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
We’ve reached the time of year when basically every Big Ten fanbase except Purdue’s hates their team. The Boilermakers are currently ranked No. 1 in the country, and that’s all for the Big Ten’s presence in the Top 25. Michigan wants to fire its coach and burn the program to the ground – Michigan is also tied for second in the conference. This is all to be expected.
Illinois
KenPom rank: AdjEm 29, AdjO 48, AdjD 29
Results: (W) at Minnesota, 78-60; (L) vs. Indiana, 80-65
The Week That Was: No matter who you were cheering for in the Illinois/Indiana game last weekend, I think we can ALL agree that your point of view on whether or not the two teams are “real rivals” is, and always will be, the correct one. Congratulations to you!
Is this Illini team good? Are they terrible? No one knows. They could make the Elite Eight just as easily as they could lose in a First Four game.
The Week Upcoming: Illinois hosts Ohio State and then travels to Wisconsin on Saturday. I don’t particularly like either of these games for this team, but that almost assuredly means it’ll win them both.
Indiana
KenPom rank: AdjEm 21, AdjO 20, AdjD 42
Results: (W) at Illinois, 80-65; (W) vs. Michigan State, 82-69
The Week That Was: Trayce Jackson-Davis is an absolute menace on both ends of the court. He had 31 points, 15 rebounds, four assists and five blocks against MSU, shortly after putting up 36 points, nine rebounds, five assists and three blocks against the Illini. I don’t know where/how he fits in the NBA, but I do know he’s an excellent college player who I will enjoy watching for the rest of the season.
The Week Upcoming: At Minnesota (lmao) and home against Ohio State this week should push IU’s winning streak to five games before Purdue Week starts. I’m sure there will be appropriate and rational discourse leading up to that game.
Iowa
KenPom rank: AdjEm 35, AdjO 5, AdjD 145
Results: (L) at Ohio State, 93-77
The Week That Was: After pulling themselves off the mat after an 0-3 Big Ten start, the Hawkeyes went into their bye week on a four-game winning streak and proceeded to get waxed by Ohio State on Saturday. They played well on offense, but as you may have guessed, their defense gave up 1.31 points per possession and let Brice Sensabaugh do whatever he wanted. ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Program Where This Regularly Happens.
The Week Upcoming: Iowa has a road trip to Breslin on Thursday and then a home tilt with Rutgers. Can Iowa’s offense crack the Scarlet Knights’ defense more than RU’s offense can score on Iowa’s defense? Watch as a stoppable force meets a movable object in Iowa City this weekend.
Maryland
KenPom rank: AdjEm 39, AdjO 70, AdjD 31
Results: (W) vs. Michigan, 64-58; (L) at Purdue, 58-55
The Week That Was: The Terps are on the win at home/lose on the road seesaw that average teams often find themselves riding during Big Ten play. The only true road game they’ve won this year is against Louisville, a team currently rated below Chicago State on KenPom. To be fair to Maryland, it did give Purdue a bit of a scare, although PU’s minimum win probability was still 85.3 percent.
The Week Upcoming: Maryland has three straight home games coming up (followed by a road game against awful-ass Minnesota) and a chance to rack up some wins to get back in the at-large NCAA Tournament discussion. Wisconsin and Nebraska come to College Park this week – each of which may be must-win games.
Michigan
KenPom rank: AdjEM 59, AdjO 57, AdjD 77
Results: (L) @ Maryland 64-58; (W) vs Minnesota 60-56
The Week That Was: How bad is the Big Ten? Well, Michigan is absolutely terrible. It’s also presently tied for second place in the standings. This spot in the standings is fraudulent. Michigan has yet to play Purdue, Rutgers, Ohio State, Illinois or Indiana – not that any of those teams, save for Purdue, are exceptional. But, with the way Michigan is playing right now, there aren’t many teams who WOULDN’T give the Wolverines trouble.
Michigan’s offense, which had actually been pretty good so far this year, disappeared this week. It was disorganized, disinterested and in disarray at Maryland.
The win this week somehow felt much worse than that loss at Maryland. Michigan trailed Minnesota by 10 midway through the first half, then Jett Howard suffered a nasty ankle injury (no structural damage, but it would surprise me if he doesn’t miss a few games).
Michigan did eventually hit enough shots to regain control of the game, but it allowed Minnesota to hang around til the end. This was a win nobody feels good about, and it seems like the wheels are in the process of coming off completely for U-M. Fans have turned on Juwan Howard and the direction of the program, and the message boards are replete with threads calling for his job. This is, again, the Big Ten’s No. 2 team.
