Quick Recap

There wasn't a ton of big time action this week, and most of it went against the Big Ten. There were only 26 games this week, and only 9 of them came against high major competition. Unfortunately for the Big Ten, they went just 3-6 in those games. Which brings us to point number 1.

1.) The Big Ten might be bad?

I think whenever you see that title for now, it'll be slightly bit click baity. (Checks title of this article and shrugs). It isn't incorrect while also being a very big over generalization. The more accurate statement might be "The Big Ten is more spread out and not as deep as recent memory."

At the time of this writing, the Big Ten has a net rating of 17.77 per Kenpom, which is good for third (although they are so close to second that they could be second by the time this releases). KenPom's site states the conference rating is "Ranking by Net Rating of team expected to go .500 in conference play." This to me essentially just seems to be what the net rating is of the median level team within the conference (someone let me know if I'm wrong). I believe it's also adjusted for schedules. Regardless, it's hard to compare to seasons before last year as there are now 18 teams. The one comparison there is though is to last year, and the Net Rating of the Big Ten was 19.00. There simply doesn't quite seem to be the depth right now within the Big Ten that we're accustomed to seeing.

It's probably a bit early for any bracketology to have meaningful sway, but simply running through the conference, there's only five teams I'm absolutely confident will end up in March Madness. Obviously the Big Ten will have more than five bids, but it feels very much up for grabs right now on teams 6-13, and it could get even sketchier for how many get into the post season. Generally, this uncertainty in the middle stems from the Big Ten being deep and everyone looking fairly solid. This time it's more of a "well I think they maybe are good but also I don't actually trust them at all."

2.) Big Ten adds some new players

More of a house keeping note during the winter break, but three new players have been added to Big Ten rosters over the last week or so.

Nikola Dzepina - Washington - 6'10 Forward

Toni Bilic - Illinois - 6'9 Forward

Kam Woods - USC - 6'2 Guard

Dzepina has already played a game for Washington, and he projects to be depth in the front court for Washington. Toni Bilic projects to be more of a depth piece and use the next semester to get adjusted to the Illinois system. He isn't expected to contribute much this season.

Kam Woods joined USC after Rodney Rice was ruled out for the season. He entered the transfer portal this off season after averaging 14.9 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 5.2 assists for Robert Morris last season. No one picked him up, and now with USC having real depth issues with Alijah Arenas and Rodney Rice out, USC added him to the roster with the expectation he can try and contribute this year.

3.) Washington's shooting issues

Washington had the worst loss of the week, barely (looking at you Rutgers), in large part because of their inability to score the ball. They shot just 1/15 from three, and they even struggled to finish on the interior. This is a team built with a lot of guards and wings who you wouldn't call shooting their strength. In addition, Washington has generally had a pretty tough shot diet.

Washington is currently in the bottom 11 percentile in the country of 3+rim rate offensively, meaning they don't take many shots at the rim or from three relative to college basketball. This offense has a lot of similarities to the offenses Indiana had under Mike Woodson, and I don't mean that positively. They have bigs who are very good post scorers, and Hannes Steinbach has been incredible this season. Washington also has wings and guards who prefer to operate in the mid range area. What they don't really have is a ton of spacing and ball movement. This leads to games like against Seattle where it felt like Washington couldn't really get anything going offensively other than being bigger on drives. That can work some, but it also makes the margin of error incredibly small.

4.) Purdue doesn't like close games

Purdue has currently played 12 games on the season. No game has been decided by less than 7 points. Only two games have been decided by less than 10 points. Only 3 games have been decided by fewer than 15 points. This may not be the most uncommon thing for a high major who tries to boost their net rating by scheduling 300+ level Kenpom teams for every non conference game, but Purdue has had the 8th toughest non conference schedule for power conference teams.

Purdue hasn't had a game decided by less than 16 points since over a full month ago on November 20th, when they beat Memphis by 9 points in the Bahamas. This obviously includes the home drubbing they got when Iowa State wiped the floor with them, but it also includes games against Texas Tech, Auburn, Minnesota, Marquette, and Rutgers. Granted, 3 of those teams will for sure not be in the post season, and Auburn is probably still a big question mark, but it's been interesting just how uninteresting the ends of games have been. Purdue fans really haven't had to sweat about a game in crunch time for a while now.

5.) Ohio State LOVES close games

Purdue fans haven't had to worry about their heart rate much this season at the end of games. They should probably check on any friends who are Ohio State fans as the Buckeyes have experienced the complete opposite.

Filtering out the 5 games that Ohio State played against teams ranked 250 or worse in Kenpom, that leaves 6 games, including the most recent 5 competitions Ohio State has been in. Those six (6) games have been decided by a combined sixteen (16) points, or an average of 2.7 points in those six contests. This includes FOUR games decided by one single point, which included wins against Notre Dame and West Virginia (in 2OT) and losses to Pitt and North Carolina.

Ohio State has an incredible talent of playing exactly to the level of their competition, although that isn't necessarily a good thing. The only game out of those six that was decided by more than 4 points was an 8 point home loss to Illinois, and Ohio State was down 3 with just a minute left.

In a year where Jake Diebler could be on the hot seat, Ohio State feels destined once again for the bubble. A Christoph Tilly game winner against Notre Dame and Bruce Thornton go ahead bucket against West Virginia give the Buckeyes a bit of hope, but the losses to Pitt and North Carolina are going to sting badly in March if they aren't able to put together a very good conference output.

Team of the Week

Purdue Boilermakers

In a week that consisted of not many high quality games, and the Big Ten losing most of them, Purdue was able to get a win against Auburn by 28. Auburn is struggling, but they're still a potentially tournament caliber team, and they simply didn't look like they belonged on the same court as Purdue.

Player of the Week

Skyy Clark - UCLA

I want to use this to shoutout Skyy Clark. He put up 18 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals, and 0 turnovers while shooting 6/10 from three against Arizona State. He followed it up with 30 points, 2 assists, and 2 rebounds while shooting 6/12 from three and 4/7 from 2 against Cal Poly.

He's currently averaging 14.2 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 2.3 assists a game while shooting 51.6% from three on 5.3 attempts a game. He's also been the best UCLA defender on a team that hasn't had much success defensively so far.

Week Schedule

Note - All times listed are in Eastern Standard Time

Tuesday, December 23rd

  • Ohio State vs Grambling State - 2:00 - Big Ten Network
  • UCLA vs UC Riverside - 4:00 - Big Ten Network

Sunday, December 28th

  • Maryland vs Old Dominion - 6:00 - Big Ten Network
  • Oregon vs Omaha - 8:00 - Big Ten Network

Monday, December 29th

  • Penn State vs North Carolina Central - 1:00 - Big Ten Network
  • Illinois vs Southern - 3:00 - Big Ten Network
  • Iowa vs UMass Lowell - 5:00 - Big Ten Network
  • Michigan vs McNeese - 7:00 - Big Ten Plus
  • Michigan State vs Cornell - 7:00 - FS1
  • Purdue vs Kent State - 7:00 - B1G+
  • Rutgers vs Delaware State - 7:00 - Big Ten Network
  • Minnesota vs FDU - 9:00 - Big Ten Network
  • Washington vs Utah - 11:00 - FS1