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
A week after Michigan shattered Stefan’s brain, it’s now Drew who has suffered irrevocable ego death. The Badgers stink, folks! Elsewhere, Purdue lost the in-state rivalry, PSU face-planted against Nebraska, and six teams are tied for third place. Read below as our OTHER resident Weasel explores the depths of despair.
Illinois
KenPom rank: AdjEm 25, AdjO 50, AdjD 18
Results: (W) vs. Nebraska, 72-56; (L) at Iowa, 81-79
The Week That Was: Yeah, ok, whatever, the Illini split their games last week. We’re here to talk about The Great Orange Krush Embarrassment of 2023. Every season, Illinois’ student section, the Orange Krush, does a road trip to a conference game. This year they got absolutely owned by the Iowa athletic department and Gary Barta – which was previously considered impossible.
Iowa revoked the Orange Krush’s tickets after they figured out the student group was pretending to be a part of the Boys & Girls Club. One of the leaders of the Orange Krush then gave an interview, on TV in front of God and everyone, in which he noted that they had only said they were a boys and girls club, not the Boys & Girls Club. That’s technically correct – the best kind of correct.
They were eventually embarrassed into issuing a full apology, like a bunch of losers, so it makes sense that their basketball team also lost to Iowa.
The Week Upcoming: The Illini have a full week to lick their wounds before returning to the court against Rutgers in front of the most cowardly and pathetic student section in America.
Indiana
KenPom rank: AdjEm 20, AdjO 18, AdjD 41
Results: (L) at Maryland, 66-55; (W) vs. Purdue, 79-74
The Week That Was: The Biggest Week in Indiana Basketball History started off… poorly. Ahead of their weekend blood feud with Purdue, the Hoosiers went on the road and got smacked by Maryland. That must have made them angry because they returned home and knocked off their archrivals, and the nation’s top-ranked team, Purdue.
As a neutral observer, I will gladly take another two matchups between Trayce Jackson-Davis and Zach “Just Big” Edey.
The Week Upcoming: A home game against Rutgers and a road trip to Michigan is a tricky week, but nothing too daunting… I think.
Iowa
KenPom rank: AdjEm 32, AdjO 2, AdjD 147
Results: (W) vs. Northwestern, 86-70; (W) vs. Illinois, 81-79
The Week That Was: The Hawkeyes continued their extremely strange and streaky season by sweeping the state of Illinois last week. Iowa is now on a three-game winning streak, after losing two in a row, after winning four in a row, after losing three in a row. Tony Perkins scored 32 points against the Illini while making 15 of 16 free throws. That’s pretty impressive!
The Week Upcoming: Iowa’s three-game winning streak did all come in the comfy confines of Carver-Hawkeye Arena, and now it hits the road for two games this week. At Purdue is almost assuredly a loss, and at Minnesota is almost assuredly a win, but the Gophers always seem to steal at least one game a year at The Barn.
Maryland
KenPom rank: AdjEm 23, AdjO 35, AdjD 24
Results: (W) vs. Indiana, 66-55; (W) at Minnesota, 81-46
The Week That Was: The Terps have won four in a row after beating IU and Minnesota last week. Now, only the win over Indiana is anything to write home about (the other three were Wisconsin, Nebraska and the aforementioned Gophers) but bad/non-tourney teams might lose one of those games. Maryland didn’t, and is now looking good for an NCAA Tournament bid.
The Week Upcoming: A road trip to East Lansing should be tough, as should a home showdown with regional rival Penn State. If the Terps win both, they will suddenly be sitting pretty for a double-bye in the Big Ten Tournament.
Michigan
KenPom rank: AdjEM 57, AdjO 49, AdjD 67
Results: (W) @ Northwestern 68-51; (W) vs Ohio State 77-69
The Week That Was: Naturally, after excoriating the program in this space a week ago, they go out and get two strong wins. I’m not saying either Northwestern or Ohio State are good (they are not), but the WAY Michigan beat the two teams was a remarkable departure from what they had shown so far this season.
