Current Standings (As Of Feb. 25th)

As we so boldly predicted when some projections had 12 Big Ten teams in the NCAA Tournament field, a couple of the teams towards the bottom are fading down the stretch. Minnesota needs a miraculous run to make the tourney, while Purdue has slid from being in the field last week to the eighth team out in the current Bracket Matrix. While Indiana has a stronger foothold after a 2-0 week, they travel to Purdue and Illinois this week—they could easily slide back into perilous territory.

On the other end of things, The Athletic's Eamonn Brennan has moved Michigan and Ohio State into tournament lock territory, joining Maryland, Michigan State, Penn State, and Iowa.

Home vs. road has been so important in the Big Ten—home teams have won 69.9% of their games, second-highest of any conference—that I wanted to take a look at which teams actually perform well when outside the comfy confines of their own arena.

Splitsville: Home vs. Neutral/Road

Isaiah Livers knows when a coach is out of his element [Campredon]

As usual, shoutout to Bart Torvik for providing customizable rankings. The goal here was to see the difference in overall ranking between each team's performance in away or neutral games and their home games. Since these offensive/defensive efficiencies and the resulting BARTHAG (Torvik's overall ranking) are adjusted for venue, there shouldn't necessarily be a split between a team's home and neutral/road numbers.

That's not the case in the Big Ten.

Only four teams are better in away/neutral games than at home even when adjusted for venue. Meanwhile, five teams drop over 40 spots in the overall rankings when they leave home. This is ordered by how well teams play away from home:

While this exercise put a dent in my Penn State skepticism, it reinforced the feeling that Michigan is primed for a run in at least one postseason tournament—the offense holds relatively steady and defense has actually been better away from Crisler. Is it a coincidence that these two have a couple of the weaker home crowds in the Big Ten? Reader, I'll leave that up to you.

Northwestern and Nebraska are the only other teams that improve when not at home. While the Huskers stay relatively level, the splits for the Wildcats are remarkable: while their defense remains exactly the same in adjusted efficiency, the offense is nearly ten full points per 100 possessions better away from Welsh-Ryan. This hasn't resulted in wins, so I wonder if this is mostly the effect of a dead home crowd making it difficult to stay in games mentally when the team is losing. Then again, you'd think that'd impact the defense as much if not more than the offense.

Anyway, let's talk teams that matter. Michigan State, to the surprise of nobody reading this site, doesn't do as well when not at the Breslin Center, but they're still a top-25 team away from home. The five that experience massive dropoffs: Ohio State (#1 at home to #45 on the road), Wisconsin (#13 to #61), Rutgers (#16 to #65), Purdue (#7 to #72), and Indiana (#29 to #85). In every case save one, the offense goes into a shell when not at home; the exception is Rutgers, which plays maniacal defense at home and merely decent defense away from the RAC.

Those five are teams you want to catch either at home down the stretch or in the Big Ten Tournament. Michigan gets some good and some bad this week; they play Wisconsin at home on Thursday before going to Ohio State, the #1 home team in the country(!), on Sunday.

Notable Games This Week

Tonight: Iowa at Michigan State (7 pm, ESPN 2)
Wednesday: Rutgers at Penn State (7, ESPN)
Thursday: Wisconsin at Michigan (7, ESPN2), Indiana at Purdue (7, FS1)
Saturday: Penn State at Iowa (noon, BTN), Michigan State at Maryland (8, ESPN)
Sunday: Indiana at Illinois (2, BTN), Michigan at Ohio State (4, CBS), Minnesota at Wisconsin (6:30, BTN)

[Hit THE JUMP for stock up/down and a WBB update, including a clean sweep of State]

Stock Up

stop this [Patrick Barron]

Michigan. Yes, still the #1 team with the #1 defense in the country in February. Consecutive road wins to extend the winning streak to five has changed the conversation from "might be on the bubble" to "can they get a protected seed?" They've put together impressive performances recently without Isaiah Livers in the lineup; now they have him back, which has shored up depth and given Juwan Howard a great deal more flexibility.

Franz Wagner is breaking out. David DeJulius is too. Jon Teske looks rejuvenated. The pieces are falling into place. Michigan could even push for a double-bye; they have a more navigable schedule than MSU and can notch a head-to-head win against Wisconsin to level them with the Badgers in the standings on Thursday.

Wisconsin. It's important that Michigan is doing the above because the Badgers must be stopped. They've won five of their last six games, including victories over Purdue and Rutgers last week, though it's important to note the only road win among those came at Nebraska. They're perhaps the most unlikely member of the five-way tie for second place.

They've gotten excellent production out of Brevin Pritzl and (gags) Brad Davison recently. Their big man duo of Nate Reuvers and Micah Potter hasn't been particularly consistent but one or the other is usually good for a strong game; Reuvers had 12 points and 6 boards against Purdue while Potter put up a goose-egg, then Potter led the team with 18 off the bench on nine shooting possessions while Reuvers struggled mightily inside the arc against Rutgers.

Michigan should be able to slow that momentum because of Road Wisconsin. Please let it be so; watching Davison celebrate on the court at Crisler would be a wretched sight.

