1. With injuries to Caris LeVert and Derrick Walton, Michigan has gotten inexperienced very quickly. While the team’s freshmen and sophomores have shown signs that they could become heavy contributors at some point in the future, the young Wolverines are going through some growing pains right now. This mostly manifests itself on the defensive end of the floor and was quite evident in Michigan’s loss to Michigan State on Tuesday night. The Spartans shot 62.0 percent from the field and did so by seemingly scoring at will in the paint and through second-chance buckets. The Wolverines tried multiple defenses to slow down Sparty, but in the end they had no way of corralling the inside-outside combination of Branden Dawson and Travis Trice.
2. It was mentioned in this space on Monday morning that Penn State head coach Pat Chambers wasn’t too happy with a late call against Jordan Dickerson in his team’s Saturday loss to Maryland. He’s now been publicly reprimanded for his comments on the game’s officiating and Penn State has been fined $10,000 as a result. Chambers was also frustrated with the fact that the Terps’ Melo Trimble managed to get to the free throw line 12 times in the game. The Nittany Lions have been plagued by foul trouble in many of their games this season — it’s obvious that Chambers doesn’t think his team is getting a fair shake.
3. The Michigan State-Michigan game last night had some famous recent alumni in attendance due to this year’s extended NBA All-Star break. Draymond Green and Nik Stauskas were in Ann Arbor for the festivities and they had some entertaining social media discussion in advance of the rivalry game. It’s looking like Stauskas will be donning some green in the near future after his Wolverines lost to Sparty at home for the first time since 2010.
4. Indiana added another player to the mix last week when football player Jordan Fuchs joined the roster. The 6’6″ tight end from New York City was good enough to have received a basketball scholarship offer from Iowa State, among other Division I programs, coming out of high school. Fuchs gives the Hoosiers some additional depth on the bench in anticipation of Purdue’s bulk in Thursday night’s game. He played two minutes in the Hoosiers’ win over Minnesota on Sunday, but he didn’t register any meaningful statistics. It will be worth noting whether this addition pans out for the team, as by all accounts the New York native was a legitimate high school prospect in both sports.
5. ESPN’s latest bubble watch now only has two Big Ten teams listed as locks for the NCAA Tournament. Maryland joins Wisconsin as the two most probable entries with Indiana close to sewing things up. Ohio State, Michigan State, Illinois, