basketball opponent watch

The Status

Prospective one-seeds started—or continued to—drop like flies this week. Duke got blasted at Miami; Syracuse lost at Villanova; Louisville is now on a three-game losing streak after dropping games to that same 'Nova team and Georgetown.

This is good news for Michigan in two ways: it gives them some wiggle room as the Big Ten inevitably piles defeat on them, and it helps get Florida on that one-line so Michigan can't face 'em until Atlanta. Yeah, maybe Florida isn't that good. I'd rather have someone else test that theory hypothesis. If you're thinking about a bet on sports you could do a lot worse than taking Florida and the points.

So with the Big East chaos and Florida's continued rampage in the SEC I'm moving the Gators onto the one-line. Kenpom projects them at 27-3 in the regular season, and while the terrible terrible SEC will be a drag it may not matter.

As for Michigan's numbers, Crashing the Dance has moved Michigan to second and projects the same one-seeds as I do below. M is the top overall seed at the Bracket Matrix. Their RPI has dipped to 7th; RPI forecast projects that is where they will finish. They're up to second on Kenpom, with IU, Louisville, and Duke nipping at their heels. Florida is far and away #1.

Projected ones: Michigan, Duke, Kansas, Florida

The Nonconference Folk

BATS

RPI-effect-only Teams

Sweet hoppin' pickles, IUPUI and Binghamton are bad. IUPUI hasn't won in a month. Binghamton… OH MY GOD BINGHAMTON BEAT MAINE. Well done, Binghamton. Work that RPI for us. Uhn.

Fellow struggler EMU just got a lot of pub for holding Northern Illinois to four first-half points; they've actually leveled their MAC record at 3-3.  Cleveland State continued losing. Western swept the other MAC directional Michigans last week and is looking like the best team in the West division of that conference, but that's not saying much.

Bradley is going to be a .500 MVC team; Western has pulled well ahead of them on Kenpom.

Big sorts of teams

Pitt (17-4)

@ Providence: W 68-64. DePaul: W 93-55

relevant, I promise

Providence isn't good but they do show relatively well in Kenpom (66th) and hung in against Syracuse at home, so the relatively narrow win there isn't as bad as it looks. Also, Pitt was up 10 with two minutes left and Providence never pushed their win percentage past 5 after that.

Then the Panthers did what they do to all bad teams, obliterating them. If you're thinking about a bet on sports you could do a lot worse than taking Pitt to crush a bad team. In a frenetic, up-and-down affair Pitt held the Blue Demons to 28% from the field. DePaul's decided that if they can't be good they'll at least be fast. They're currently the #1 team in the country in adjusted tempo.

Tonight, a huge game for Pitt watchers as the Panthers take on reeling Louisville. The Cardinals have dropped well back in the race for Indianapolis in the second round, but still remain a threat.

SEEDWATCH: on the 9 line on Crashing The Dance. Bracket Matrix has them at 8.

BONUS BONUS BONUS: while perusing Big East scores to find out what happened in the Pitt-DePaul game, I discovered, well, this:

Vander Blue scored 13 points and played suffocating defense on the Big East's leading scorer to lead Marquette to an 81-71 victory over Providence Saturday in a game delayed several times because of a dive-bombing bat.

Play on, man. This ain't no tennis.

Kansas State (15-4)

Kansas: L 59-55. @ Iowa State: L 73-67

A very creditable performance against Kansas in which the Jayhawks struggled considerably more than Michigan did when they took on K-State earlier in the year. Michigan had a neutral court, granted.

In that game, K-State jacked a bunch of threes, kept Jeff Withey from recording a block, and held Kansas just under a point per possession. Their offense was rough, as it usually is, and they were considerably aided by a 62% effort at the line from Kansas.

The Wildcats then went out and lost to The Hoiberg Home For Lost Big Ten Boys, albeit narrowly and on the road. Iowa State shot 46%(!) from the free throw line and 50%(!) from three; Kansas State couldn't get an offensive rebound to save their lives and fell despite shooting a lot better than they usually do.

SEEDWATCH: a seven on Crashing The Dance; a six on Bracket Matrix.

North Carolina State (16-4)

@ Wake Forest: L 86-84. North Carolina: W 91-83

NC State's crap defense perforated wildly against a Wake Forest team that's lost to Nebraska (by 16!), Iona, Richmond, and Seton Hall already. NC State let those dudes shoot 51% from two, sent them to the line 33 times, and allowed them to grab almost 40% of their misses. NC State did all the things they usually did on offense, and lost.

NC State did that again against UNC, but this time kept their opponents off the boards and the free throw line, so they won. Richard Howell is officially nuts. He had 15 OREBs in two games last week.

MCHOBBIT UPDATE: Total of six minutes, one missed shot, three assists, and no turnovers.

SEEDWATCH: 5 on Bracket Matrix; 5 on Crashing The Dance.

BONUS: Wake Forest features a player named "Arnaud William Adala Moto."

Arkansas (12-7)

Miss St: W 96-70, @ South Carolina: L 75-54

That press business is a feast or famine thing, eh?

.500 SEC team; NIT bid, usual.

SEEDWATCH: nope

West Virginia (9-10)

TCU: W 71-50. @ Okie State: L 80-66.

Results as expected—yeah, TCU is that bad. They're headed for a season around .500.

SEEDWATCH: lol

CONFERENCE OF POWER RANKING POWER POWER

1. Michigan(19-1)

LAST WEEK Eased by Purdue and Illinois, though Purdue kept it close in the first half with some torrid three-point shooting.

THING There's just one more game in this relatively easy stretch before the bear appears: @ IU, OSU, @ Wisconsin, @ MSU. Go 2-2 there and hold serve at home against MSU and Indiana late and they'll likely secure the title. Easier said than done.

OTHER THING Trey Burke is descending into some heroball business at times. In the Illinois game, Nnanna Egwu was repeatedly switched onto Burke; instead of trying to drive it was a lot of dribble dribble dribble questionable long two. Michigan would be better off if they moved the ball around more.

OTHER OTHER THING Here's a candidate for Most Frequently Repeated Sentence In Big Ten Basketball This year: "Nik Stauskas is not just a shooter™." Every time Stauskas puts the ball on the floor for a gliding layup or GAME… BLOUSES dunk or beauty touch pass assist, the color commentator says Nik Stauskas is not just a shooter even if we have been given ample evidence that he is not just a shooter already.

thatsracist.gif

OTHER OTHER THING Meet the new Nik Stauskas: Tim Hardaway, Jr. Hardaway is now 17/31 from three in Big Ten play.

OTHER CANDIDATES FOR MOST FREQUENTLY REPEATED SENTENCE IN BIG TEN BASKETBALL THIS YEAR

• "DJ Byrd from way downtown."
• "Steal by Victor Oladipo."
• "DJ Byrd from Cleveland."
• "Official time out to clean up Tom Izzo's froth."
• "This game does not involve Purdue but DJ Byrd just attempted a three pointer in it despite being in Indiana."

THING THEY ARE LIKE boom headshot

2. Indiana (18-2)

LAST WEEK Clubbed Penn State again. Broke out a inadvisable 2-3 zone at home against Michigan State and survived MSU's unexpectedly frequent and effective three-pointers to avoid a second home loss in the league.

THING Good God, Victor Oladipo: 21 points on 12 shots, many of those generated from his six steals. Steals that lead to fast break dunks seem to be worth far more than the two points they generate—you've defeated an offensive possession and then grab a free two on the other end. They're big deals; Oladipo is kind of good at that.

And then that thing where Oladipo goes from the three-point line to the basket in Denard Robinson time. PLUS: three blocks! Three OREB! I am impress, Oladipo.

OTHER THING Wither Cody Zeller? His absence (two points) in the Penn State blowout was essentially irrelevant; a similar disappearance against MSU was rescued by a late drive to the bucket and charge taken. Still, just nine points and not much in the way of peripheral stat-itude for Zeller in this one. I'd still be a little concerned about his production if I was an Indiana fan.

OTHER OTHER THING Was the 2-3 zone an attempt to hide Jordan Hulls?

OTHER OTHER OTHER THING Yogi Ferrell's shooting numbers aren't great but he was a major part of Keith Appling having a miserable night. Appling couldn't check Ferrell and ended up fouling out.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Last year's Indiana team except Victor Oladipo is awesome.

 

DESHAUN OF THE DEAD

3. Ohio State (15-4)

LAST WEEK Ran out to a huge lead versus Iowa, stopped scoring, almost gave it all back, yes this sounds familiar. Had no such problems against Penn State.

THING Iowa's defense was permissive enough to make the OSU box score look like an actual basketball team produced it instead of Deshaun Thomas and several undead people. Four Buckeyes hit double figures. Three managed it against Penn State, and Thomas was not Ohio State's leading scorer. Dios mio, man.

OTHER THING Thomas has still cracked the KPOY leaderboard. He's now tenth, and why not: despite jacking up almost a third of OSU's shots he's putting up excellent efficiency numbers and has a rock-bottom turnover rate. If he had gone to the NBA last year, OSU would be an NIT outfit. If you're looking for a Most Valuable Player that really emphasizes "valuable", he's it.

THING THEY ARE LIKE That scene at the end of Shaun of the Dead where Shaun and his zombie buddy are playing playstation—it's gonna be okay, you guys. Unless he eats me.

4. Michigan State (17-4)

LAST WEEK Played Wisconsin game against Wisconsin, winning by two. Stayed in contact at Indiana thanks to blazing three-point shooting but never really threatened to take the lead.

THING Adreian Payne's three point shooting career:

• Entirety of freshman and sophomore years plus the first 16 games of this season: 1/4
• Last five games: 6/7

The miss was a desperation jack at the end of the Indiana game; he's hit every plausible three pointer he's attempted in January.

It's weird man.

OTHER THING ABOUT ADREIAN PAYNE He's looking kind of scary right now. It doesn't really show up in the box score outside of the three point shooting but he looks like a much better player. The charge Zeller took was one of those where the guy gets there after the guy with the ball takes off, and Zeller had forever because Payne leapt a thousand feet in the air from around the three point line. So… yeah, charge, but a really impressive charge.

50/50 he Puts It All Together around now and makes MSU into a real contender.

OTHER THING Michigan State had a huge nationally televised game and looked dumb; Indiana looked like Indiana.

THIS WEEK IN STOP ASKING FOR POST TOUCHES Against Wisconsin Nix and Payne combined to go 2/7 from the field with no FTAs, 3 assists, and four TOs, though these days who knows where Payne is shooting from.

Things were a bit better against Indiana: 8/14. No FTAs, but Nix had six assists, mostly on high-value open threes.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Flowers For Algernon Guy, but at what point on the cycle?

