Weasel Weekly is Meet at Midfield’s weekly look at Big Ten men’s basketball presented by guest contributors Drew Hamm and Stefan Zonia.
You can find Drew on Twitter at his personal account, @drewhamm5, where he talks Philly sports, Wisconsin sports, and other nonsense. You can also subscribe to his Wisconsin basketball/football/volleyball newsletter @BadgersBallKnow where it’s all UW, all the time.
Stefan can be found on Twitter @iamstefanzonia where he discusses Michigan sports (college and pro), sports betting and entertains any and all internet absurdities.
We split up the conference in a fantasy draft format. Here’s a quick recap of who is covering who:
Stefan – Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Nebraska, Ohio State, Purdue and Rutgers
Drew – Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Penn State and Wisconsin
It was another week of chaos and destruction in the Big Ten. We have key injuries! We have no obvious hierarchy beyond the top team! Minnesota actually won a game! This is looking like an extremely six-bid league right now. It has parity in the worst possible way, in that most of the teams suck equally. Let’s dive in!
Illinois
KenPom rank: AdjEm 23, AdjO 40, AdjD 26
Results: (W) at Nebraska, 76-50; (W) vs. Michigan State, 75-66
The Week That Was: Since losing to Northwestern to fall to 0-3 in the Big Ten, the Illini have lost their starting point guard (who left the team for personal reasons) and rattled off three straight wins. Sure. Why not.
The team just looks completely different over the past 10 days, and I can’t help but think that playing Wisconsin really cured what ailed them. Brad Underwood’s new-look Illini destroyed Nebraska and pulled away late from MSU to go undefeated last week and they now appear to be back on the right track. It’s a damn shame, in my opinion. I liked them a lot more when they were dysfunctional and Matthew Mayer looked like he’d rather be on a weekend-long ayahuasca trip with Aaron Rodgers.
The Week Upcoming: By the time this is published, Illinois will have already beaten Minnesota at The Barn [Ed. note: Yes]. It also has a Thursday home tilt with Indiana, although Wednesday night’s women’s game between these two schools will be the far superior matchup.
Indiana
KenPom rank: AdjEm 28, AdjO 32, AdjD 44
Results: (L) at Penn State, 85-66; (W) vs. Wisconsin, 63-45
The Week That Was: The Hoosiers, much like the Illini, were reeling coming into this week sitting at 1-3 in the conference and riding a two-game losing streak. To make matters worse, IU got its doors blown off by Penn State on Wednesday and was staring at a 1-5 record in the Big Ten with a desperate Wisconsin coming to Assembly Hall.
The Badgers showed up on time for the game, but that was the last nice thing you could say about their Saturday matinee showing. Both teams stunk up the joint in the first half, but IU and Trayce Jackson-Davis turned on the gas (you’ll never take that from us, Brandon!) in the second half to win by 18. If you need a palate-cleansing win, you’d better hope the Badgers are coming up on your schedule, apparently.
The Week Upcoming: A tough road trip to Illinois (an ancient and vitriol-filled rivalry on message boards around the internet) awaits the Hoosiers on Thursday. Then they return home to play MSU on Sunday.
Iowa
KenPom rank: AdjEm 32, AdjO 6, AdjD 122
Results: (W) vs. Michigan, 93-84 (OT); (W) vs. Maryland, 81-67
The Week That Was: The Hawkeyes started off Big Ten play 0-3 and were barely above .500 overall, but they won two straight games two weeks ago and have pushed their winning streak to four games after back-to-back victories over Michigan (in OT) and Maryland.
Now, Iowa is 4-3 in conference and, like Illinois and Indiana, appears to be back on the right track again. Payton Sandfort – who started conference play by missing his first 19 shots (!!!) – scored 26 points against Michigan and 12 against the Terps while shooting 14 of 24 (6 of 13 from deep) on the week. We love a good redemption arc, even for a Hawkeye.
The Week Upcoming: Iowa’s schedule has shed a game with the postponement of Wednesday’s matchup against Northwestern, but the Hawkeyes still have a weekend date with Ohio State.
Maryland
KenPom rank: AdjEm 43, AdjO 69, AdjD 38
Results: (L) at Iowa, 81-67
The Week That Was: The Terps had a week off after beating Ohio State on Jan. 8, and they apparently used their time off to get much worse at basketball because they came back out to play Iowa on Sunday and lost by 14.
After starting the season 8-0, Maryland has gone 3-6 with wins coming against three equally talented teams in Saint Peter’s, UMBC and Ohio State. Was their undefeated start fraudulent, or will they get back to their winning ways soon? The spectre of Mark Turgeon is haunting this program.
The Week Upcoming: A home game against Michigan and then a road trip to play Purdue sounds like a 1-1 record at best. Don’t worry, Maryland, you play Wisconsin next week and then you’ll be able to turn your season around.
