I thought Rutgers would be the least likely team to find itself atop the conference standings this season. I was wrong!

Northwestern went 3-17 in the Big Ten last year. They're now 3-0 this season after following up last week's upset of Michigan State with victories against Indiana and Ohio State. Here are the results from last week's conference slate (home team listed second):

• Purdue 55, Iowa 70
• Nebraska 53, Wisconsin 67
• Rutgers 68, Ohio State 80
• Penn State 81, Illinois 98
• Northwestern 74, Indiana 67
• Iowa 95, Minnesota 102 (OT)
• Wisconsin 85, Michigan State 76
• Michigan 80, Nebraska 69
• Maryland 70, Purdue 73
• Indiana 60, Illinois 69
• Ohio State 70, Northwestern 71

It was a particularly good week for Northwestern and Illinois and a rough one for Indiana, which lost to both aforementioned teams. Meanwhile, the most entertaining game of the week was Iowa's late collapse and eventual overtime loss at Minnesota. The Hawkeyes still can't guard anybody.

The Standings

Now ordered by conference record since everyone has actually played multiple Big Ten games.

	Record			KP/Torvik Avg			OFFENSE			DEFENSE
Team	Overall	Big Ten		Nat Rk (change)	Proj. B1G Rec.		KenPom	Torvik		KenPom	Torvik
NWern	6-1	3-0		46.5 (up 6.5)	10-10		56th	38th		45th	45th
WIS	8-1	2-0		3.5 (down 0.5)	14.5-5.5		9th	7th		4th	5th
U-M	7-0	2-0		14.0 (up 0.5)	12-8		10th	11th		30th	32nd
ILL	7-3	3-1		6.5 (up 3)	13-7		5th	5th		38th	47th
RUT	6-1	2-1		20.5 (down 1)	11-9		32nd	33rd		15th	18th
PUR	7-3	2-1		34.5 (down 5.5)	10.5-9.5		33rd	50th		36th	28th
IOWA	7-2	1-1		8.0 (up 2)	11.5-8.5		2nd	2nd		92nd	141st
MIN	8-1	1-1		45.5 (up 9)	9-11		22nd	45th		58th	66th
OSU	7-2	1-2		21.5 (up 0.5)	9.5-10.5		8th	9th		48th	80th
IND	5-4	0-2		20.5 (down 6)	9.5-10.5		57th	64th		10th	6th
MSU	6-2	0-2		32.0 (down 4)	9-11		11th	19th		61st	67th
PSU	3-3	0-2		47.5 (down 5)	8-12		27th	28th		72nd	61st
UMD	5-3	0-2		52.5 (up 1.5)	7.5-12.5		16th	24th		84th	117th
NEB	4-5	0-2		103.0 (up 3.5)	4-16		148th	138th		98th	48th

The top-to-bottom strength of the conference is remarkable; 13 of the 14 teams are inside the top 55 nationally when you average KenPom and Torvik rankings. KenPom predicts all 13 of those teams to finish with at least eight conference wins, leaving Nebraska—which isn't an awful bottom-end power conference team!—with a projected 3-17 record.

Even with that 3-0 start, Northwestern is predicted to finish .500 in Big Ten play. Ohio State and Indiana are projected to finish with losing conference records despite sitting just outside the top 20 teams in the country; ditto MSU at #32. It's a scarily strong league; the Big Ten and Big 12 are well in front of the rest of the pack in KenPom's conference rankings with the former topping the list. Fox Sports' latest (way too early) bracket has 11 B1G squads in the field with Wisconsin/Iowa as two-seeds and Michigan/Illinois as three-seeds.

[Hit THE JUMP for five-out Northwestern, State's terrible defensive profile, and more.]

Northwestern's... Scary... Offense?

Throw out any scouting reports on Northwestern's offense from prior to this season because Chris Collins has completely changed their approach to great effect. Here are their last five years of offensive stats, per KenPom. I've bolded some notable numbers for this year:

	Adj. Tempo	Avg. Poss. Length	Adj. Off. Eff. (rk)	eFG%	TO%	OR%	FTA/FGA	3PA/FGA	A/FGM
2020-21	70.9 poss.	14.9 sec.	108.3 (56)	57.5	15.1	20.2	37.9	39.4	70.3
2019-20	66.7	17.6	104.9 (131)	46.9	15.6	22.0	25.8	33.9	57.1
2018-19	66.0	17.9	102.9 (204)	46.6	16.1	24.1	30.2	40.7	61.4
2017-18	63.9	18.2	109.2 (96)	49.5	17.8	29.4	29.1	39.3	57.1
2016-17	65.6	17.7	111.3 (59)	49.7	16.0	30.8	30.5	35.6	59.3

The Wildcats are playing at a top-25 pace on offense after falling among the slower units in the country in previous years. That's put a huge jolt into their shooting stats as they get more assisted buckets and fewer late-clock chucks. In their three Big Ten games, they're shooting 58% on twos, 41% on threes, and 78% at the line. They're still taking good care of the ball, so their near-total aversion to offensive rebounds doesn't hurt them much in the shot-generating department, and the result is an offense that ranks slightly ahead of the only Northwestern group to ever make the tournament (2016-17).