The Wolverines ratcheted up the defense to levels they had not previously seemed capable of. It’s one thing to clamp Northwestern, who is truly moribund on offense; but they also clamped Ohio State quite well throughout that game. Even the late stretch in which OSU had offensive success was mostly Bruce Thornton playing hero ball and hitting an array of difficult mid-range shots that the defense was clearly trying to force him to take.
I’ve written about Kobe Bufkin here quite a bit this year and his growth continues unabated. In the two games this week he averaged 14 points, 10 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 1.5 steals and a block (while turning the ball over just once per game). He’s easily Michigan’s best defender, and he put Chase Audige (4 for 16) and Brice Sensabaugh (4 for 14) in the torture chamber this week. He has the ability to become a legitimate superstar down the road.
Now, both of these wins come against teams with deep flaws – Northwestern cannot play offense and Ohio State is coached by Chris Holtmann – so I will hold off on drawing any conclusions about turning corners. If they post another 2-0 week this week then we can have that discussion, but don’t hold your breath.
The Week Upcoming: Michigan has a home game against Nebraska (which just owned Penn State). This is a super trap game as the Huskers have caught several teams napping, and I’d guess this will be agonizingly close. Michigan finishes its three-game home stand with IU on the weekend. Hunter Dickinson vs. TJD has been a fun matchup in years past and should be again as a clash of very different play styles.
Michigan State
KenPom rank: AdjEM 43, AdjO 70, AdjD 32
Results: (L) @ Rutgers 61-55
The Week That Was: The Spartans went 0-1 this week, but still managed to move up slightly in the computer rankings because they didn’t lose as badly as expected.
This game was ugly as hell. That’s not unexpected from a Rutgers/MSU game but still, MSU shot 4 of 21 (19 percent) from three, turned the ball over 14 times (in a low possession game), and committed 23 fouls leading to 34 Rutgers free throw attempts. Gross.
MSU has now lost five of its last seven and dropped to 6-6 in conference play. The good news is that, even by the dogshit standards of the Big Ten, this team has an easy remaining schedule. It plays four games against the current bottom three (Minnesota, Nebraska, and Ohio State x2), so the Spartans should at the very least make it to 10-10. Even at 18-13, they should (meaning that they likely will, not that they deserve to) make the tournament as a double-digit seed.
The bad news is that this team sucks, and in many ways appears to be getting worse. The fans have openly turned on the Sissoko/Kohler center tandem, and even the Leprechaun of East Lansing himself is drawing some flak for his roster construction.
The Week Upcoming: MSU has a pretty important week in front of it. It hosts Maryland and travels to Columbus in a pair of games Barttorvik pegs to be within three points. Both are winnable games, and if MSU gets both, it’ll re-emerge as a contender for a Big Ten Tournament double bye. A split keeps it on course for 10-10. Drop both, and things will start to get very tense in East Lansing when talking about tournament bids.
Minnesota
KenPom rank: AdjEm 222, AdjO 282, AdjD 146
Results: (L) at Rutgers, 90-55; (L) vs. Maryland, 81-46
The Week That Was: Dawson Garcia continues to miss games and the Gophers are getting their doors blown off by increasingly embarrassing totals. In fact, Minnesota lost both of their games last week by exactly 35 points. We love the symmetry! It’s also extremely important to note that the “1” in Minnesota’s “1-11 Big Ten record” is still a road win over Ohio State.
The Week Upcoming: A home game against Iowa on Sunday is all that’s on Minnesota’s schedule this week due to their sickening program contracting COVID and forcing Tuesday’s game against Illinois to be postponed. There will probably be more Hawkeyes fans than Gophers fans at The Barn.
Nebraska
KenPom rank: AdjEM 97, AdjO 190, AdjD 47
Results: (L) @ Illinois 72-56; (W) vs Penn State 72-63
The Week That Was: Nebraska is a true chaos team. It’s almost always really bad, and you should never expect much (the Cornhuskers were obliterated again this week in Champaign). But, every once in a while, Nebraska explodes (in a good way!) and trashes a team you assumed would bury them. The Cornhuskers did that again this week, wrecking Penn State in Lincoln.