5. Wisconsin (14-6)

LAST WEEK Played two grim games with 50-some possessions in them, winning against Minnesota and losing to Michigan State.

THING They nearly won that game against Michigan State despite hitting 30% from both two and three and 39% from the free-throw line. Gross. Meanwhile, they didn't do much better against the Gophers—42%/32%/50%. If Wisconsin wants to play HORSE with Michigan that's a matchup Michigan will be fine with.

OTHER THING Wisconsin gave up only nine threes against MSU (19%) and 11 against Minnesota (24%). Preventing three-pointers is a skill. Unlike shooting free throws, it's one the Badgers have.

RYAN EVANS FT WATCH 3/6 last week. Sent to the line late in the Minnesota game, he barely scraped the rim on the first and flung it way too hard on the second, and was then lifted in the last few minutes. If you are trailing Wisconsin there are worse ideas than fouling him every time he touches the ball.

THING THEY ARE LIKE

6. Minnesota (15-5)

LAST WEEK Locked in a tight game with Northwestern until the Wildcats unleashed the zone, whereupon they looked upon it like it was a space monolith and withered. Had Wisconsin-style game at Wisconsin, losing by one in a 51 possession game.

We can declare the Gopher renaissance slightly overstated. They'll still be a team you do not want to draw in the tournament… unless you can run an exotic zone.

THING You kind of had to see Minnesota disintegrate in front of your eyes to believe it, but the win percentage graph from Kenpom does a pretty good job of communicating how baffled the Gophers were once Northwestern deployed the 1-3-1:

Take Michigan's game against Pittsburgh and multiply it by 10. It was amazing watching Minnesota turn it over against the guy at the top of the zone over and over again. Does Tubby coach offense? Seriously.

OTHER THING Also Austin Hollins fouled out with 12 minutes left in that game. I'm usually a zealot about not chaining your best players to the bench with foul trouble; even I wouldn't grumble at hiding a guy with four on the bench until eight minutes or so

THIS WEEK IN MINNESOTA INTIMIDATION FACTOR Rebounded 48% of their misses against Northwestern—Mbakwe had nine. However, got badly out-rebounded by Wisconsin en route to defeat.

OTHER TUBBY COACHING BITCH How the hell is this team 278th in defensive rebounding and first (by a mile) in offensive rebounding? They're last in the Big Ten in TOs surrendered, too. The Gophers look like a talented team with abnormally crappy coaching. A Michigan outfit featuring lots of Evan Smotrycz at the five finished 99th last year. There is no possible excuse for these Gophers to be bad on the defensive boards.

THING THEY ARE LIKE a dizzy King Kong who feels like he's about to throw up.

7. Iowa (13-7)

LAST WEEK Fell behind by lots against OSU, almost caught up, lost by nine. Had grim, grim first half against Purdue that morphed into super fun second half and OT; lost.

THING Okay, my love affair with these guys is over. Nobody on this team can shoot even a little bit. Freshman PG Mike Gesell had to take over the scoring load against Purdue, and while he's a pretty good freshman he is no Stauskas. He had to do this because…

OTHER THING Roy Devyn Marble has evaporated in Big Ten play. This week he was 3/15 from two, 1/7 from three. He's shooting 29%/25% since the conference season kicked off, and even that Indiana game when he hit 12 free throws saw him miss 13 of his 14 shots from the field. About the only thing he's done right this year is hit some threes against Michigan.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Maybe I should have termed them a quintessential Amaker bubble team.

8. Illinois (15-6)

LAST WEEK beat up on Nebraska, had every little run they made ruthlessly stomped out by Michigan.

THING Illinois is dying by the three. DJ Richardson scorched the nets for 30 points versus Nebraska, but only one of Illinois's 13 threes from the rest of the team went in and they scuffled to 32%. It was worse against Michigan, 23%. As the season goes along these things stop being anomalies and just become reality.

OTHER THING The last time Tyler Griffey hit a three, Michigan was #1 in the AP poll. Tyler Griffey had not yet been born.

NNANNA EGWU WATCH The rebounding has picked up. He secured a total of ten in the Michigan game. Unfortunately for the Illini, Egwu has started jacking up extremely inadvisable shots, perhaps as part of an attempt to impart a helpless fatalism into Illinois fans*.

*[A futile attempt since any Illinois fan who doesn't have it yet must be immune.]

THE ENNUI QUESTION Should I move them below the line? Mmm… not yet. They're 2-5 in the league but I assert they can make the tourney at 21-11, 8-10 in league play. Very few bubble teams are going to be able to stand up to wins over Gonzaga, Butler, and Ohio State.

Let's assume they win home outings against Penn State and Nebraska. Can Illinois win four of these games?

• HOME: Wisconsin, Indiana, Purdue
• AWAY: MSU, Minnesota, Northwestern, Michigan, Iowa, OSU

I think they can. Likely? No. As unlikely as Kenpom thinks? (~20 percent.) No. And hell, it might be tough to leave them out at 7-11. Last year a 22-14 South Florida team with one good win (@ Louisville) and losses to Penn State, Auburn, and Old Dominion got in. Above the line they stay.

THING THEY ARE LIKE the pointless destruction and creation of meaningless human life

HENRI LINE OF ENNUI

9. Purdue (11-9)

LAST WEEK kept it close for a half against Michigan, whereupon their bullcrap threes abandoned them; was on the happy end of that fun Iowa-Purdue game.

THING AJ Hammons was a useless seven-foot lump against Michigan.

OTHER THING AJ Hammons was probably the best player on the court against Iowa, with apologies to Terone Johnson's double-double. While Hammons wasn't particularly effective on offense there was an obvious difference in Iowa's ability to get any shot worth having when he left the game.

OTHER OTHER THING Purdue's advancement is a bad thing for the league since they've got very little shot at an NCAA bid what with a loss to Eastern Michigan on the ol' record; honey Purdue don't care.

With DJ Byrd likely to be the only departure from this edition of the Boilers, a .500-ish Purdue will be eyeing large improvement and an NCAA bid next year. I project the rims at Mackey will experience a barrage of practice three-pointers heretofore unknown to man.

RONNIE JOHNSON THREE POINTER WATCH nyet

THING THEY ARE LIKE Something specifically designed to piss off Jim Delany. Garlic, then. Or rap. Like, early-90s rap that's about as offensive as bubbles. Bust A Move. Yes. Purdue is Bust A Move.

not that bust a move

/furrows brow
/disapproves of loose women
/takes refuge in Bob Seger

 

10. Northwestern (12-9)

LAST WEEK Picked up the Loki baton from Illinois, beating Minnesota by deploying the 1-3-1 in the face of the uncomprehending Gophers and then losing to Nebraska by lots.

THING Seriously, WTF, Northwestern?

OTHER THING Oh you were 6 of 29 from three.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Chaos.

11. Nebraska (11-10)

LAST WEEK DJ Richardson beat them by 20, with some help from the other Illini. And then they cruised against Northwestern. Life is weird.

THING For a guy who was supposedly out for the year, Brandon Ubel played a suspiciously large number of minutes against Northwestern: 39. Assertion: Brandon Ubel is not, in fact, out for the year.

THING THEY ARE LIKE corn quicksand

12. Penn State (8-12)

LAST WEEK Crubberated by Indiana. Not quite crubberated by Ohio State, but basically.

THING they ain't winning a single game this year in the league you guys

OTHER THING it's at Nebraska or nothin'

OTHER OTHER THING okay maybe Purdue at home

OTHER OTHER OTHER THING and everybody knows neither of those is happenin'

THING THEY ARE LIKE movies my wife likes

hoo boy you should see some of these movies

 

Tourney locks sans Illinois-2011-style implosion

projected seeds included

#1 MICHIGAN, #2 Indiana, #3 Michigan State, #4 Ohio State, #5 Minnesota

Probably In

#8 Wisconsin

Bubble

#13 Illinois

Northwestern Memorial wrong side of the bubble award

Iowa

Rutgers Memorial what's a bubble award

Northwestern, Penn State, Nebraska, Purdue

Viewing Guide

Games relevant to your interest that are on the TV and may be worth watching after the first ten minutes. Bolded teams are suggested teams to root for, calibrated for …

1) helping M win conference title
2) best chance for quality-win pile-up to help M seeding
3) greatest number of tourney teams from league
4) eff Michigan State
5) also Wisconsin

Monday

Pitt at Louisville, 7 PM, ESPN
Kansas at West Virginia, 9PM, ESPN

Tuesday

Wisconsin at Ohio State, 7 PM, ESPN
Nebraska at Minnesota, 9PM, BTN
NC State at Virginia, 7 PM, ESPN2

Wednesday

Northwestern at MICHIGAN, 6:30 PM, BTN
Indiana at Purdue, 8:30 PM, BTN
Texas at Kansas State, 8PM, ESPN2

Thursday

Illinois at Michigan State, 7 PM, ESPN
Penn State at Iowa, 8PM, ESPNU
Arkansas at Alabama, 9PM, ESPN2

Friday

nyet

Saturday

Purdue at Northwestern, noon, ESPN2
Syracuse at Pitt, noon, ESPN
Miami at NC State, 4PM, CBS
Tennessee at Arkansas, 4PM, ESPN
Kansas State at Oklahoma, 6PM, ESPN2
Ohio State at Nebraska, 7 PM, BTN
MICHIGAN at Indiana, 9PM, ESPN

Sunday

Iowa at Minnesota, 1PM, BTN
Wisconsin at Illinois, 3:30 PM, BTN

Note: due to creeping hacking lung death, this feature did not appear last week. We'll cover the last two weeks of games for everyone as a result.

The Status

Michigan's split on the road against a tough pair of teams allows them to tread water at the top of the projections, as Duke suffered a loss to Michigan victim NC State and Louisville went down to Syracuse.

Michigan's actually crept upwards on RPIForecast, where they're now projected to finish seventh. They're down to fifth in actual right-now RPI. In 14 brackets updated since the Minnesota game, Michigan is a #1 in ten of them. They're up to third in Sagarin and fifth on Kenpom.

Projected ones: Michigan, Duke, Kansas, Louisville

The Nonconference Folk

dangit NC State

RPI-effect-only Teams

IUPUI, EMU and Binghamton continued losing to everyone, except EMU actually beat CMU. Those teams are KP300s, or almost, and will stay there. Cleveland State is muddling along at 2-3 in the Horizon. WMU opened conference play against the two best teams in the league (Akron and OHIO) by a wide margin, losing both; they rebounded to take out Toledo easily.

Bradley got blown out by Indiana State and Northern Iowa before rebounding to beat SIU narrowly. Disappointing week for them.

