1. Indiana began the season with little knowledge of how its big men would fare this season. After losing Noah Vonleh to the NBA and Luke Fischer to Marquette, all the pressure was on junior Hanner-Mosquera Perea to step up as the Hoosiers’ lone presence in the paint. But according to Zach Osterman of the Indy Star, freshmen Emmitt Holt and sophomore Collin Hartman are slowly solidifying Tom Crean’s frontcourt.
2. The Big Ten Tournament will be held at Madison Square Garden in 2018 as the conference pushes its postseason event east in order to gobble up more television money. The 2015 and 2016 tournament will be held at locations within the league’s footprint, in Chicago and Indianapolis, respectively. The 2017 tournament, however, will be played in Washington D.C. An interesting facet of the 2018 plan is that the event won’t be played on its usual schedule. Because the Big East Tournament is scheduled for the traditional weekend of Selection Sunday, the Big Ten’s marquee event will be played during the weekend prior, which means teams will have nearly two full weeks off between the end of their season and the start of the NCAA Tournament.
3. Minnesota is getting great defensive play out of junior college transfer Carlos Morris so far this season, writes Amelia Rayno of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. He came up one steal short of the Minnesota single-game record with eight pilfers against Wake Forest and is averaging 11.6 points per game – but according to head coach Richard Pitino, he’s still got a lot to work on.
4. Nebraska fell to Creighton by 10 points on Sunday as Terran Petteway and Shavon Shields each turned in lackluster performances. Petteway had 21 points but was 8-of-20 from the field, while Shields only contributed seven points. The Bluejays’ game plan was to key on the two stars, forcing the likes of David Rivers and Benny Parker to beat them – and they didn’t.
5. Maryland has turned its free throw shooting into a strength after ranking 241st in the nation with 21.2 attempts per game last year. Melo Trimble has been the guiding force behind that change, as the freshman has drawn an average of 7.2 fouls per 40 minutes played. Trimble already leads the team in offensive efficiency (125.0), free throw percentage (88.6%) and three-point percentage (43.2%). With Dez Wells out of the lineup for a couple more weeks with a wrist injury, the Terrapins need Trimble to keep it up.

Eric Clark (30 Posts)

This entry was posted on Monday, December 8th, 2014 at 8:31 am by Eric Clark and is filed under big ten, microsites, morning 5. Tagged: benny parker, Carlos Morris, collin hartman, david rivers, Dez Wells, emmitt holt, Hanner Mosquera-Perea, indiana, maryland, Melo Trimble, minnesota, nebraska, richard pitino, shavon shields, terran petteway. 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.