3 top 20 teams go down, including Ohio State
It's tough to win on the road anywhere in college basketball these days. While OSU losing at Maryland is no great shame (though it does drop them to 1-3 in the B1G), Rutgers just beat Penn State at the RAC by double digits, and BC held off a second half Virginia comeback to win by 7.
Rutgers might be a tournament team. What is the world coming to?
January 7th, 2020 at 9:13 PM ^
The last 4 min of the OSU Maryland game was one of the weirdest/creepiest broadcasts I’ve ever seen. The kid didn’t even slip that badly and ESPN decides to stalk him and his texts rather than focus on the game.
Wayyyy OD especially when Dakich tells you it’s getting creepy. Props to the kid tho, he got to talk to Molly McGrath and play it off in a suave manner. Dude is gonna be a college basketball meme legend from here on out lol.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:16 PM ^
That's Dakich for ya, he spent over 5 minutes talking about that poor kid. I told my wife that they really needed to get the hell over it, wasn't even something funny. They get her to run down there with 12 seconds left for an interview.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:41 PM ^
Seriously. That level of cringe was just too much for me. They even showed her sprint down the sidelines so she could interview the guy.
January 7th, 2020 at 11:21 PM ^
What happened?
January 8th, 2020 at 7:11 AM ^
Yeah I'm so confused.
January 8th, 2020 at 9:35 AM ^
Gonna Google it right now.
Using just the information above, I have no idea what could have transpired in the last four minutes of that game.
January 8th, 2020 at 10:51 AM ^
Staff member in charge of wiping the wet floor (take note Bahamas!) took a minor fall while racing on the court in between plays. He took it in stride and was obviously laughing about it when he got back to the sideline, especially after receiving cheers from the Maryland student section. Molly McGrath immediately grabbed him for a "breaking story" interview. Just very weird for ESPN to focus on this non-event.
January 7th, 2020 at 11:13 PM ^
So the only thing ESPN hasn't fucked up, the live events, they're fucking up now too?
January 7th, 2020 at 9:13 PM ^
What was the deal with the Maryland kid? Missed that one...
January 7th, 2020 at 9:16 PM ^
We dodged a bullet when DJ Carton chose Ohio St over Michigan.
Kid can't play.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:22 PM ^
bad take. like horrendously bad
January 7th, 2020 at 9:45 PM ^
He’s a freshman and he will get better. Was he a little overrated ya mayb but he’ll be there for another year. Regardless tho fuck ohio state!
January 7th, 2020 at 9:17 PM ^
Bigten is a bloodbath this year. There will be a ton of teams with 10-10 records.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:40 PM ^
And most of them will make the NCAA Tournament.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:45 PM ^
Home games are all must wins
January 7th, 2020 at 9:48 PM ^
The good news is that two of our road games are Nebraska and Northwestern, the two teams not in the top 50, so we have a good chance to pick those up.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:45 PM ^
Indiana is #43 on KenPom, high enough for tourney consideration.
That’s the 12th best KenPom ranking in the B1G.
January 8th, 2020 at 12:13 AM ^
Minn is at 41, IU is 44 in the net and Purdue is 49, those are probably the bubble teams, figure the other 9 in front of them are in for now, but the league is going to beat up on each other, maybe Iowa is on the bubble now!
January 7th, 2020 at 9:19 PM ^
I'm probably guilty of recency bias here, but has a conference ever been this deep before? The B1G is simply insane this year.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:23 PM ^
I honestly dont think so. We've had 8-9 teams before but not 12.
Saw you said "a" conference. The ACC when it expanded has had a good 10-11 teams before.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:48 PM ^
8 teams in KenPom's top 24 and 12 in his top 43 just seems unprecedented. The next closest conference right now is the Big East with 6 in the top 43.
Edit: I got curious, so I looked through the last 18 years of ratings on KenPom's website. The most any conference had in the top 43 at the end of the year was the Big East in 2011 when they had 10 in the top 31 and 11 in the top 41. 7 of those 10 teams are no longer in the Big East, although UConn will return next year.
The ACC had 10 in 2018 (4 were in the top 24—last year they had 6 in the top 24 and 9 in the top 43).
This is the strongest the B1G has been since 2013, when they had 8 finish in the top 43 and 6 in the top 24.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:34 PM ^
Is it a product of the conference being good or just everyone being bad or worse than expected in MSUs case?