Big sorts of teams

Pitt (15-4)

@ Georgetown: W 73-45. Marquette: L 74-67 (OT). @ Villanova: W 58-43. UConn: W 69-61

Pitt's schizophrenic start to the year seems to have settled down into the profile of a decent team that won't threaten Syracuse and Louisville at the top of the league. They remain jarringly erratic.

The Georgetown blowout is worthy of a top ten team—GT took Indiana to OT earlier this year and beat UCLA; their only other loss was by a point at Marquette. Getting blown out like that cost GT 22 spots on Kenpom. So… yeah. Big Time.

Then Pitt goes out and loses to Marquette at home. OT, yeah, but I watched that one and it was grim. Back to back wins over Nova and UConn have them at .500 in the league with a couple of easy wins on the docket before 'Cuse and Louisville back to back.

There is a massive disparity between most bracket projections and Kenpom. Pitt's a top ten team on Kenpom; they're currently a ten-seed to bracketologists.

Kansas State (14-2)

@ West Virginia: W 65-64. @ TCU: W 67-54. Oklahoma: W 69-61.

We know West Virginia; they are not good, and scraping by them by a point is a bit of a warning sign. TCU is one of the worst major-conference teams in the country—Northwestern held them to 31 points in a 24-point beating—so beating them is expected, even on the road.

Beating Oklahoma is expected, but that's a decent team and winning will push their Kenpom projection up a bit. They could be in the 5-6 seed range. They've got Kansas next in what should be the game of the year in the Big 12, not that it's saying much. Bracketologits have them a weak six seed at the moment.

North Carolina State (14-3)

Georgia Tech: W 83-70. Duke: W 84-76. @ Maryland: L 51-50. Clemson: W 66-62.

The Duke win is obviously huge, both for NC State and Michigan. They'll probably be ranked at the end of the year, and a neutral-court win over a ranked team will catch the committee's notice. The next two games did not build on that accomplishment much, with a road loss against Maryland and an uninspiring win against a mediocre Clemson team. They're still a three seed to the bracket people.

MCHOBBIT UPDATE: Five minutes and four made free throws against GT, ten minutes over the next three games with no points.

Arkansas (11-6)

@ TAMU: L 69-51. Vandy: W 56-33. Auburn: W 88-80 (2OT). @ Ole Miss: L 76-64

Arkansas is not deviating from its path as a .500 SEC team that heads to the NIT.

West Virginia (8-8)

@ Texas: W 57-53 (OT). K-State: L 65-64. @ Iowa State: L 69-67. @ Purdue: L 79-52.

West Virginia had been playing somewhat better these days, beating a lame Texas team in Austin and then suffering two narrow losses, one to K-State that we're fine with. Would have been nice if they had managed to pull off a road win against The Hoiberg Home For Lost Big Ten Boys, which is also known as Iowa State.

Then they got obliterated by Purdue. I should just move these guys into the category of limited attention.

CONFERENCE OF POWER RANKING POWER POWER

1. Michigan(17-1)

LAST WEEK Fell down by a billion early against OSU, tied it up, lost their minds late, ended up losing by three. Worked way to six-point halftime lead at Minnesota, blew doors off with 20-7 run to start the second half, and held off Minnesota's comeback.

THING Well, yeah, they're still up here with that impressive road win against one of the other contenders and Indiana's inexplicable home loss to Wisconsin. Sorry.

OTHER THING In the battle of leaping force versus surprisingly resilient object, the force won. Michigan's defensive rebounding collapsed as Minnesota picked up 47% of their misses. Michigan mitigated the damage by doing pretty well on the offensive boards themselves and winning the turnover battle.

OTHER OTHER THING Yeah, I got a lot of crap for not even mentioning this in the game post so like HOLY PANTS MICHIGAN DOES THIS SORT OF THING ON THE REGULAR YO

OTHER OTHER OTHER THING Nik Stauskas has met severe resistance thus far at the three-point line in the Big Ten, but his teammates are picking him up in a big way. Michigan now has six guys shooting at least 38% from deep: Stauskas is at 50%, Levert 43%, Burke is 40%, Hardaway and Robinson 39%, and Albrecht 38%. That's everyone who's taken a three except Matt Vogrich, now relegated to the bench.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Momentarily staggered assassins.

2. Indiana (16-2)

LAST WEEK Clubbed Penn State. Ran out to huge lead against Minnesota and held on to win by seven. Lost to Wisconsin at home in a grim 59-possession game that inexplicably did not end with Indiana fouling the pants off Ryan Evans and seeing if he could make some free throws. Kinda sorta struggled with Northwestern, eventually winning by nine.

THING Northwestern's 1-3-1 discombobulated the Hoosiers to some extent. Early in the second half they mostly missed bunnies and often got offensive rebounds off those missed bunnies; late they had significant problems generating shots. They turned the ball over only six times in the game, though, so the 1-3-1's goal was not met. I'm not sure Michigan would be wise to duplicate that.

OTHER THING Keeping Cody Zeller off the offensive boards is going to be a massive task for Michigan when the two teams face off. He can go quiet from the field because he does not like taking iffy shots, but he has a tendency to go GRAAAGH three or four times a game and put a tip dunk back in.

OTHER OTHER THING I dismiss the relatively close score against Northwestern; eight points in a 54 possession game is like eleven in a 74 possession game, and then no one's wagging their eyebrows about potential weaknesses.

THING THEY ARE LIKE sandbags

3. Minnesota (15-3)

LAST WEEK Participated in Big Ten's annual Illinois Dismemberment Potluck. Suffered brutally effective Indiana onslaught in first half of a game at Assembly, then damn near got themselves back in it. The Michigan game was a similar script, but less extreme: Michigan got out to a big lead, but not that big, and Minnesota came back, but not that much.

THING Man, Tubby Smith's line change thing is weird. Ten players got at least six minutes against Indiana; ten got at least four against Michigan. The backup brigade was brutal in the loss to Michigan, with seven turnovers and just two rebounds in 43 minutes. Given that

1. Minnesota rebounds everything on the offensive end and
2. Michigan scores everything in transition

Those turnovers were decisive.

Those guys were a little better against Indiana, at least. I still don't know what the hell Oto Osenieks is doing on the floor in Big Ten games.

OTHER THING As we're about to cover in This Week In Minnesota Intimidation Factor, a turnover for the Gophers is an unforgivable sin. If you're getting half of the shots that go up on the board, you might as well avoid turnovers and take longer, safer shots. In the context of their team, Minnesota's turnover rate of 22%—245th in the country—is pretty much the only thing keeping them from elite-elite.

In conclusion, jack it up, Gophers.

THIS WEEK IN MINNESOTA INTIMIDATION FACTOR 40% OREB against Indiana, 47% against Michigan. Mbakwe and Williams combined to block ten shots in those two games. Both of those OREB performances reduced their season average.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Super pissed off pogo stick superball men about to take it out on squirrels.

4. Ohio State (13-4)

LAST WEEK Beat Purdue at Mackey comfortably. Staved off slow-motion Michigan comeback to win by three at home. Dropped a narrow one at Breslin.

THING Shannon Scott may not perceive the passing of time accurately.

OTHER THING No, they have no secondary scoring still. A couple guys managed to get to nine points against Michigan; their top scorer outside of Thomas against Michigan State was Lenzelle Smith with six.

OTHER OTHER THING I'm still placing them above MSU due to the tendency of close winners of home games to lose the return trip; if we call that game even would you rather beat Michigan and get blown out by Illinois or get blown out by Minnesota and beat Iowa? Seems obvious to me.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Four anchors, one of whom is really good at defense, and a boat.

5. Michigan State (16-3)

LAST WEEK Came back to beat Iowa at CHA; had uninspiring wins against Nebraska and Penn State; squeezed it out against OSU.

THING It looks like State is going all-in on the dual-big lineup they scrapped earlier in the year. Payne had 32 minutes against OSU, Nix 35(!), and both played well. The major cost was a flurry of good three-point looks for Deshaun Thomas when Payne and Nix either could not communicate or could not get through screens effectively. Thomas was 6/11 from deep.

If MSU does the same thing against Michigan, GRIII's ability to match that production will be crucial. That and forcing the 20-ish turnovers MSU had been providing in games earlier this year.

THIS WEEK IN STOP ASKING FOR POST TOUCHES Not the best week for this one. Even if you set aside the Penn State game as meaningless, against OSU Nix and Payne absorbed 13 possessions with shots from the block and came away with 19 points; they had two assists and one turnover between them. As mentioned, they did have some difficulty guarding Thomas as a result.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Russell Crowe.

CALM DOWN BRANDEN DAWSON SRSLY

6. Wisconsin (13-5)

LAST WEEK Participated in the Big Ten's annual Illinois Dismemberment Potluck. Beat Indiana! On the road! Lost to Iowa, also on the road.

THING It's time for the annual obeisance to Kenpom after Wisconsin turns out to be pretty okay. We're sorry, Kenpom. You probably have Wisconsin too high but our bitching is less accurate than Beats Indiana On The Road.

OTHER THING Preventing three-pointers is a skill, and Wisconsin has it. In their win over Indiana they held Jordan Hulls to a single missed attempt. As a team Indiana launched just 12 attempts, five of them from Yogi Ferrell, a 24% shooter. In their loss to Iowa, the Hawkeyes hit just 2 of 10 attempts, with fully half of those coming from 29% shooter Mike Gesell.

On the year, Wisconsin is allowing just a quarter of their opponents' shots to come from behind the line—top ten nationally—and they're hitting just 30%. That is the biggest difference between Michigan and Wisconsin's Ds—Michigan cedes a lot of threes, and even though they're not going in that much they're still more effective than the foul-free twos Michigan allows.

OTHER OTHER  THING On the other hand, conference opponents are shooting 21% from three against these guys. Even if you're good, you're not that good. Regression to the mean will burn the Badgers here. Probably. I mean, if you can keep getting sub-30% shooters to launch half of your opponents' attempts you're going to be fine.

THING THEY ARE LIKE whatever robots find uncontrollably sexy.

7. Iowa (13-5)

LAST WEEK coughed up the lead late against Michigan State, crubberated Northwestern on the road, finally acquired that elusive victory over a tourney-level team by running out to a big lead against the Badgers and hanging on.

THING Bet they're pretty ticked off that Roy Devyn Marble had a really ill-timed ankle injury that held him out of the narrow MSU loss.

OTHER THING Aaron White may have put up the unlikely statline of the year. Against Wisconsin he got to the line 15 times (he made 13). I would like to know the last time Wisconsin gave up 15 free throws to one dude.

That's a big strength for White, BTW: his FTRate is top ten nationally and he hits 76% at the line. Anything they can do to get his usage up will help this team—he's a low-turnover guy, too. Good, good player.