Michigan
KenPom rank: AdjEM 50, AdjO 35, AdjD 78
Results: (L; OT) @ Iowa 93-84; (W) vs Northwestern 85-78
The Week That Was: As I projected in this space last week, a pair of coin flip games was likely to yield a 1-1 week. Both games were played close throughout, with Michigan holding double-digit leads late in the second half of each game before their opponent went on a run. Against Northwestern, Michigan was able to come up with a couple of key stops and buckets to secure the win. Against Iowa, it was not.
The good news is two-fold. Firstly, Jett Howard exploded for 34 points against Iowa and showed off his lottery pick bonafides, even if he did appear to totally run out of gas with about 5:00 to go in the game. He’s one of the best bucket-getters I’ve seen – because of his tremendous length, there are very few defenders who can really bother him when he rises to shoot. He has elite scoring upside, even at the pro level. Now, if only he could play average defense.
The other story from this week was another big leap forward for Dug McDaniel, who averaged 15 points and six assists between the two games. He also knocked down five triples this week after having made only eight on the season to this point. That’s a huge development if he can continue to demonstrate he’s an outside threat. Right now, every opponent is double- and triple-teaming Hunter Dickinson in the post (to great results), and if McDaniel can punish that with outside shots, defenses will have to back off the big man.
The Week Upcoming: Michigan faces two of the bottom tier of the conference this week, at Maryland and home against Minnesota. If the Wolverines want to remain in the thick of the conference race, these are games they must win.
Michigan State
KenPom rank: AdjEM 42, AdjO 62, AdjD 40
Results: (W) @ Wisconsin 69-65; (L) @ Illinois 75-66
The Week That Was: I predicted a split here, and that’s what we saw. The game with Wisconsin was an abomination – some of the worst and most boring basketball you could ever watch. MSU, to its credit, did shoot 7 of 13 from three, but I watched that entire game and the two offenses looked totally stagnant. Michigan State pulled it out because it made the few open looks it got, while Wisconsin missed them horribly. Joey Hauser bounced back from his ugly game against Michigan with a 20-point effort.
The game in Champaign was a morbid affair for the Spartans. Not only did they go an astonishing 0 for 7 from three for the game (what is this, 1987?), but Malik Hall was injured once again. This has been an unfortunate pattern for Hall. The team is so much more dangerous when he’s in the game, but it’s unclear if he’ll be back at all this year. For a team seriously lacking offensive diversity, his loss is a huge blow to the outlook.
The Week Upcoming: MSU now faces a tough three-game stretch without Hall. It’s already lost to Purdue, with Rutgers up next before a trip to Indiana this week. It needs to win these next two to stay cemented in the conference race, but that feels like a tough ask.
Minnesota
KenPom rank: AdjEm 175, AdjO 196, AdjD 152
Results: (W) at Ohio State, 70-67
The Week That Was: Hahahahahahahahahaha
The Week Upcoming: The Gophers have already lost to Illinois, but they have two more games this week (vs. Purdue, at Michigan) to try to keep the momentum going. Will they? I hope not! I hope they go 1-19 in B1G play this year and Ohio State has to live with being the “1” in their record forever.
Nebraska
KenPom rank: AdjEM 94, AdjO 173, AdjD 47
Results: (L) vs Illinois 76-50; (L) @ Purdue 73-55
The Week That Was: There are very few interesting things to say about Nebraska. This offense is truly putrid and the Cornhuskers didn’t mount even a momentary fight in these games. They were just pummeled. They don’t have bright spots. There isn’t an interesting player to keep in mind for the future. This roster is desolate and bleak.
The Week Upcoming: I have hopefully now provided enough counter-jinx for them to topple Ohio State this week. They also travel to Penn State, where they will be obliterated.
Northwestern
KenPom rank: AdjEM 57, AdjO 130, AdjD 15
Results: (L) vs. Rutgers 65-62; (L) @ Michigan 85-78
The Week That Was: A tough pair of losses this week for the boys from Evanston. They lost a hard-fought defensive battle with Rutgers where they grabbed a late lead only to see Rutgers hit a go-ahead three with 15 seconds left. This was a really fun game – these active defenses gave each other fits.
Northwestern then traveled to Ann Arbor and produced one of its few bad defensive games all year. While the Cats did a great job slowing down Dickinson by barraging him with double and triple teams on every touch, that left them vulnerable in ball rotations and allowed Kobe Bufkin, Howard and McDaniel to absolutely torch them. Bufkin went 9 for 11 putting up an easy 20 points.
The Chase Audige Disaster Watch resumes after a brief hiatus. Against Rutgers, he went 4 of 12 from the floor – and that was his good shooting performance this week. He followed it up with a 3 for 14 effort against Michigan. The Purple Arsonist is who we thought he was.