The Week Upcoming: Michigan faces Purdue at home – and likely without Jett Howard. It should lose by about 20 points, which means it will absolutely find a way to either win or lose in a way that hurts far worse than a blowout.
The Wolverines then travel to Penn State for a rematch of what was a contentious win for Michigan in Ann Arbor a few weeks ago. It’s very easy to see this team going 0-2 this week and dropping back to the mid/low-tier of the standings where they belong.
Michigan State
KenPom rank: AdjEM 38, AdjO 55, AdjD 41
Results: (L) vs Purdue 64-63; (W) vs Rutgers 70-57; (L) @ Indiana 82-69
The Week That Was: What a weird week this was. MSU played Purdue to the wire in a game that boiled down to a 1-on-1 between Zach Edey (32 points) and Tyson Walker (30 points). Edey hit an easy bucket from the post with time ticking down that ultimately decided the game.
The Spartans rallied and thumped Rutgers. Scoring 70 on Rutgers is really hard to do – only Temple and Iowa have reached that mark (and both defeated our beloved Knights). The surprising result here was that Jaxon Kohler had 12 points and 11 boards off the bench after being pretty much invisible so far this year. I’m not sure where that came from, but with Malik Hall out indefinitely, the Spartans need it.
And then, naturally, they came crashing back to earth at Assembly Hall. MSU started out hot from the floor but quickly cooled off as IU ran away with the game in the second half. MSU had no answers for TJD and got very little beyond a 22-point game from Joey Hauser.
The Week Upcoming: MSU gets Iowa at home followed by a rematch with Purdue Pete in West Lafayette. The Spartans could really use that win at Purdue as this resume is getting loss-heavy and there aren’t many big wins to be had in the conference.
Minnesota
KenPom rank: AdjEm 187, AdjO 261, AdjD 111
Results: (L) vs. Illinois 78-60; (L) vs. Purdue, 61-39; (L) at Michigan, 60-56
The Week That Was: Three Gophers games to look up stats for? No thank you. Pass.
The Week Upcoming: Minnesota gets Indiana at home, and if it loses by single digits, it counts as a win on their official record. Few realize this. Then the Gophers head to Evanston, where Northwestern’s defense will slowly and cruelly choke the life out of their destitute offense.
Nebraska
KenPom rank: AdjEM 93, AdjO 187, AdjD 36
Results: (W) vs Ohio State 63-60; (L) @ Penn State 76-65
The Week That Was: Last week in this space, I concluded my bashing of Nebraska by writing “I have hopefully not provided enough counter-jinx for them to topple Ohio State” and OH BABY DID I EVER.
This game was mostly a snoozefest. Neither team could make shots, especially in the first half (which ended 22-21). The second half was less dreadful (but still not good). Nebraska built up a six-point lead that felt like it might as well have been 60. OSU’s losing streak notwithstanding, this was a pretty stunning upset.
In true Nebraska fashion, it seized the momentum of that big upset and promptly flushed it down the toilet. The Cornhuskers never led against Penn State and looked like a team just going through the motions. Derrick Walker had his best game of the year (20 points), but other than that, there was nothing worth mentioning about this Nebraska performance.
The Week Upcoming: Nebraska hosts Northwestern and then travels to Maryland this week. I cannot emphasize this enough: you should not watch these basketball games.
Northwestern
KenPom rank: AdjEM 51, AdjO 132, AdjD 15
Results: @ Iowa (Postponed); vs. Wisconsin (Postponed)
The Week That Wasn’t: Due to an outbreak of Purple Fever, the Wildcats were unable to field enough players to play either of their games this week. For their efforts, they moved up six spots in KenPom.
The Week Upcoming: The Cats now have an insane schedule as they try to make up their missed games. They’ll play six games in the next two weeks, starting with a win over Wisconsin before going to Nebraska, closing out the week back at home against Minnesota.
Ohio State
KenPom rank: AdjEM 19, AdjO 6, AdjD 85
Results: (L) @ Nebraska 63-60; (W) vs Rutgers 93-77
The Week That Was: This is now back-to-back weeks with an OSU loss to a league bottom-feeder. First, it was the home loss to Minnesota. Now, a road defeat to Nebraska. It is wild that this team’s advanced rankings still are what they are. They are the second-ranked conference team by KenPom, and yet they’re also tied for No. 11 place in the standings.