OTHER OTHER THING Man, this is not a good shooting team. They've got two guys over 30% from three, Marble and freshman Anthony Clemmons. They've got just about everything else in the green on Kenpom, but hitting 30% as a team is 286th.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Evidence for Quintessential Beilein Bubble Outfit continues what with the near miss at quality win and current projection of a 20-11, 9-9 season that would have them squarely on the bubble—but probably the right side of it.

8. Illinois (14-2)

RIGHT: I THOUGHT YOU LEFT BUDDY

LAST WEEKs Followed up thumping victory over OSU with 17 point loss to Minnesota, 23 point loss to Wisconsin, and 14-point loss to Northwestern. The first and last there were at home.

The Champaign Room:

What was a bigger hoax? Manti Te'o's girlfriend or the Illini starting out the season 12-0?

Is it happening again?

THING yes, it's happening again

OTHER THING It's die by the three time for the Illini: they're hitting just 23% in conference play; opponents are hitting 43%. This means they are nowhere near as bad as they have seemed so far, because that is unsustainable at both ends.

NNANNA EGWU WATCH Probably had best rebounding outing of the year against the rampant Gophers, picking up nine (three on offense) and helping hold Mbakwe and company to just seven OREBs of their own.

The next game he was limited to 11 minutes with foul trouble, picked up one offensive rebound, and largely watched Wisconsin grab 55% of their misses. He only had 4 rebounds in 25 minutes against Northwestern, but Northwestern only had four rebounds anyway.

His DREB rate is now 11.1, still second-to-last on the team. The guy in last place? Sam McLaurin, his 6'8" backup.

THING THEY ARE LIKE last year's Illinois team

HENRI LINE OF ENNUI

9. Purdue (10-8)

LAST WEEK never really threatened OSU in a ten point loss at Mackey; beat up fellow Henri Division participants Penn State and Nebraska, put the spurs to West Virginia in one of those weird late nonconference games.

THING The Boilers and Wildcats have clearly separated themselves from Penn State and Nebraska. The former two teams are inside the Kenpom 100; the other two teams are nowhere near it. Purdue easily swept those guys and Northwestern has a win over a tourney aspirant.

That might not do them much good over the rest of the year, but it's something.

OTHER THING You guys might as well get used to me pumping up AJ Hammons. The seven-foot freshman has 14 blocks in his last three games and is a major reason the best part of Purdue's team is their defense on twos. He's not very efficient on offense yet; if that comes, he'll probably be the league's best center next year as long as Zeller departs for the NBA.

RONNIE JOHNSON THREE POINTER WATCH 0/2 the last three weeks.

THING THEY ARE LIKE The kid picked third from last at kickball.

 

10. Northwestern (11-8)

LAST WEEK Cruised past Penn State at Bryce Jordan, got blown out by Iowa, participated in annual Big Ten Illinois Dismemberment Potluck, kinda gave Indiana a game at Assembly… kinda.

THING I'm not really seeing it for the Wildcats next year either. Crawford will be back; Hearn and Swopshire are out the door. So take the Northwestern team that played Michigan and add Crawford plus a year for the other guys. Is that a bubble team? Probably not. And that would probably be it for Carmody.

THING THEY ARE LIKE A ghost that would like to give you a quest.

11. Nebraska (10-9)

LAST WEEK lost by 15, 10, and 9 against Michigan, MSU, and Purdue in slow-it-down grind games; went to Bryce Jordan and stuck their flag in the ground with a 68-64 win. Congratulations, Huskers: you're not the worst team in the Big Ten.

THING Nebraska joined a sad, and ever-growing club of schools: We Were Already Gonna Die And Now Our Best Player Is Gone For The Season. Brandon Ubel is gone, joining Tim Frazier and Drew Crawford on the shelf. Hammons should be sleeping in bubble wrap.

THING THEY ARE LIKE pancakes of doom

12. Penn State (8-10)

LAST WEEK Annihilated by Indiana, Northwestern, and Purdue. Played relatively tight game against Michigan State, aided by their punchin' suspensions. Went down against Nebraska at home, and that's about it for their chances to win a Big Ten game this year.

THING they in da process of dyin'

OTHER THING oh man that is some viscera

OTHER OTHER THING i don't even know how you fit that much gore in a hamster

THING THEY ARE LIKE the butter of shame

 

Tourney locks sans Illinois-2011-style implosion

projected seeds included

#1 MICHIGAN, #2 Indiana, #3 Minnesota, #4 Ohio State, #5 Michigan State

Probably In

N/A

Bubble

#9 Wisconsin, #10 Iowa, #12 Illinois (currently in the midst of Illinois-2011-style implosion)

Northwestern Memorial wrong side of the bubble award

N/A

Rutgers Memorial what's a bubble award

Northwestern, Penn State, Nebraska, Purdue

Viewing Guide

Games relevant to your interest that are on the TV and may be worth watching after the first ten minutes. Bolded teams are suggested teams to root for, calibrated for …

1) helping M win conference title
2) best chance for quality-win pile-up to help M seeding
3) greatest number of tourney teams from league
4) eff Michigan State
5) also Wisconsin

Monday

nyet

Tuesday

Iowa at Ohio State, 6:30, BTN
Michigan State at Wisconsin, 7 PM, ESPN
Pitt at Providence, 7 PM, ESPN2
NC State at Wake Forest, 7PM, ESPN3
Kansas at Kansas State, 8PM, ESPN3(!!! What may be the game of the year in the Big 12 is streaming only.)
Illinois at Nebraska, 8:30, BTN

Wednesday

Penn State at Indiana, 7 PM, BTN
TCU at West Virginia, 7:30, ESPN2
Minnesota at Northwestern, 9PM, BTN
Mississippi State at Arkansas, 9PM, ESPN3

Thursday

Purdue at MICHIGAN, 7 PM, ESPN

Friday

nyet

Saturday

Ohio State at Penn State, noon, ESPN2
Arkansas at South Carolina, 1:30, ESPN3
Kansas State at Iowa State, 1:45, ESPN3
Minnesota at Wisconsin, 2PM, BTN
Northwestern at Nebraska, 3PM, ESPNU
Depaul at Pitt, 4PM, ESPN3
North Carolina at NC State, 7PM, ESPN
West Virginia at Oklahoma State, 7:30, ESPNU

Sunday

Michigan State at Indiana, 1 PM, CBS
Purdue at Iowa, 3:30 PM, BTN
MICHIGAN at Illinois, 6 PM, BTN

The Status

I'm going so far as to move Michigan above Indiana in the power rankings thanks to the relative performances of those two teams against Iowa, so Michigan stays a #1.

The only notable difference these days is that Sagarin's score-based predictors has moved Michigan up to #2, behind only Duke.  Kenpom and RPI forecast have Michigan around eighth. Michigan is third in RPI itself, having fallen behind Kansas.

Projected ones: Michigan, Duke, Kansas, Louisville

The Nonconference Folk

Pitt: cumong, man

We will further compress this section into teams whose individual performance may help or hurt Michigan when seeding time comes around (ie, potential "quality wins" considered by the committee) and those who will only matter insofar as their performance pushes Michigan's RPI hither and thither.

RPI-effect-only Teams

IUPUI, EMU and Binghamton continued losing to everyone.  Cleveland State is not going to be any help. They lost their first conference game against Valpo by 24 and are sliding further down the Kenpom rankings with every game. Now sitting at 242. WMU and CMI haven't played. 

Bradley continued to suggest that it's decent, getting off to a 2-1 start in the league with a six-point loss to 14-1 Wichita State, the #20 team in Kenpom.

Big sorts of teams

Pitt (12-3)

@ Rutgers: L, 67-62

A five point loss to Rutgers is an alarm bell even if it was on the road. Rutgers led by 14 at the half; Pitt made a push to get within three with about ten minutes left but could not close the gap entirely.

The Panthers' issues were twofold: poor shooting and terrible defensive rebounding. Rutgers grabbed nearly half their misses, which is ominous for both Pitt and Michigan (to a lesser extent). You could excuse a loss against top-ten Cincinnati as a thing that can happen. Rutgers maybe not so much.

Kansas State (12-2)

Oklahoma State: W 73-67

On the other hand, Kansas State picked up a nice win against the Cowboys. If you haven't been paying attention, Okie State has a potential lottery pick in freshman Marcus Smart and blew out NC State early this year; they also lost to Gonzaga by a measly point.

KState beat them by doing what they do: clobbering the defensive boards and altering a lot of shots from within the arc. Rodney McGruder went off, hitting 6/10 from 2 and 5/9 from three. I was impressed with Jordan Henriquez (yes, the guy Dan Dakich called out as a human black hole when Michigan played them). While he only got 14 minutes and didn't do a whole lot that stood out on the box score, he blocked a couple of key bunnies late and altered several other shots.

North Carolina State (12-2)

@ Boston College: W 78-73.

Supbar outing against a bad BC team in which the Eagles actually led until the five-minute mark. BC is another good O/bad D outfit, so maybe that's to be expected, but it seems alarming that BC went to the line 37 times in this one. They get Duke at home this week.

MCHOBBIT UPDATE: five minutes, missed a three, got a couple rebounds.

Arkansas (9-4)

Delaware State: W 86-51.

One last rote blowout before conference play starts. Kenpom has them going 10-8 in the SEC, which is an NIT berth since they're 1-4 against major opponents so far.

West Virginia (7-6)

Oklahoma: L 67-57

Bad, ugly team now outside of Kenpom 100 and therefore not really worth tracking.

CONFERENCE OF POWER RANKING POWER POWER

1. Michigan(14-0)

LAST WEEK Put Northwestern and Iowa in its mighty chaws and chewed. I'm moving 'em up given the relative strength of their performance against those two teams versus those of the other two prime contenders:

• Minnesota had 17 points at halftime versus Northwestern (and led by three!) before turning on the gas in the second to win by 18 at home; Michigan beat the Wildcats by 28 on the road. Northwestern did have Reggie Hearn back for the game against Minnesota.
• Indiana was in a game-long dogfight against Iowa, eventually pulling it out 69-65. The Hawkeyes hung with Michigan for 15 minutes before Burke and company blew the doors off, essentially ending the game at the first TV timeout in the second half. In this case, Michigan had the home advantage in the comparison, but that doesn't cover 4 points versus 28.

I held off as long as I could, guys. Don't blame me when they lose to Nebraska by 80.

THING Do not thwack Mitch McGary in the nose. With Jordan Morgan on the bench with two fouls, Adam Woodbury accidentally did so right before a Roy Devyn Marble four-point play. The following is an artist's impression of what happened after.

McGary blocked three shots, brought down 11 rebounds, had two assists, thundered down two dunks, screened like a mother, and had a couple of outlet pass hockey assists*.