January 7th, 2020 at 10:20 PM ^
The Big East in 1985 was pretty damn tough.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:29 PM ^
Rutgers is ahead of UNC on KenPom by 16 spots.
Who saw that coming?
January 7th, 2020 at 10:59 PM ^
With the win, Rutgers is now 24 spots ahead of UNC. Crazy.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:32 PM ^
Pikiell (sp) impressed me last year; though i thought he unexpectedly lost a guy to the portal, so i wasn't much a believer for this year...
Definitely a guy who is a much better coach than i thought he was.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:38 PM ^
And Nebraska is up 12 on Iowa in the first half (under 8 minutes).
January 7th, 2020 at 9:42 PM ^
If Michigan can finish 10-10 in conference that would be huge.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:46 PM ^
What sort of blackmail do you have on the mods to have survived 10 1/2 years of continual concern trolling?
January 7th, 2020 at 9:47 PM ^
Big Ten conference looks brutal. Do you disagree? Also Livers is hurt and there doesn’t seem to be a time table for when he might return.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:50 PM ^
Just imagine if points were functioning - back to Bolivia (-100K) for him
January 7th, 2020 at 9:52 PM ^
So just insults and no one actually answering the question I posed? Sounds about right.
January 7th, 2020 at 9:53 PM ^
I don’t think Ty is off base here. With Livers possibly out a while, we could easily lose 3 of the next 4 and be 2-5 in the conference. It’s tough to come back from that, especially with 4 games remaining against MSU, Maryland, and OSU.
January 7th, 2020 at 10:04 PM ^
The home court officiating in the B1G is fucking atrocious. Except at Crisler. Then it is "fair".
January 7th, 2020 at 10:10 PM ^
Never seen a year like this where home teams dominate. All of college basketball, but especially the Big 10. Every home game from here on out is huge. Don’t care if it’s NW/Rutgers/MSU, can’t lose any home games. Try to steal 3-4 road games. The team who does that will win this conference or be top 3.
January 7th, 2020 at 10:12 PM ^
Big Ten is going to slaughter itself this year. MSU probably still takes the conference title but they’ll undoubtedly trip up on at least a few nights.
January 7th, 2020 at 10:15 PM ^
MSU is 4-0, but 3 home games and at NW. Good start for them, but lets see how they do on the road vs. all but NW and Neb.
January 7th, 2020 at 10:27 PM ^
Given that Nebraska is giving Iowa a very tough game at home (up 1 with 12 minutes left in the game).....I am not sure we should knock Nebraska off that list.
January 7th, 2020 at 10:26 PM ^
At some point, 3 or 4 teams will need to separate themselves because the media will hone in on that and itll become a conference without any lead horses for March. It's ok if 7-9 other teams are 10-10 but you need several to separate themselves from the pack.
January 7th, 2020 at 10:13 PM ^
OSU has lost 3 in a row since being ranked #2
lmao
January 7th, 2020 at 10:19 PM ^
We uhhh, we ain't been much better.
January 7th, 2020 at 10:23 PM ^
The best thing for the bigten was its out of conference wins. A lot of times if you dont win a few of those marquee games, and then the conference is a bloodbath like it is, the media starts to slant it as a mediocre conference with no clear frontrunners. Perception coming into league play was it was already a good conference, now it's being seen as elite. My only question is, does it have that dominant team to make a serious run for a title?
January 7th, 2020 at 10:27 PM ^
To answer your last question...probably not (other than a hot and rolling Sparty ugh). BUT. The current landscspe in college bball doesn't have a dominant team whatsoever so it's truly a wide open field come tourney time/mid-March.
January 7th, 2020 at 10:26 PM ^
Looks like Creighton is in a position to pull off a home win against #16 Villanova. That would be a good Strength of Schedule win for UM.
January 7th, 2020 at 10:29 PM ^
FUCK OHIO
January 8th, 2020 at 7:36 AM ^
Ohio St. has impressive OOC wins but now sit 1-3 in the conference. The B1G will be about survival this season
January 8th, 2020 at 9:46 AM ^
They really aren't upsets. I hope that doesn't upset anyone.
January 8th, 2020 at 9:47 AM ^
As a couple of others have mentioned atrocious homecooking officiating on most nights isn't exactly conducive to road teams winning many games. Of course it doesn't seem like UM gets homecooking at Crisler for some reason