To OSU’s credit, it bounced back with a thorough beatdown of Iowa – in which the offense was finally able to get out of neutral. Sensabaugh went crazy in this one (27 points on 10-of-12 shooting) and the Bucks got a boost from Isaac Likekele, who was reinserted into the starting lineup and paid the move off with 18 points, 10 boards and seven assists.
The Week Upcoming: We’ll know shortly if OSU actually figured things out against Iowa as it travels to Illinois and Indiana this week. The Buckeyes need to at least salvage a split here. If they drop both, I think their tournament hopes are really in trouble. It’s an amazing thing to say about a team that Barttorvik still has slated as a No. 6 seed.
Penn State
KenPom rank: AdjEm 38, AdjO 26, AdjD 87
Results: (L) at Wisconsin, 63-60; (W) vs. Nebraska, 76-65
The Week That Was: In the Battle for My Heart, Penn State came up just short against the Badgers. Jalen Pickett was really good again (19/12/6) and looked every bit the All-Big Ten player he was trumpeted as being. I got into an argument on Twitter with the actual Wisconsin video coordinator after this game because I made a joke about UW not having internet access in their facility because of how many open threes they allowed PSU to take. Great game!
The Week Upcoming: Penn State has a road trip to Rutgers and a home game against Michigan. If the Nittany Lions can win in New Jersey, that would be their most impressive win of the season. It’s easier said than done, though.
Purdue
KenPom rank: AdjEM 5, AdjO 4, AdjD 17
Results: (W) @ Michigan State 64-63; (W) @ Minnesota 61-39; (W) vs. Maryland 58-55
The Week That Was: Purdue swept its three-game week, bookending an epic demolition of Minnesota with closer-than-expected victories against MSU and Maryland.
MSU made the decision to dare Edey to beat them. He obliged by going for 32 points and 17 boards, including the game-winner. Purdue then held the Gophers to one of the ugliest offensive performances you’ll ever see, winning by 22 despite not shooting well themselves.
The offensive struggles continued against Maryland. Purdue got out to a huge early lead before really laboring for points in much of the second half. In fact, the Boilermakers only scored two points in the final four minutes of the game, which allowed Maryland several opportunities to tie it up.
This defense was able to close the deal, it it has to be said that Purdue did not look great in any of these games. Nonetheless, it’s two games clear of the rest of the conference in the standings at this point, and it feels like a foregone conclusion that this will be wrapped up early.
The Week Upcoming: Purdue travels to Ann Arbor to play a hapless Wolverines squad, then returns home to face MSU again. I’d expect two wins, but the offense does need to get back on track.
Rutgers
KenPom rank: AdjEM 21, AdjO 124, AdjD 4
Results: (L) @ Michigan State 70-57
The Week That Was: Rutgers got smacked in its only game this week. The Scarlet Knights got off to a nice start, building an early nine-point lead, but the wheels came off completely on offense. Rutgers always has the capacity for some ugly offensive performances, and this was one of the uglier ones you’ll see. It went 2 for 17 from three in and shot just 34.4 percent from the floor as a team. Gross.
This is still PROBABLY the second-best team in the conference, but that’s not much of an achievement this season.
The Week Upcoming: Rutgers comes home to face Penn State and then heads to Iowa this week. As with almost every other team in the conference, I have no idea what to expect.
Wisconsin
KenPom rank: AdjEm 63, AdjO 110, AdjD 30
Results: (W) vs. Penn State, 63-60; (L) at Northwestern, 66-63
The Week That Was: This team is so frustrating to watch every damn year (except for, like, 2015) because it’s always the Same Shit that goes wrong, but a new little wrinkle is added each season. The Badgers have no plus athletes on their team, and that means no one can create their own shot. That’s often the case for Wisconsin, and it usually works around it by winning on the margins (no turnovers, make your free throws, tough defense).
This year, the Badgers have decided they are NOT going to make their free throws. When every fucking game is close regardless of the competition level, you need to make your fucking free throws! Whatever. It’s fine. I’m fine. Letting Chase Audige steal your girl and take her on a fancy date right in front of you is actually fine. I’m not mad. It’s cool.
The Week Upcoming: Wisconsin has already lost to Northwestern, which was purposefully infected with choreomania, meaning UW will have less than 48 hours before their next game – a road tilt at Maryland. Again, I’m fine. I actually like this.
Wisconsin also plays Illinois on Saturday at the Kohl Center for its first game with students back in school since the Dec. 15 game against Lehigh.