*[obligatory Wes Unseld reference]

OTHER THING The ruthless bombing from three is not just Nik Stauskas. In addition to all of Trey Burke's other qualities, he has cracked 40% from three. Tim Hardaway is up to 40% himself after going 8/10 to start Big Ten play. Glenn Robinson III is at 38%, Caris Levert 47%, Spike Albrecht, 38%. I'm deeply surprised they're not #1 in three point shooting—they're actually ninth.

OTHER OTHER THING Michigan passed its first Big Ten DREB test with flying colors, holding Iowa to just six offensive rebounds in 37 opportunities. That's the bedrock of their relatively mediocre defense. That and not fouling, which also check.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Princess Vespa.

2. Indiana (13-1)

LAST WEEK Haven't played since the aforementioned Iowa game.

THING The first truly titanic Big Ten matchups of the season drop this weekend with Michigan going to Ohio State and Minnesota heading to Assembly Hall. For the three contenders, the plan is to win at home and anything on the road is a bonus. Since Michigan doesn't get the Gophers at home, you want Indiana to win this one.

THING THEY ARE LIKE John Candy watching Princess Vespa.

3. Minnesota (14-1)

LAST WEEK Had world's ugliest first half against Northwestern, then put up 52 in the second half to ease their way to a comfortable victory.

THING Minnesota's blazing second half obliterated any traces of the ugly first half in the box score. They hit almost 48% of their shots overall.

OTHER THING Twelve players scored for the Gophers.

THIS WEEK IN MINNESOTA INTIMIDATION FACTOR Rebounded exactly half of their (many, many, many) misses, got 85% of Northwestern's, blocked seven shots, gave up just six free-throws, had ten different players record offensive rebounds.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Jim Brown's acting career.

4. Ohio State (11-3)

LAST WEEK blew doors off Nebraska by 26. Had doors blown off @ Illinois by 19(!!!)

THING The time to be alarmed by Ohio State's offense is now. If you didn't see the game and are expecting that Illinois did what they usually do and half of their copious threes went down, nope: Illinois hit under 30% of their copious threes but ran away with it because OSU scraped out 0.74 points per possession.

OTHER THING This does not appear to be a huge trend yet but the dropoff in scoring from Deshaun Thomas to his teammates is alarming. He had 24 on 21 shots; Aaron Craft had 11 points, and Lenzelle Smith hit a couple threes. No other Buckeye had more than three points.

Add in the fact that a couple of Craft's buckets were fast break opportunities created by his steals and it's staggering how little of OSU's half-court offense came from anyone other than Thomas.

THING THEY ARE LIKE a man being dragged into his grave by four zombies, one of whom is really good at getting steals

5. Michigan State (12-3)

LAST WEEK had a bit of a hairy time with Purdue, then did to the Boilers what Minnesota did to them by running away and hiding late.

THING Hiding aided by 6/8 three-point shooting from Gary Harris. Yes. Slightly.

OTHER THING In the first two games after Brandan Kearney's departure, he was replaced by Nobody (four minutes allotted to players outside the top seven) and Alex Gauna or Russell Byrd. Since the former was the Minnesota game and the latter was the eventual Purdue blowout, the guess here is MSU rotates through seven guys only when they are in dogfights.

THIS WEEK IN STOP ASKING FOR POST TOUCHES Nix/Payne: 3/11 from the floor, 1 assist, 3 TO, albeit with eight free throws and seven makes this time around. Still, the worst ORtgs on the team against Purdue.

I for one am happy that Michigan's offense regards a post touch as heresy. The big guys still get fed, except they are efficient.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Derrick Nix after losing some weight: thinner, not appreciably better.

6. Illinois (14-2)

LAST WEEKs Lost to Purdue! Blew out Ohio State! Chaos!

THING Neither of last weeks' unpredictable events was because of the three point lottery. Illinois hit 39% in the loss and 30% in the win.

NNANNA EGWU WATCH This was all set up to be diabolical after Egwu managed three rebounds in 26 minutes versus the Boilers as Purdue severely outrebounded the Illini, but then the kid had to go and play very well against OSU. His DREB rate moves up a few tenths to 10.6, which is still second-to-last on the team.

OTHER EGWU WATCH Egwu had five blocks against Purdue and was 7/9 from two against OSU with no TOs. Credit where due; he was a big help in the OSU win.

THING THEY ARE LIKE I hear there's an opening for a Norse god of chaos

7. Iowa (11-4)

LAST WEEK Currently being digested by Michigan's mighty stomach.

THING The thing is I didn't think Iowa really played that badly, or was a bad basketball team. They came out with a nice plan to get the ball away from Trey Burke, used Aaron White to facilitate some early offense, and maintained a lead through much of the first half. They shot okay, didn't turn it over, and didn't get absolutely crushed on the boards or anything.

They just gave up 65% shooting from two and 50% from three (pre-Trillion time). It would be one thing if that was a trend, but they just held Indiana to 43/29 and are still the #33 eFG D in the land even after the Michigan bombing. I still think these guys get enough quality wins in the league to make the tourney.

OTHER THING We should keep Fran McCaffery around as long as possible. His teams play an attractive style of basketball—or at least try to—and his sideline spastic fits are bar-none the best in the conference. The fact that he looks like a bank manager adds to the hilarity a thousand-fold. NO GODDAMMIT THAT IS CONTINUALLY COMPOUNDED ALREADY THERE'S A FORMULA GET OUT OF MY BAAAAAAANK

For this reason, root for Iowa to make the tourney.

THING THEY ARE LIKE delicious corn in my belly

8. Wisconsin (11-4)

LAST WEEK Struggled to iffy wins against the worst two teams in the league, beating Penn State by 9—they led by three with three minutes left—and Nebraska by six—they trailed with six minutes left. At least they've stopped screwing with Kenpom, right?

THING NO THEY HAVE NOT. Nine point win against Penn State didn't drop them at all, and they were only five points off the Nebraska prediction since it was on the road. They've lost a spot as much to the ongoing decay of preseason prediction strength as much as anything else.

OTHER THING Ryan Evans has gone full Knoblach on free throws. He hit 73% last year on a lot of attempts. This year he's at 37%, and things just seem to be getting worse. In Big Ten play he's 3/14. He can't shoot threes and hits 45%, so of course he's putting up as many shots as Trey Burke.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Sinbad in that one movie with Phil Hartman.

HENRI LINE OF ENNUI

9. Purdue (7-7)

LAST WEEK Beat Illinois at home, hung with MSU at Breslin for about 25 minutes. Final 15 didn't go so well.

THING Ronnie Johnson hit a three! Now at 12%.

OTHER THING Won that game against Illinois by holding them to 33% shooting from two, blocking seven shots along the way. Freshman seven-footer AJ Hammons may be rounding into form. He's got 14 blocks over the past six games and was 8/12 from the floor against MSU.

THING THEY ARE LIKE

 

10. Northwestern (9-6)

LAST WEEK Were the CD to Michigan's microwave on "high"; got me to flip over to the second half of their game against Minnesota and go "wait… what?"

THING Reggie Hearn did play against the Gophers, putting up 11 points in 27 minutes.

OTHER THING Freshman Kale Abrahmson is on his way to being the traditional Northwestern stretch four with a broke-ass shot that goes in anyway, hitting 3/5 against Minnesota (and taking one other shot, a miss).

THING THEY ARE LIKE Breaking Bad starts when again?

 

11. Penn State (8-5)

LAST WEEK hung tough at Wisconsin, ended up losing by nine.

THING Penn State took one free throw in that game, and eight threes.

OTHER THING They had seven assists and 15 TOs

OTHER OTHER THING they gon' die

THING THEY ARE LIKE "You got what for our gladitorial arena? A hamster?"

 

12. Nebraska (9-6)

LAST WEEK clubbed at Ohio State; hung in against Wisconsin before falling late.

THING Enormous center Andre Almedia injured his ankle early in the OSU game and "could have played" against Wisconsin. Tim Miles decided against inserting him because Wisconsin center Jared Berggren can shoot. He should be ready for the Michigan game.

OTHER THING Not that it will matter. Nebraska hasn't scored more than 63 against a power conference team this year. Michigan hasn't scored fewer than 67 against anyone.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Vincent Smith one-fourth of the way through that event to the right.

Tourney locks sans Illinois-2011-style implosion

projected seeds included

#1 MICHIGAN, #2 Indiana, #2 Minnesota, #4 Ohio State, #6 Illinois

Probably In

#8 Michigan State

Bubble

#11 Iowa

Northwestern Memorial wrong side of the bubble award

Wisconsin

Rutgers Memorial what's a bubble award

Northwestern, Penn State, Nebraska, Purdue

Viewing Guide

Games relevant to your interest that are on the TV and may be worth watching after the first ten minutes. Bolded teams are suggested teams to root for, calibrated for …

1) helping M win conference title
2) best chance for quality-win pile-up to help M seeding
3) greatest number of tourney teams from league
4) eff Michigan State
5) also Wisconsin

Monday

Indiana at Penn State, 7PM, BTN

Tuesday

Ohio State at Purdue, 9 PM, ESPN
Pitt at Georgetown, 9PM, ESPNU

Wednesday

Nebraska at MICHIGAN, 7PM, BTN
Georgia Tech at NC State, 8PM, ESPN3 [streaming]
Minnesota at Illinois, 9PM, BTN
West Virginia at Texas, 9PM, ESPN2
Arkansas at Texas A&M, 9PM, ESPNU

Thursday

Penn State at Northwestern, 8PM, ESPNU
Michigan State at Iowa, 7PM, ESPN2

Friday

nyet

Saturday

Minnesota at Indiana, noon, BTN
Marquette at Pitt, noon, ESPNU
Duke at NC State, noon, ESPN
Kansas State at West Virginia, 1:30 PM, ESPN3 [streaming]
Wisconsin at Illinois, 2:15 PM, BTN
Vanderbilt at Arkansas, 6PM, ESPN3 [streaming]

Sunday

MICHIGAN at Ohio State, 1:30 PM, CBS
Penn State at Purdue, noon, BTN
Northwestern at Iowa, 5:30, ESPNU
Nebraska at Michigan State, 6PM, BTN

Hey guys. This isn't on Monday because of obvious reasons, and then a bunch of teams played important games because of similarly obvious reasons. We soldier on.

The Status

Okay you guys. Okay. With Florida's loss to a team Michigan already beat fairly easily and Indiana looking mortal, I am moving M above the Gators—who will be hurt by the lack of basketball teams of note they play in the SEC—and thus it is happy snake of #1 seed time, at least temporarily.

Yeah, RPI forecast, RPI, Kenpom, and Sagarin all stayed about static, but if Michigan and Florida are in the same conversation that Kansas State matchup is going to be a trump card.

Projected ones: Michigan, Indiana, Duke, and one of Kansas/Louisville/Syracuse.