They forced Penn State into a ridiculous shot distribution, even for a three-point-oriented team like the Nittany Lions – PSU attempted 22 two-pointers and 38(!) threes. As such, it drew only six fouls the whole game (and went 1-4 on free throws). Penn State has good enough shooters that it can usually just flamethrower you in a game like this, but it made only an average number of them here, shooting 14 of 38 (37 percent).
That was not enough to overcome the brilliance of Keisei Tominaga in this one. Though Tominaga has been streaky this year, he’s been more good than bad lately and he went ballistic here, scoring 30 points on 12-of-18 shooting (5 of 10 from three). Penn State had no answers for him, as he carried the Huskers to a comfortable win in a game they never trailed.
The Week Upcoming: Nebraska enters Weasel Week as it travels to Ann Arbor and then hosts Wisconsin. Can Keisei keep it going? Probably not. Maybe! Probably not, though. Maybe? No.
Northwestern
KenPom rank: AdjEM 58, AdjO 97, AdjD 34
Results: (L) @ Iowa 86-70; (L) vs Michigan 68-51; (W) @ Wisconsin 54-52
The Week That Was: I said exactly ONE (1) nice thing about Audige last week and he went and doubled down on his disaster artist nonsense again. He led the Wildcats in shots this week with 48 but made just an abysmal 33 percent of them.
His week/season/career was perfectly encapsulated by one possession against Michigan. He was 0 for 6 from the floor already, bricked a three so badly it came right back to him, fired away and missed again. This time, the ball caromed to another teammate and Northwestern reset, ran its offensive set and yielded another missed Audige runner in the lane. If I had one wish for you, dear Reader, it would be to have the sheer irrepressible confidence that Audige has. This man will not be deterred by anything in his past. He KNOWS the next one is going in. Even when it never, ever does.
This team has now completed a six-games-in-two-weeks stretch and looks gassed. The wheels have started to come off for the Cats as they enter the toughest part of their schedule, with six of their remaining eight games coming against teams in the top half of the conference.
The Week Upcoming: The Cats return to a normal two-game week and travel to Columbus before hosting Purdue. The game against OSU is basically a must-win, as despite being tied for second place in the conference just a week ago, it feels like Northwestern’s tournament hopes are fading rapidly.
Ohio State
KenPom rank: AdjEM 35, AdjO 15, AdjD 88
Results: (L) vs Wisconsin 65-60; (L) @ Michigan 77-69
The Week That Was: I have always been an evangelist when it comes to the advanced stats models for quantifying college basketball teams. I have dozens of Kenpom and Barttorvik tabs open on my browser at all times.
This Buckeye team may actually break my brain. They’re now 11-12 on the season, having lost nine of their last 10 games, including a loss to Nebraska and a HOME loss to Minnesota. Yet, they’re still ranked No. 35 in Kenpom and No. 43 in Barttorvik.
And yet, this team STINKS. Their best win was the game the refs unjustly stole in their favor at home against Rutgers. I know the computers cannot quantify that it was a ref error, but it was a two-point home win against Rutgers all the same. There is no plausible way that a team with this résumé belongs in the top 40 of any ranking. Holtmann has broken the computers.
In a just world, he would be fired. But, AD Gene Smith just inked him to an extension last offseason, so it seems he’s not going anywhere… and now the word out of Columbus is that the team has re-voted on their captains with eight games left in the season. That’s not a great sign!
The Week Upcoming: OSU returns to Columbus to host Northwestern and MSU – two teams that have also been struggling lately. The Buckeyes basically have to win both, as their schedule gets far less friendly in the weeks to come.
