 2s, and their offensive scheme is built on never taking them. So far, I think it's fair to say that's worked out for Dusty May.
Indiana, Nebraska, Illinois, and Minnesota are the teams that follow the analytical model of trying to limit taking mid range 2s while forcing a lot of them.
If you went through all 365 D1 teams in the country for this stat, I'd be very willing to bet that Purdue would be the most interesting. They are 2nd in the country in defensive 2P distance, sitting only behind Michigan. Defensively, their heavy help scheme operates similar to that of Nebraska (although not as extreme), which forces teams to simply not get to the rim a ton. HOWEVER, Purdue ranks 344th in the country in offensive 2P distance, meaning that they take really long 2s. Despite this, Purdue currently has the best Kenpom offense in the country and the 2nd best Kenpom offense in the entire database. They slow the game down, run complex sets, and have skill everywhere on the floor. Braden and TKR are two of the best at converting from the mid range, and they're given the green light to do so.
Some other things to note. UCLA is 353rd in the country in offensive 2P distance as they love to live in the mid range. Rutgers and Michigan State are the other two offenses that rank in the bottom 40 in the country. Only USC, Northwestern, Penn State, and Maryland rank below 100 in defensive 2P%.
Team of the Week
Nebraska Cornhuskers
They picked up one of their biggest wins in the program history with the win over Michigan State, and then they followed it up with a road win over Ohio State. This pushes them to 15-0 on the season and 4-0 in the Big Ten.
Nebrasketball.
Player of the Week
Braden Smith - Purdue
@ Wisconsin
- 37 minutes, 14 points, 12 assists, 4 rebounds, 3 turnovers, 1 steal, 6/9 2s (66.7%), 0/2 3s (0%), 2/2 FTs (100%)
If you break a Big Ten record like Braden Smith did this week, you become the Big Ten player of the week, especially when you put up another points/assists double double in a Big Ten road game.
Week Schedule
Note - All times listed are in Eastern Standard Time
Game of the Week
Illinois @ Iowa - Sunday, January 11th - 12:00 - FOX
Tuesday, January 6th
- Michigan @ Penn State - 7:00 - FS1
- Iowa @ Minnesota - 8:00 - Big Ten Network
- UCLA @ Wisconsin - 9:00 - Peacock
Wednesday, January 7th
- Indiana @ Maryland - 6:30 - Big Ten Network
- Washington @ Purdue - 8:30 - Big Ten Network
Thursday, January 8th
- Northwestern @ Michigan State - 6:30 - Big Ten Network
- Rutgers @ Illinois - 8:30 - Big Ten Network
- Ohio State @ Oregon - 10:30 - Big Ten Network
Friday, January 9th
- USC @ Minnesota - 8:30 - Big Ten Network
Saturday, January 10th
- Nebraska @ Indiana - 12:00 - Big Ten Network
- Wisconsin @ Michigan - 2:00 - CBS
- Penn State @ Purdue - 2:00 - Big Ten Network
- Maryland @ UCLA - 8:00 - FOX
Sunday, January 11th
- Illinois @ Iowa - 12:00 - FOX
- Northwestern @ Rutgers - 5:00 - Peacock
- Ohio State @ Washington - 6:00 - Peacock