The Nonconference Folk

why u no score second half points, Pitt?

We will further compress this section into teams whose individual performance may help or hurt Michigan when seeding time comes around (ie, potential "quality wins" considered by the committee) and those who will only matter insofar as their performance pushes Michigan's RPI hither and thither.

RPI-effect-only Teams

IUPUI and Binghamton continued losing to everyone. Unfortunately, Cleveland State is quickly dropping to their level after a 30-point blowout at the hands of Akron on the 23rd. WMU blew out Mount St. Mary's and lost to NC State. EMU lost to Oakland by two and beat something called Siena Heights. Central has not played.

On the somewhat good side of the ledger, Bradley beat a couple of low-majors, lost to VT by one in OT, blew those good feelings by losing to Portland, and then beat Drake. Kenpom projects them a .500 MVC team.

Big sorts of teams

Pitt (12-2)

Delaware State, Kennesaw State: diabolical annihlation Ws. Cincinnati: L, 70-61.

Pitt finished out its ritual pounding of minor teams, then entered Big East play on New Year's Eve against top-ten Cincinnati. They led by eight at halftime, and then decided they had enough points. They were not correct in this assertion. Cincinnati could match them huge guy for huge guy and freshman seven-footer Steven Adams got beat up on the boards when he wasn't on the bench with foul trouble.

That's a loss to a good team, but at home. Pitt should still get to 12 or 13 Big East wins, but they're probably not the top ten team Kenpom currently thinks they are thanks to the ritual poundings.

Kansas State (11-2)

Texas Southern: W 78-69. Florida: W 67-61. UMKC: W 52-44. South Dakota: W 70-50.

Though Kenpom isn't particularly impressed after the Wildcats sorta struggled with a couple of bad teams—UMKC is a 300 Club member—the win over Florida is a huge boost for them and a nice indirect bump for Michigan. Hopefully that's more of an indication of how they'll play in the Big 12 than the meh wins over minor opposition.

The Florida win was mostly offensive rebounding. Neither team shot well; Kansas State got to the line 29 times to Florida's 15 and rebounded almost 40% of their misses.

North Carolina State (11-2)

Stanford: W 88-79. St. Bonaventure: W 92-73. WMU: W 84-68. NC-Greensboro: W 89-68.

The Wolfhuskers have established themselves as a mini-me version of Michigan: lightning on offense and iffy on defense. The win over Stanford is good stuff to Kenpom, but defensive struggles against minor teams are keeping them down over there. They're on pace for a 5-7 seed, or thereabouts, and are the proverbial Team No One Wants To Play in the tournament because they're going to score in bunches against anybody.

Arkansas (8-4)

Robert Morris: W 79-74. Alabama A&M: W 95-68. Northwestern St: W 79-61.

The Hogs avoided an upset bid by fringe KP100 team Robert Morris and beat up on some bad teams. They've got one more before SEC play starts; they're still projected as an NIT team.

West Virginia (7-5)

Oakland: W 76-71. Radford: W 72-62. EKU: W 74-67.

WVU actually dropped from 73 to 90 on Kenpom after three uninspiring victories against meh teams. They're moving backwards as conference play approaches, and things could get ugly. At some point we might move them into the RPI miscellanea category. They bad.

CONFERENCE OF POWER RANKING POWER POWER

1. Indiana (13-1)

LAST WEEKs Blew out some minor teams. In Big Ten opener, edged Iowa by four on the road.

THING File under "happens to everyone sometimes": Jordan Hulls was 0-10 from the floor against Iowa. That's not going to happen again this season, I don't think.

OTHER THING I would normally go all rapture on Victor Oladipo's defense but Indiana went to zones for big chunks of the game because Iowa just couldn't hit a shot. Oladipo did have a double-double, snatching a tenth rebound on the offensive end for a key putback late.

THING THEY ARE LIKE a momentarily discombobulated Ogre with a big spiked club

2. Michigan(13-0)

LAST WEEK Blew out Eastern and Central to complete domination tour of Directional Michigans. That this is even a little bit cathartic is all you need to know about Michigan basketball.

THING With Tim Hardaway Jr sidelined with an ankle injury, freshman Caris LeVert got his first extended playing time against Central and looked like he could be a functional backup for big ten play—important since Michigan's wing depth has been minimal to date.

OTHER THING Nik Stauskas has pushed his three-point shooting up to 57% boggle boggle boggle

OTHER OTHER THING Trey Burke has the #1 ORTG for any player using at least 24% of his team's possessions.

He is less than a percentage point away from cracking 28% that represents the highest-volume ORTG leaderboard on Kenpom. If he was eligible, he would be eleven points(!!!) clear of Doug McDermott.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Five Datas playing basketball. They do not understand love or cats; they do understand ruthless efficiency.

3. Minnesota (13-1)

MOVEMENT up from 4

LAST WEEKs Beat KP100 team NDSU by 13, blew out Lafayette, fooled around with MSU before blowing the doors off late to establish themselves a true Big Ten contender.

THING Minnesota alternates between pure intimidation and dumb play. Like, why does Rodney Williams ever take a jumper, let alone an off-balance 15-footer? You are a pogo stick man. Go pogo stick it.

OTHER THING Great grobbly gravy, here's the intimidation part: against Michigan State (Michigan State!) the Gophers shot 60% from 2 and rebounded 47% of their misses. Mbakwe and Williams had 9 of Minnesota's 14 OREBs.

They turn the ball over a lot and eschew threes—Michigan may pull out the 1-3-1 against them if it seems necessary.

THING THEY ARE LIKE thousands of superballs assembled into a basketball team

4. Ohio State (10-2)

LAST WEEKs celebration of perfection against Chicago State. Not so much Kansas in an eight-point loss at home.

THING Do not extrapolate OSU's horrible shooting against Kansas to future Michigan games. Jayhawk center Jeff Withey has lead his team to the #1 two-point D and #2 block rate in the country. Michigan has nothing approximating him. That performance is just not relevant, sadly.

OTHER THING Aaron Craft is decidedly not stepping up as a scoring option. He's hitting just 41% of his twos and his three point accuracy is slightly down. He's turning it over a lot less, though.

THING THEY ARE LIKE a Big Ten football team except competent

5. Michigan State (11-3)

LAST WEEKs struggled at Bowling Green before pulling away late; beat Texas rather solidly; trailed by about 6 points for most of game at Minnesota, tied it up, got doors blown off late.

THING Jordan Morgan complainers, take heed: Michigan State's two-headed center not only allowed the boggling numbers listed above for Minnesota's offense but turned in a 7 of 21 line themselves, with only one FTA. Derrick Nix picked up a shot clock violation when he missed everything but the backboard from four feet. Jordan Morgan is in the conversation for best center in the league, non-Zeller/Mbakwe division. Srs.

Does this say more about a relative paucity of centers in college basketball than Jordan Morgan? Ah yup. But like he's okay man.

OTHER THING Keith Appling had six steals against Minnesota. Beware lazy perimeter passes against this man.

THING THEY ARE LIKE a poor man's Jordan Morgan

6. Illinois (13-1)

LAST WEEKs lost to Missouri not-that-competitively, scraped by a terrible Auburn team by two.

THING NNANNA EGWU WATCH: DREB rate has dropped(!!!) from 11.3 to 10.2. Illinois DREB rate is now in the 200s. Every Illinois player save Sam McLaurin is beating him out. Spike Albrecht now full point ahead of him. There are literally no pictures on GIS of Egwu bringing in a rebound in college. IlliniHQ does bring us the shot at right of the dude nearly decapitating some other dude, though.

The only possible explanation for this is that a secret CIA experiment is ongoing in which Jeremy Gallon and Egwu switch bodies without anyone knowing.

THING THEY ARE LIKE what if pogo stick gazelle men could not find basketballs

7. Iowa (11-3)

LAST WEEKs clubbed a couple of KP300-ish teams, narrowly fell to Indiana.

THING I'm actually tempted to move them above the Illini after they gave Indiana a game despite Roy Devyn Marble going 1-14 from the floor. He did acquire 15 FTA, so… not the worst thing ever. Still, comparisons to previous Beilein teams where too often games come down to one shot creator putting up tough shots over and over remain accurate.

OTHER THING The best thing is always calling Roy Devyn Marble by his full name. More people should do this.

OTHER OTHER THING. Basabe watch: 9 minutes, one shot, one TO, one block against Indiana. What happened to that guy?

THING THEY ARE LIKE Dion Harris-era Michigan teams except with Aaron White.

8. Wisconsin (9-4)

LAST WEEKs Blew KP300s out.

THING I HOPE YOU DISINTEGRATE INTO ATOMS

THING THEY ARE LIKE something that has not yet disintegrated into atoms like they should, what are you Vincent Smith or something

HENRI LINE OF ENNUI

9. Northwestern (9-4)

LAST WEEKs scraped by near-KP300 Texas State by six; lost to Stanford by 2; blew out near-KP300 Brown.

THING Hard to see how this team keeps pace in the Big Ten minus Crawford unless Reggie Hearn and Dave Sobolewksi keep up their 43 and 48 percent shooting on threes, respectively. Those are lower sample sizes than Stauskas, FWIW. Sobocop is yet more evidence that Beilein should try to pick off the best kid in any particular NW class.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Northwestern basketball minus its best player.

10. Purdue (6-6)

LAST WEEKs Iffy wins versus Ball State by 10, William & Mary by 7.

THING Ronnie Johnson has stopped flinging up threes with a less than ten percent chance of going in, unfortunately. I am disappoint, Ronnie.

OTHER THING Actually, the whole team has quit shooting it from deep. In the two games since last we visited with the Boilers they've put up a total of 20 threes, hitting six. That's 18% of their shots; extrapolated to a season, that would put them 346th, ahead of only Lamar. That is a recipe for death in the Big Ten.

THING THEY ARE LIKE blindfolded men asking for a cigarette.

11. Nebraska (9-4)

LAST WEEKs Scraped it out against Jacksonville State, handily beat CMU, handily beaten by UTEP, beat KP300 Nicholls State by 9.

THING Things are about to get uuuuuugly for the Huskers. Next four games: @ OSU, UW, @ Michigan, @ MSU.

OTHER THING Guard Ray Gallegos is a black hole. He has a post-like 6.4 assist rate and manages to get classified a "role player" despite taking more shots than any Husker save Dylan Talley. He mostly puts up threes at a 34% clip.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Vincent Smith

12. Penn State (8-4)

LAST WEEK whipped New Hampshire, took out Duquesne by ten.

THING Joining Ronnie Johnson in the Jan Jagla club is Ross Travis, who is 2 for 21 from three this year. He hit four of 24 last year, and has decided that what Penn State needs is more threes from him.