How has this happened? Collins has modernized the offense, going with a lot of five-out sets that trigger with the center at the top of the arc. This allows for quick-hitting screens, slips, and off-ball cuts that are tough to defend with the center pulled out to the perimeter.

Collins has been able to take a perceived negative—Pete Nantz and Ryan Young rotating at center—and turn it into a positive, as both have been efficient players with a strong understanding of how to function in this offense. Their perimeter shooters have been lighting it up, so there isn't a solution as simple as "back off less threatening players and tag cutters."

I mentioned on the podcast that I'm anticipating Chris Holtmann and Ohio State will put some adjustments on film when they get a chance at revenge against the Wildcats on January 13th. Before that, though, they get Iowa, Michigan, and Illinois for the first time with this new look. The Hawkeyes are, well, not great candidates to draw up the blueprint for stopping these five-out sets; we'll see if Juwan Howard and Brad Underwood have more success than their colleagues have so far this year.

MSU's Halfcourt Defense... Sucks?

According to Synergy, Michigan State ranks in the bottom half of the county against every type of halfcourt defensive play and 295th(!!!) out of 335 teams in halfcourt defense. Here are the numbers and everything, I'm really not making this up:

Play Type	%Time	Poss	Points	PPP	%ile Rank	eFG%	%Score
P&R Ballhandler	19.6	126	94	0.746	46	37.9	34.1
Spot Up	17.4	112	100	0.893	45	50.0	34.8
Post-Up	9.6	62	66	1.065	6	52.0	54.8
Isolation	9.3	60	49	0.817	27	40.8	38.3
Hand Off	5.8	37	38	1.027	15	54.5	40.5
Off Screen	5.1	33	47	1.424	3	72.6	57.6
Putbacks	4.4	28	31	1.107	39	52.3	50.0
Cut	4.2	27	32	1.185	37	63.2	63.0
P&R Roll Man	3.4	22	22	1.000	39	47.4	45.5
Misc.	7.3	47	35	0.745	4	38.3	42.6
HALFCOURT	86.2	554	514	0.928	12	48.7	42.2

Their biggest struggles come against post-ups, hand-offs, and off-ball screens. I focused on post-up possessions from their loss to Wisconsin and what stood out was how many different players—many of them non-bigs—were victimized down low, as well as how easy it was to get the ball into the post and generate a shot. Wisconsin's first bucket of the game is drawn up for Aleem Ford (6'8/215) to post up Josh Langford (6'5/200):

Brad Davison gets a post bucket on Aaron Henry. Tyler Wahl gets a post bucket on Rocket Watts. Ford gets another on Malik Hall. Foster Loyer gets predictably destroyed by both Trevor Anderson and Jonathan Davis.

As for the actual bigs, Nate Reuvers had it going down the stretch, victimizing Joey Hauser once and Thomas Kithier twice:

The only rotation player who's long enough to contest post-ups routinely is Marcus Bingham, who's a beanpole. Here's Micah Potter going to work on him from the perimeter:

All this post success opens up the arc. When Langford sees Potter in the post on Kithier, he feigns a swipe at the ball, which only serves to give Travis Trice an open three:

I haven't even had a chance to go over how Watts and Henry have fallen off as a perimeter defenders this year, which isn't helping any of this. The most-missed player in the conference, without a doubt, is Xavier Tillman.

This Week's Slate

All times Eastern.

Tonight: Maryland at Wisconsin (7, FS1), MSU at Minnesota (8, BTN)
Tuesday: Purdue at Rutgers (7, FS1), Northwestern at Iowa (9, FS1)
Wednesday: Nebraska at Ohio State (6:30, BTN), PSU at Indiana (8:30, BTN)
Thursday: Minnesota at Wisconsin (4:30, BTN), Michigan at Maryland (7, ESPN2)
Saturday: Iowa at Rutgers (2, ESPN2), Purdue at Illinois (6, BTN), MSU at Nebraska (8, BTN)
Sunday: Wisconsin at PSU (noon, BTN), OSU at Minnesota (5:30, BTN), Northwestern at Michigan (7:30, BTN)