1. Despite the fact that the tournament this year just finished last Saturday, the field for the 2014 Battle For Atlantis was announced on Tuesday afternoon. Wisconsin is one of the eight teams listed, along with UCLA, North Carolina, Florida, Georgetown, Butler, Oklahoma, and UAB. Without the benefit of having a crystal ball to determine how all these teams will look next year, on paper this is a loaded field. The Badgers should return pretty much everyone of merit except for Ben Brust. Even if Sam Dekker decides to leave early, look for Wisconsin to do some damage here much like they have done with their non-conference schedule so far this season.
2. Nebraska has gotten off to a decent start so far, but that hasn’t stopped Tim Miles from doing some tinkering with things at the early juncture of the season. He wouldn’t specifically name the changes to the starting lineup, but he just said that there will be some changes for the Miami game on Wednesday. If one were to speculate, Ray Gallegos would be a good candidate as someone to get the nod. Gallegos isn’t playing particularly well after returning from injury, so this could be something that gets the senior guard back to the level he was at last season. Nebraska has a lot of inter-changeable parts, so regardless of who starts, 9 players will probably get at least 10 minutes of playing time.
3. Basil Smotherman was not overly hyped coming into his freshman campaign at Purdue, but he definitely made his presence felt for Purdue as they salvaged one victory in the Old Spice Classic in Orlando. Smotherman made his first career start in their win over Siena in that tournament on Sunday. He has shown that he has elite athleticism and the ability to guard multiple positions on the floor. Purdue seems to be still figuring out their rotation and how to divide up minutes one game at a time. If Smotherman keeps playing like this, he may cut into the minutes of players like Rapheal Davis and Errick Peck, who have not played consistently well in the early going.
4. Have no fear Michigan State fans, Gary Harris has less than a 1% chance of not playing against North Carolina on Wednesday night at the Breslin Center. Harris missed the Spartans previous game against Mt St. Mary’s due to an ankle problem that has kept him from being 100% healthy thus far. Despite all this, Harris is the team’s leading scorer at 17.7 points per game, and although they didn’t need him in their last win, his presence will be beneficial against an up-and-down Tar Heel team that beat Louisville, but lost to Belmont and UAB.
5. More injury concerns are happening right now in Evanston, as Drew Crawford suffered a back injury against Missouri last Friday. He is also planning on playing tonight as Northwestern takes on North Carolina State. Crawford is equally, is not more important to his team than Harris is simply because Northwestern simply doesn’t have the same amount of talent residing on their roster. The Wildcats are already an underdog playing in Raleigh, and without Crawford, they would really have their work cut out for them. If Northwestern wants to turn things around, Crawford absolutely has to stay on the floor as much as possible.

Brendan Brody (307 Posts)

Brendan Brody is in his fourth season covering the Big Ten for RTC. Email him at brendan.brody@gmail.com, or follow him on twitter @berndon4.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 4th, 2013 at 8:40 am by Brendan Brody and is filed under big ten, microsites, morning 5. Tagged: Basil Smotherman, drew crawford, Gary Harris, michigan state, nebraska, purdue, ray gallegos, tim miles, wisconsin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.