OTHER THING Travis shrunk two inches last year according to Kenpom.

THING THEY ARE LIKE also Vincent Smith

Tourney locks sans Illinois-2011-style implosion

projected seeds included

#1 Indiana, #1 MICHIGAN, #3 Ohio State, #3 Minnesota, #6 Illinois

Probably In

#8 Michigan State

Bubble

#11 Iowa

Northwestern Memorial wrong side of the bubble award

Wisconsin

Rutgers Memorial what's a bubble award

Northwestern, Penn State, Nebraska, Purdue

Viewing Guide

Games relevant to your interest that are on the TV and may be worth watching after the first ten minutes. Bolded teams are suggested teams to root for, calibrated for …

1) helping M win conference title
2) greatest number of tourney teams from league/best chance for quality-win pile-up to help M seeding
3) eff Michigan State
4) also Wisconsin

Tuesday

was yesterday

Wednesday

Nebraska at Ohio State, 6:30 PM, BTN
Illinois at Purdue, 8:30 PM, BTN

Thursday

Northwestern at MICHIGAN, 7 PM, ESPN2
Penn State at Wisconsin, 8:30 PM, BTN

Friday

nyet

Saturday

Pitt at Rutgers, 11 AM, ESPN2
Purdue at Michigan State, noon, BTN
Oklahoma State at KState, 1:30, nonexistent Big 12 Network (streaming only, I think)
Oklahoma at West Virginia, 4 PM, ditto
NC State at BC, 4 PM, ESPN2

Sunday

Northwestern at Minnesota, 7PM, BTN
Wisconsin at Nebraska, 4:30 PM, BTN
Iowa at MICHIGAN, noon, BTN

Tracking what Michigan's opponents are doing.

The Status

The Big Ten took some hits this week and Michigan's expected RPI rank falls to about 10th. Michigan drops to third in current numbers behind Butler; they remain eighth on Kenpom and move up to fifth in Sagarin.

I'm still calling the seed a two here, as it will take more than an overtime loss against the #2 team in RPI to seriously dent Indiana. They've still got an edge on a Michigan team that may have beaten good teams in Pitt and NC State… or may have run through a meh nonconference schedule. The conference will tell the tale.

The Past

you will probably not be surprised to find out that BJ Young shot did not go in

I'm dropping Slippery Rock since their season won't impact how anyone looks at Michigan.

Dreck

IUPUI beat a non-D-I team named "Indiana East" by six and then lost to Indiana State by 14. Binghamton enters this category now; they have not played since Michigan beat them 67-39.

Filler that's not painful

Cleveland State got blown out by St. Bonaventure by 32 and are in danger of slipping into the dreck category now. Western Michigan scraped by High Point by six. On the road, though. They have an interesting game against Duquesne Wednesday.

Bradley plays Georgia Southern tonight.

Pitt (10-1)

Bethune Cookman: W 89-40.

The Panthers continued annihilating overmatched opponents, shooting 74% from two and acquiring a stunning 75% of their misses. Bethune Cookman had a total of five defensive rebounds, two of which were credited to the team after the ball went out of bounds. Pitt moved up a spot in Kenpom. They've got two more blowouts on the docket before the Big East schedule kicks in on New Year's Eve.

Kansas State (7-2)

@ Gonzaga (in Seattle): L 68-52

Kansas State just could not maintain contact with the Zags thanks to excessive turnovers (18), poor defensive rebounding, and horrendous shooting from two—33%. They've got a walkover Tuesday and then take on Florida in Kansas City.

North Carolina State (6-2)

Norfolk State: W 84-62.

Typical MEAC blowout, and now the Wolfpack have a couple of interesting games. Tuesday night they take on 7-3 Stanford at home, which Kenpom has on the tourney bubble as a 20-11 Pac-12 team. On Saturday they get a home game against St. Bonaventure; they should win but the Bonnies provide at least some upset threat.

Arkansas (5-4)

Alcorn State: W 97-59

Blew out SWAC team. Four more home snackycakes await before the SEC. Robert Morris is up next; they could be a threat. They've already beaten OHIO and lost a narrow one to Xavier. They have also lost to Savannah State and got blown out by Rider and Lehigh, so let's not get too excited.

West Virginia (4-5)

Duquesne: L 60-56, Michigan: L 81-66.

You know what happened Saturday. WVU went stone cold from the floor, as teams that rely on tough running jumpers often do, against Duquesne. They've got three more home games against bad teams before the Big 12 schedule opens. They are not a tourney team.

The Future (Nonconference)

Dreck. Michigan's only got Eastern Michigan and Central Michigan left before the Big Ten schedule opens with a hugely depleted Northwestern. Eastern momentarily popped into the filler category after a win against Purdue; they drop back after losing to UIC 74-48. Eastern has not topped 48 points in the last 3 games, it's just that 47 was enough against a horrible Purdue team.

Central beat Pepperdine, which would have been impressive about a decade ago.

CONFERENCE OF POWER RANKING POWER POWER

1. Indiana (9-1)

LAST WEEK did not win against Butler, by two, in OT.

THING On the deciding possession, well, Kenpom already said it:

Alex Barlow got the game winner for Butler. It’s probably a major indictment on Jordan Hulls’ defense when the opposing coach is willing to isolate a guy against you who has taken fewer than 8% of his teams shots when he’s on the floor.

The game winner was Barlow's 9th attempt of the year from two. Hulls is shooting exactly 50% from three after hitting 49% last year, so you've got to play him lots. Just maybe not then.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Enormous cobra-armed killer robot with big red button on the side that reads "DO NOT PUSH."

DEFENSIVE SECTION They remain #1 here because win over UNC is still more impressive than anything else that has happened this year and OT loss to Butler is like something that can happen.

2. Michigan(11-0)

LAST WEEK beat up on Binghamton, beat WVU in Brooklyn by 15.

THING Swag indicators reached nominal maximums when six-foot point guard got rim-hanging technical against Arkansas. Swag indicators started getting nervous when Jordan Morgan turned into Rasheed "BALL DON'T LIE" Wallace on missed WVU free throw in second half. Swag indicators gave up, went home, and looked for something to hide under after a freshman Canadian picked up a woofing technical foul.

Swag is at critical levels. Jalen Rose has been called in to help consult.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Gordon Downie, lead singer of the Tragically Hip and swaggiest Canadian ever.

3. Ohio State (8-1)

LAST WEEK celebration of perfection against UNC-Ashville and Savannah State.

THING Sophomore PG Shannon Scott, to date mostly infamous for not being Trey Burke, is rounding into a good player after all: he's steadily adding minutes as the season progresses and has extremely high assist and steal numbers—11th and 4th nationally, respectively. Low turnovers and infrequent shooting give him a shiny ORtg.

Thad Matta may know what he's doing after all. That was in sarcasm font, Buckeyes.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Gluttony.

4. Minnesota (10-1)

LAST WEEK did not play basketball for some reason

THING They have a man named Maverick Ahanmisi on their team, which is Cincinnati-football-worthy.

THING THEY ARE LIKE John McCain?

5. Illinois (10-0)

LAST WEEK continued tradition of looking like they could lose to just about anyone other than USC by beating Norfolk State by 10 and EKU by 13, because of course playing those teams at home is about as hard as playing Gonzaga on the road.

THING NNANNA EGWU WATCH: DREB rate of 11.3 is still seventh on the team. 6'3" DJ Richardson has a 13.9. Spike Albrecht has an 11.2 DREB rate.

THING THEY ARE LIKE they are like a team of pogo stick gazelle men who play the same basketball game against everyone in the world

6. Michigan State (9-2)

LAST WEEK Had a Mark Hollis Creates The Future thing at their old stadium against D-II Tuskegee, struggled to seven-point halftime lead, blew doors off after. "An absolute stink bomb of a game," declareth The Only Colors.

THING Might be a concern that the only efficient offensive player for MSU against Tuskegee was Keith Appling and that MSU turned it over 22 times. Branden Dawson continues to chuck the ball anywhere that is not on the floor: six turnovers bring his TORate to 28, a ten-point increase over last year.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Tom Izzo's face after Dawson's sixth turnover.

7. Iowa (9-2)

LAST WEEK became Iowa state champs with 80-73 win over Northern Iowa, which might not sound like much but UNI almost got Louisville and Memphis and is a top 100 team on Kenpom so it's something.

THING Iowa's three point shooting picked up significantly, which was good because they were 9 for 24 from two. Roy Devyn Marble was 14 of 19 from the free throw line.

THING 2 Melsahn Basabe continues to regress. For the second straight year his minutes and ORtg are down.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Michigan under Beilein until this year.

8. Wisconsin (7-4)

LAST WEEK had reasonable win over UW-Green Bay, which dropped them three spots on Kenpom.

THING SERIOUSLY GO AWAY

THING THEY ARE LIKE i don't even want to talk about it

9. Northwestern (7-3)

LAST WEEK didn't play but still managed to have something devastating happen to them when Drew Crawford was shut down for the year with an injury. He should get a medical redshirt, at least, and return for a fifth year.

THING At least you won't be heartbroken this year, Wildcats, except in a total universe-spanning sense.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Henri The Otter Of Ennui's favorite basketball team.

10. Nebraska (6-3)

LAST WEEK Oregon reclaimed the Pac-12's honor with a 22-point win in Eugene.

THING Nebraska plays Central Michigan this Saturday… in El Paso. This is part of the "Sun Bowl Invitational," which must be the lowest nonconference tourney on the planet. Other participants are UTEP (obviously) and Arkansas-Pine Bluff, and there does not appear to be any television.

THING THEY ARE LIKE A man headed into Juarez against his will.

11. Purdue

LAST WEEK Followed up rousing loss to EMU with 13-point loss to ND on a neutral court. Scored four points over the course of 13 minutes during this game.

THING Ronnie Johnson three pointers holding steady at 2/23. He was 6/14 from inside the arc against ND en route to an ORtg of 86, which is actually a large improvement on his season numbers.

THING THEY ARE LIKE The real life version of that Larry Bird-Magic Johnson HORSE commercial.

12. Penn State (5-4)

LAST WEEK Beat Baby Seal U by four, in overtime. Delaware State was down 21-5 after ten minutes and recovered to force OT. This caused Black Shoe Diaries to say… "things seem to be changing for the better around here."

THING Penn State has a three point specialist shooting 29%. Introducing Nick Colella, who shot 24% last year(!) on 70 attempts and has seen his minutes go from 30% to 57%. He has no free throws and four two point attempts on the year.

THING THEY ARE LIKE Delaware State. And still better than Rutgers.

