- #6 Purdue 76, #10 Michigan State 64. We’re a little tired of harping on this because, frankly, it’s too easy. But once again Purdue got a strong performance from their center JaJuan Johnson, and once again they won the game. Since Matt Painter called out everyone on his team except Robbie Hummel and E’Twaun Moore three weeks ago, the Boilermakers (led by JJJ’s additional production) have reeled off six straight wins. And while those six wins included a trio of B10 dogs, they also included a home game against Wisconsin and road games at Illinois and tonight at the Breslin Center — not exactly the easiest three teams from which to come out of a slump. Robbie Hummel (15/5/5 assts) and E’Twaun Moore (25/3/6 assts) continue to hold up their end of the bargain for Purdue, but the addition of JJJ to the offensive repertoire instantly turns the Boilermakers from a top twenty team into a top five team. Now it’s Michigan State who is slumping, and as Tom Izzo put it, the Spartans haven’t “checked in three games” and the fact that Purdue shot a scorching 57% for the game in East Lansing illustrates his point. The last three games have been the three worst defensive performances for MSU all season long, and shooting in the low 30s (32% tonight) in two of those contests does not help matters. Obviously, the loss of Kalin Lucas has a lot to do with this. Even though Lucas played tonight (12 pts in 29 minutes), it was clear that he was still gimpy out there, and as the point man in Izzo’s tough-nosed M2M defense, his presence at full strength is a factor that cannot be measured just in numbers. Still, after holding what seemed to be a commanding three-game lead in the Big Ten standings a mere week ago, the Spartans with this loss are now tied with Illinois at 9-3 and only a half-game ahead of Purdue and Ohio State (both 8-3), setting up a fun final three-plus weeks of the regular season for the conference crown.
- #24 Vanderbilt 90, #12 Tennessee 71. Mismatch. Vandy stormed out of the gates to a lead of 19-4 en route to a seventeen-point halftime lead, soon to be outdone by a twenty-seven point difference in the mid-second half. Jimmy Dykes said it early and often, but Vandy was simply the more poised team tonight. They were quicker to move their feet, hungrier for loose balls, and generally played like the Vols were trying to steal something out of their pockets. Vandy’s Jeffery Taylor exploded for a career-high 26/7/3 assts (including a perfect 12-12 from the line), and Jermaine Beal added 20/4 stls. It’s probably coincidental that tonight’s game represented the most depth Bruce Pearl has had at his disposal since the New Year’s incident and yet the Vols played their worst game, but it’s worth noting that the same edge with which UT beat #1 Kansas and six SEC teams was sorely lacking tonight. Tennessee leading scorer Scotty Hopson has a tendency to let his offensive game impact his entire performance, and that was once again the case tonight as his 4-14 shooting seemed to make him invisible everywhere else. Vanderbilt moves to 7-2 in the SEC East, while Tennessee fell to 6-3, but it is the guys in orange who have the unenviable trip to Lexington on Saturday for Gameday against the second-ranked Wildcats. For UT to have any chance whatsoever, Bruce Pearl will have to tap into that ‘behind-the-eight-ball’ reserve he found when #1 Kansas visited Knoxville five weeks ago.
RTC Live. Shocker in Madison tonight.
- Illinois 63, #13 Wisconsin 56. Given Bo Ryan’s impressive record against unranked Big Ten teams (51-0 at the Kohl Center in his career) not many people predicted the Illini would come in and beat the Badgers. Just as much as Demetri McCamey beat the Badgers with a 27-point effort, Bo Ryan’s beat themselves with icy 20-56 shooting on the night. Bruce Weber said he had been treating McCamey harshly the entire season, and with a benching earlier in the year he went from ignoring advice to giving input on plays. Wisconsin commits only 8.5 turnovers per game (six tonight), but when you miss open layups as Jordan Taylor did or open three-pointers as Keaton Nankivil did, it’s difficult to win games against good teams. Weber said that tonight’s win over Wisconsin was even more impressive than the Illini’s victory over Michigan State on Saturday, and who will disagree with him?
- #2 Kentucky 66, Alabama 55. Let’s get the big individual performances out of the way, first. DeMarcus Cousins was the height of efficiency as usual, posting 16/13/2 assts on 6-8 shooting in 31 minutes. That’s seven double-doubles in a row for Cousins, fifteen for the year. John Wall actually led the Wildcats in scoring, contributing 22/10 on 7-13 from the floor. So, a pair of double-doubles, a double-digit conference win that surpasses last year’s win total for UK — you figure John Calipari’s content, right? Not so much. Wall’s numbers came with the price of six turnovers, including early miscues that led to a little pine time. Wall later acknowledged that he made some regretful decisions with the basketball as s result of some hard-nosed Alabama defense, with Calipari adding, “I thought there must have been some slipperies on the ball, or something, because he lost three balls or four that were not even forced. In the second half he played, though, he ran our team.” Calipari praised his team’s defense, which held the Crimson Tide to 33.3% from the field and 28.6% behind the three-point arc…then praised ‘Bama coach Anthony Grant, whose team held Kentucky to a chilly 3-16 (18.8%) from three. Watching this one from inside Rupp Arena, you got the feeling that Kentucky was holding something back, that they could have blown Alabama to smithereens if they’d put their foot all the way down on the gas. Maybe they’re thinking about that huge ESPN GameDay tilt against Tennessee this Saturday. Or maybe it’s something else. Eric Bledsoe (8 pts/4 asst) and DeAndre Liggins (whose 8/7 and constant hustle earned him frequent applause from the Rupp faithful tonight) both acknowledged some mental and physical fatigue among the Wildcats at this point in the year, but Liggins downplayed its significance, claiming, “It’s just the season winding down. We’ll be OK because Coach (Calipari) knows what he’s doing, we trust him. I’m having fun. We all are.” Then he added with a smile, “23-1 is fun.”
Other Games of National Interest.
- #7 Georgetown 79, Providence 70. Providence gave a good effort in its first game of a four-game stretch that will see the Friars play four games in a row against opponents ranked in the top eight in America, but it wasn’t enough. Chris Wright scored 15 of his 21 points in the second half, and the Hoyas used a 14-1 run to take control of the game and move to 8-4 in the Big East. Greg Monroe added 12/12 in another solid performance for the big man.
- Evansville 65, Wichita State 62. Major upset in the Valley tonight as Evansville got its first win in thirteen tries this season over the consensus second-best team in the conference. This gives Northern Iowa a four-game lead now in the loss column, which means with one more victory tomorrow night UNI will have clinched a share of the regular season crown.
- George Mason 82, VCU 77 (OT). Mason got a huge home win to stay within a half-game of CAA leader Northeastern, using a second-half comeback from fifteen points down to win the game in the extra period. Cam Long had 19/5/5 assts and Mike Morrison 18/10 as GMU won its eighteenth consecutive home conference game.