Penn State
KenPom rank: AdjEm 52, AdjO 25, AdjD 98
Results: (L) at Purdue, 80-60; (L) at Nebraska, 72-63
The Week That Was: This was a very disappointing road trip for the Nittany Lions, who are now squarely on The Bubble for March. They allowed Purdue’s Mason Gillis to make 9 of 12 three-pointers in just 25 minutes, which is just a mind-boggling shooting performance. I will never give up on my State College Shooters (45 percent of all their points, the most in the nation, come from threes!) but I am a little worried about them.
The Week Upcoming: Oh, a home game against Wisconsin coming up? That’s a slump-buster if ever there was one. The Nittany Lions also travel to Maryland on Saturday, which will be a far stiffer test.
Purdue
KenPom rank: AdjEM 4, AdjO 1, AdjD 21
Results: (W) vs Penn State 80-60; (L) @ Indiana 79-74
The Week That Was: Purdue avoided falling victim to a look-ahead game by eviscerating Penn State. However, it came out truly flat in the rivalry game in Bloomington and suffered for it. Edey got in unusual early foul trouble, and the Boilermakers looked lost without him, falling behind 21-10 early.
They did continue to scrap and claw back, cutting the deficit to one point with two minutes to play, but they could not complete the comeback. Despite the early foul trouble, Edey still finished with an astonishing 33 points and 18 rebounds, going 15 of 19 from the floor. Unfortunately for him, his supporting cast brought very little to the table in support of his efforts. People who write off Edey as “just big” are idiots. This isn’t Tacko Fall. This dude can play. [Ed. Note: EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER NOISE]
Despite the loss, the Boilermakers remain two games free of second-place Rutgers and are still a mortal lock to win the conference. They’re projected to go 16-4 in the conference by Barttorvik and are as sure a thing for a one-seed in the tournament as there is.
The Week Upcoming: Purdue hosts Iowa and then travels to Evanston this week. The mid-week game with the surging Hawkeyes should be a fun one (though, even there, Torvik favors Purdue by almost 12).
Rutgers
KenPom rank: AdjEM 18, AdjO 118, AdjD 2
Results: (W) vs. Minnesota 90-55; (W) vs Michigan State 61-55
The Week That Was: It was another week of savage defense from the Scarlet Knights. The game against Minnesota was a war crime and the national guard should have been called at halftime. When Rutgers makes 50 percent from three, I don’t think there is a single team in the country that can beat it.
Rutgers won a much more interesting rock fight with MSU on Sunday. The Knights made only 3 of 16 from three (18.8 percent, that’s more like it) which was just 0.2 percent off of what MSU shot. This game was close throughout, with each team taking turns with the lead until Rutgers finally choked the life out of the game by holding MSU scoreless for five minutes in the latter stages of the game.
The Week Upcoming: It’s a huge week for Rutgers as it travels to Indiana and Illinois. The Scarlet Knights are alone in second place at the moment, but they’ll have to earn the right to stay there.
Wisconsin
KenPom rank: AdjEm 67, AdjO 152, AdjD 23
Results: (W) at Ohio State, 65-60; (L) vs. Northwestern, 54-52
The Week That Was: This team fucking stinks! They haven’t scored 70 points in the 2023 calendar year and have only done it once in Big Ten play (against Iowa’s pathetic defense, in a game that went into OT). They’re 5-7 in the conference and 3-7 in their last 10 games. They only beat Ohio State, maybe the worst major conference team in the nation, by five points before getting swept by Northwestern for the first time since 1995-96.
They have no one who can create their own shot. They never get to the free-throw line, which is actually probably a good thing because they are one of the worst free-throw shooting teams in the nation. They have, on any given night, a maximum of five Big Ten-caliber rotation players, and if one of them is having an “off” night? It’s even uglier than you can imagine.
Get a look at this fucking quote on free-throw shooting from senior forward Tyler Wahl:
“I feel like at this point it doesn’t matter,” Wahl said. “Everyone thinks we’re going to miss it so we can just go up there, shoot it without any worries, and we’ll be good.”
I’m having an incident.
The Week Upcoming: “I feel like at this point it doesn’t matter.”