Tourney locks sans Illinois-2011-style implosion

projected seeds included

#1 Indiana, #2 Ohio State, #2 MICHIGAN, #4 Minnesota, #5 Illinois

Probably In

#8 Michigan State (down from lock/7-seed)

Bubble

#11 Iowa (up from 12-seed)

Northwestern Memorial wrong side of the bubble award

Wisconsin

Rutgers Memorial what's a bubble award

Northwestern (down from wrong side of bubble), Penn State, Nebraska, Purdue

Viewing Guide

Games relevant to your interest that are on the TV and may be worth watching after the first ten minutes.

It's a thin week what with finals going on. Things pick up on Saturday… sort of.

Tuesday

Michigan State at Bowling Green, 7PM, ESPNU
Stanford at NC State, 9 PM, ESPN2

Wednesday

Western Michigan at Duquesne, 7 PM, NBC Sports

Thursday

Eastern Michigan at MICHIGAN, 8:30 PM, BTN

Friday

Stanford at Northwestern, 9 PM, BTN

Saturday

Texas at Michigan State, 2 PM, ESPN2
St Bonaventure at NC State, 3PM, ESPN3
Kansas at Ohio State, 4PM, CBS
Illinois vs Missouri, 6PM, ESPN2
Florida at-ish Kansas State (in KC), 8 PM, ESPN2

Sunday

New Hampshire at Penn State, 11 AM, BTN

Tracking what Michigan's opponents are doing.

The Status

Winning against Arkansas isn't worth a whole lot but Michigan's opponents did well over the week, seeing them bounce up a spot on RPIforecast and Sagarin. Michigan fell a little on Kenpom, for which you can insert grumbles about MOV capping. Michigan remains second in RPI.

Seed projection is static: a #2, behind projected #1s Duke, Indiana, Florida, and Louisville/Syracuse winner.

The Past

you will probably not be surprised to find out that BJ Young shot did not go in

I'm dropping Slippery Rock since their season won't impact how anyone looks at Michigan.

Dreck

IUPUI continued to be awful, losing to Butler and WKU by 20+.

Filler that's not painful

Cleveland State lost to NC State, but given the committee's emphasis on quality wins that's how we wanted it to work out. Bradley beat GW by four at home, which didn't push their season projections much to the positive. They've got a couple of extremely bad teams before a December 22nd matchup with VT. Western Michigan took some of the shine off Michigan's resounding victory over them by losing to Illinois State by 22, but ISU took Northwestern to OT and Louisville to the wire so we'll give them a pass.

Pitt (9-1)

Duquense: W 66-45. North Florida: W, 89-47.

With five straight resounding blowouts against bad teams after their loss to Michigan, Pitt is the Wisconsin of the Big East. The latest spectacular annihilation of an overmatched opponent actually pushed Pitt in front of Michigan in Kenpom.

The Panthers don't play anyone of note before the Big East schedule opens on New Year's Eve, at which point we'll find out whether there's any there there. I'm guessing the answer is yes.

Kansas State (7-1)

@ George Washington: W 65-62

K State edged out a game GW team on the road in a game I caught large portions of. They remain large but rely far too much on Angel Rodriguez chucking up circus shots to be a real threat. They'll likely make the tournament and get bounced early. Don't expect much more than a .500-ish Big 12 campaign.

North Carolina State (6-2)

UConn (neutral): W 69-65. Cleveland State: W 80-63.

Edged a game against UConn in the Jimmy V thing and eased past Cleveland State. NC State remains uber-talented and mercurial, capable of doing all sorts of things from NBA power dunks to preposterous turnovers. Hobbit PG still can't play.

Arkansas (4-4)

The Hogs are coming off a stretch of five straight games against power conference foes, of which they won just one against Oklahoma. They're done playing good teams until the SEC schedule. Kenpom has them at 8-10 in conference and that seems about right after watching their circus shot exhibition last week. They're an NIT outfit.

The Future (Nonconference)

Deniz Kilicli is WVU's highest-usage player, and is shooting 41% from the floor.

Dreck. Binghampton should not be on the schedule; they're coming off a 22-point loss to Bryant.  Michigan will eviscerate them tomorrow in a game a bizarrely specific Kenpom gives Michigan a 99.7% chance of winning. Central lost to Charlotte by 12 and actually bumped their rating a little bit.

Filler, not painful. Oh let's move Eastern Michigan here after they beat Purdue, though I think that says more about Purdue than it does EMU. Eastern also got pounded by Syracuse this week.

West Virginia (4-3)

Marshall (neutral court): W 69-59. Virginia Tech: W 68-67.

The Mountaineers got off the deck a little bit last week with wins over Marshall and a previously-undefeated Virginia Tech. I took in the second half of that game as well and came away less than fearful of Michigan's upcoming game with them. WVU can't shoot—they're 310th in 3PT% and 262nd in 2PT%—and generate offense almost exclusively by pounding the offensive boards, which leads to a bevy of fast-break chances the other way when the rebounding guys can't make it work. They look like the NIT team Kenpom projects them to be right now.

The Future (Conference)

NOW WITH WEEKLY COMPARISONS TO OTHER THINGS POWER RANKINGS

1. Indiana (9-0)

LAST WEEK: beat up on Central Connecticut

THING: Indiana is real good. They play Butler on Saturday.

THING THEY ARE LIKE: Cashews. Tasty, curved, and about to get some ineligible foreigners back.

2. Michigan(9-0)

LAST WEEK beat up on WMU and beat Arkansas

THING: I wrote about these guys earlier today.

THING THEY ARE LIKE: Ernest Hemingway. Muscular prose purveyors are shooting enthusiasts.

3. Ohio State(6-1)

LAST WEEK: beat up on Long Beach State, held "celebration of perfection against Long Beach State" pep rally no one cared about.

THING: Amadeo Della Valle watch: 13% of OSU minutes, no assists, lots of turnovers, vanishingly few attempts. 10% block percentage! These numbers may have small sample size.

THING THEY ARE LIKE: Sin.

4. Minnesota (10-1)

LAST WEEK: checked to make sure they had not lost to a Dakota team on the gridiron and chanted "just like football" at South Dakota State, annihilated USC.

THING: Oh yeah well we have our own 6'6" guy who occasionally bumps his head on satellites, Gophers. Scary thing about Minnesota so far: Trevor Mbakwe has only played 45% of their minutes.

THING THEY ARE LIKE: like what if you found a species of pogo stick gazelle men hiding in a Papua New Guinea rain forest

5. Illinois (10-0)

LAST WEEK: Beat Gonzaga! By nine! On the road! After falling behind by 11 early! Brandon Paul is a frightening dude and do your remember that Tyler Griffey guy who went off on M last year, well he's shooting 47% on a lot of threes!

THING: Hmmm. John Groce may be okay at this basketball thing. Problem: Nnanna Egwu is terrible. Like, he is an absolutely appalling player. He is seven feet tall and the seventh-best rebounder on his team and he is drawing 6.2 fouls every 40 minutes.

THING THEY ARE LIKE: like what if the pogo stick gazelle men had a basketball team coached by John Beilein

6. Michigan State (8-2)

LAST WEEK: Blew out SWAC team, struggled with Loyola-Chicago before pulling away late.

THING: Nobody on this team can shoot threes except Travis Trice and probably Gary Harris. MSU needs Trice to be a bigger part of the gameplan than he has been so far. Injury limitations don't explain him getting just 20% of MSU minutes while Russell Byrd has acquired 30% and Brandan Kearney 46%.

THING THEY ARE LIKE: An ugly, oversized, defense-oriented, Michigan-obsessed crab. So "any Michigan State sports team."

7. Iowa (8-2)

LAST WEEK: Beat up on South Dakota, finally beat Iowa State in anything at all.

THING: This is not a good defensive team, and they can't shoot threes. Going to be a slog for them in the Big Ten.

THING THEY ARE LIKE: Corn. Full of starch until you put the heat on them, when they become distended and unbalanced. Delicious covered in cheese powder.

8. Wisconsin (6-4)

LAST WEEK: Exploited Kenpom's algorithm with a 46 point win over Nebraska-Omaha, got rolled by Marquette 60-50.

THING: GO AWAY

THING THEY ARE LIKE: Boring death. Obviously.

9. Northwestern (7-3)

LAST WEEK: Ran out to a huge lead and shockingly won against Baylor, reviving bubble hopes, then lost solidly to Butler, putting bubble hopes back on life support.

THING: Hey, Northwestern fans, at least this means the Wildcats will do better than expected in the Big Ten so they can rip your heart out in March.

THING THEY ARE LIKE: A nation of really depressed otters: Also delicious covered in cheese.

10. Nebraska (6-2)

LAST WEEK: Ran USC out of their building, then got bombed by Creighton.

THING: Nebraska has a guy named Andre Almeida who is listed at 6'11", 314, and has to be 50 pounds heavier than that. He's top 20 in block rate, which is like wow guy how do you even get off the ground.

THING THEY ARE LIKE: A squirrel on a conveyor belt facing away from the woodchipper.

11. Purdue

LAST WEEK: Beat a guy named Lamar. Did not beat a guy named Eastern Michigan.

THING: Your Ronnie Johnson three-pointer watch: 9% on 23 attempts. At least they held up the conference's honor in the ACC/Big Ten challenge, unlike Wisconsin.

THING THEY ARE LIKE: A blindfolded man with a machine gun.

12. Penn State (5-4)

LAST WEEK: Got beat by La Salle by 35; beat Army. By eight.

THING: This program has been to the tournament four times since the last time Rutgers went in 1991.

THING THEY ARE LIKE: Rutgers, EXCEPT MUCH BETTER.

Tourney locks sans Illinois-2011-style implosion

projected seeds included

#1 Indiana, #2 Ohio State, #2 MICHIGAN, #4 Minnesota, #5 Illinois, #7 Michigan State

Probably In

N/A

Bubble

#12 Iowa

Northwestern Memorial wrong side of the bubble award

Northwestern, Wisconsin

Rutgers Memorial what's a bubble award

Penn State, Nebraska, Purdue

Viewing Guide

Games relevant to your interest that are on the TV and may be worth watching after the first ten minutes.

It's a thin week what with finals going on. Things pick up on Saturday… sort of.

Tuesday

West Virginia at Duquesne, CBS Sports Network, 7 PM
Binghampton at MICHIGAN, BTN, 7 PM

Saturday

Eastern Michigan at UIC, Comcast Chicago, 1 PM
Indiana vs Butler, CBS, 2PM
Iowa vs Northern Iowa, BTN, 2:30 PM
Purdue vs Notre Dame, 4:30, ESPN2
Nebraska at Oregon, FSN, 5:30
MICHIGAN vs West Virginia, ESPN, 8 PM
Kansas State at Gonzaga (in Seattle), ESPN 2, 9 PM

The rest of the schedule consists of games against low-majors that should be blowouts.