The Week Upcoming: The Cats are in COVID hell, and their mid-week game with Iowa has been postponed. We’ll see if they can recover in time for a weekend bout with Wisconsin.
Ohio State
KenPom rank: AdjEM 17, AdjO 4, AdjD 94
Results: (L) vs. Minnesota 70-67; (L; OT) @ Rutgers 68-64
The Week That Was: I don’t know what to say. A week ago, I wondered whether Minnesota might actually be heading to an 0-20 conference record, only for it to go and beat Ohio State in Columbus. That’s as disqualifying a loss as you can imagine, for both post-season hopes AND for Chris Holtmann’s future with the program. The Buckeyes are in free fall, having dropped four straight in the conference.
They did take a tough Rutgers team to overtime on the road in a tough environment, but there is no overstating how embarrassing the home loss to the Gophers is. They were a 14-point favorite. The Buckeyes haven’t lost a home game by a wider margin relative to the spread since their football team got the ever-loving shit smacked out of them in the Horseshoe by Michigan.
There was some “controversy” about whether or not an end-of-game play was or was not a block (it was called a foul on Ohio State). However, you get what you deserve when you allow the league’s doormat to hang around with you down the stretch at home. Also, the Buckeyes already were gifted a win over Rutgers by officiating, so this is the universe balancing itself out.
The Week Upcoming: I would like to think that the schedule presents Ohio State with an opportunity to get back on track with games at Nebraska and at home against Iowa. But, after you lose a home game to a team as bad as the Gophers, all bets are off.
Penn State
KenPom rank: AdjEm 37, AdjO 22, AdjD 75
Results: (W) vs. Indiana, 85-66
The Week That Was: After two straight losses, PSU had only one game last week and needed a win to bounce back. Thankfully, Indiana came to the Bryce Jordan Center and pissed down its leg for 40 minutes as PSU won by 19. Seth Lundy and Andrew Funk BOTH went 7 of 12 from three and Jalen Pickett dropped eight dimes. The Nittany Lions shot 58.1 percent from deep as a team and scored 1.31 points per possession.
I love this team so much. Perfect offensive stats.
The Week Upcoming: The Nittany Lions play my alma mater, Wisconsin, on Tuesday. I still haven’t decided who I’m cheering for. PSU also plays Nebraska on Saturday. If it loses that one, I’ll be very sad.
Purdue
KenPom rank: AdjEM 5, AdjO 1, AdjD 29
Results: (W) vs Nebraska 73-55
The Week That Was: I’ll keep this section short. Purdue pummeled an abject Nebraska team. Fletcher Loyer continued to play an excellent second fiddle to Zach Edey. There is nothing to glean from this. Purdue is going to win the B1G, the only question is by how many games.
The Week Upcoming: Purdue gets its second three-game week in three weeks, for some reason. They traveled to Breslin on Monday night and survived with a late Edey bucket. Next up is a trip to Minnesota and a home bout with Maryland. This time next week, the Boilermakers will be 7-1 in the conference.
Rutgers
KenPom rank: AdjEM 14, AdjO 117, AdjD 2
Results: (W) @ Northwestern 65-62; (W; OT) vs. Ohio State 68-64
The Week That Was: Rutgers put the bad Iowa loss behind it and took care of business against two decent teams. The Scarlet Knights didn’t look super impressive in either game, but they continue to be incredibly adept at forcing opponents into their game.
Rather than talk about the specifics of two generic Rutgers wins, I would like to just spotlight Cam Spencer. The Loyola (MD) transfer has been playing terrific lately. He averaged 22 points in Rutgers’ two wins this week and gives the Knights an offensive dynamic that they have been seeking. When he’s cooking, Rutgers is tough to beat.
The Week Upcoming: Rutgers has only one game, traveling to MSU mid-week. The Spartans will be on short rest as they also had an early week game. This is a big opportunity for Rutgers to pick up a big road win against a team in its tier of the conference.
Wisconsin
KenPom rank: AdjEm 67, AdjO 129, AdjD 24
Results: (L) vs. Michigan State, 69-65; (L) at Indiana, 63-45
The Week That Was: The Badgers have lost three in a row. Coincidentally, star forward Tyler Wahl has not played in the past three games due to a “lower body” injury. I don’t know if we’ll ever find a correlation there.
If UW had Wahl against Michigan State, it probably would’ve won – but the game against IU was so disgusting for the Badgers that I don’t know if even prime Brad Davison could’ve tripped up the Hoosiers.
The Week Upcoming: A home matchup with PSU and a road contest against Northwestern would have originally been considered an “easier” week for the Badgers, but both teams are much better than expected and if Wahl is still out I could easily see UW go 0-2.