Indiana. Congratulations to the Hoosiers, which picked up their first true road win of the season against a team other than Nebraska when they took care of Minnesota by 12 at the Barn on Wednesday. They'll need to keep that rolling; as mentioned above, they have two road games this week against teams that are at least good at home.

Sophomore forward Race Thompson has gone from the fringe of the rotation to getting 20+ minutes in three of the last four games, and he's scored at least eight points in each of those three games. His late emergence could help push the Hoosiers into the tournament.

Stock Down

PSU couldn't stay above the fray [Campredon]

Penn State. The Nittany Lions entered the week two games in the loss column clear of the competition for second place. They are now in a five-way tie for second place. Both of their losses came in games that looked quite winnable, falling at home to Illinois and away at Indiana.

They should get a boost soon, as sharpshooter and plus defender Myreon Jones has missed the last five games due to an illness. Without him, PSU leans too heavily into being the Lamar Stevens Show.

Purdue. After the home defeat to Michigan, the Boilermakers have lost four straight, sit at 14-14 overall, and are out of the field in the Bracket Matrix. While two of their last three games are at Mackey, neither are gimmes. Given Purdue's struggles away from home (4-10, #72 on Torvik in away/neutral games), it's difficult to see them amassing enough victories over the end of the regular season and, in particular, the conference tournament to make it back in the NCAA field.

Rutgers. Losers of five of their last seven, the Scarlet Knights have backslid into bubble territory, though they've probably done enough to get into the field. Brennan: 

Rutgers is just 2-5 this month, with the only wins coming at home over Illinois and Northwestern. (Really, that’s more like 1.5 wins. Sorry, Northwestern.) It’s not a fantastic look, especially for a résumé that has just one true road win all season, at Nebraska, and has gone 3-8 in 11 opportunities against the top quadrant. Yet two things are working in the Scarlet Knights’ favor: They did enough to get in solid single-digit-seed position before February arrived, and with Penn State (away), Maryland (home) and Purdue (away) as their last three regular-season games, they won’t pick up another bad loss — and could get at least one really high-quality win.

Of bigger concern may be what happens when RU gets into tournament play. Their defense hasn't traveled well, dropping from fourth(!) nationally at the RAC to 74th away from it.

New Tiers:

Last week's rankings or, I regret not putting Maryland alone on top while my brain screamed "frauuuuuuuuuuds" every time I looked at Penn State's KenPom Page:

Tier I: Maryland, Penn State
Tier II: Michigan, Michigan State, Rutgers
Tier III: Ohio State, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Purdue
Tier IV: Minnesota, Indiana
Tier V: Nebraska, Northwestern

This week's rankings rectify that situation—no team moves more than one tier, which is a good sign now that I'm updating these weekly. It's getting a little bunched in the middle, which feels right this season:

Tier I: Maryland
Tier II: Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State
Tier III: Iowa, Ohio State, Rutgers, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana
Tier IV: Purdue, Minnesota
Tier V: Nebraska, Northwestern

WBB Standings

I finally tracked down women's basketball's KenPom equivalent and grabbed a subscription to Her Hoop Stats, so I've added adjusted net rating (for all games only, I haven't figured out how to do conference-only) to the table. You may note the efficiency margins get more extreme in women's basketball. Michigan ranks 27th in WBB with a +24.6 adjusted EM, which would be good for sixth in MBB on KenPom.

Northwestern has moved up to a tie for first with Maryland. The Big Ten now has a 1-, 2-, and 3-seed (Maryland, Northwestern, and Iowa, respectively), Indiana's holding steady as a 5-seed, and Michigan would be the third team on the nine-seed line if not for a procedural issue that swapped them with the highest ten-seed (Marquette) for a reason beyond my knowledge.

Notable Games This Week

Tonight: Northwestern at Ohio State (6 pm), Purdue at Maryland (8)
Thursday: Nebraska at Indiana (6), Michigan at Penn State (7, BTN+)
Saturday: Ohio State at Purdue (4)
Sunday: Iowa at Rutgers (noon, BTN), Indiana at Michigan (noon, BTN+)

WBB Update: Sparty Swept, Huge Week Upcoming

get some [JD Scott]

Michigan took care of business on Sunday, jumping out to a first-half lead and holding on through a tough third quarter to beat Michigan State, 65-57, at the Breslin Center to complete their first season sweep of the Spartans since 2014-15.

Naz Hillmon looked all the way back from the shoulder injury that limited her last week, posting 26 points and 13 rebounds. Amy Dilk had a 15-7-7 line that included a clutch 11-for-14 mark at the free throw line. Michigan's only other double-digit scorer was promising reserve freshman big Izabel Varejao, who had an efficient ten points and seven boards in only 17 minutes.

The key was stifling defense. The Wolverines held MSU to a 19-for-61 (31%) shooting performance. After a 2-0 week, Michigan is in great position to make the NCAA Tournament for a third straight year. They head to last-place Penn State on Thursday before a Sunday matinee at Crisler against #22 Indiana before the conference tournament starts up. They won't get a top-four seed in the Big Ten Tournament but they can give the NCAA committee something to think about.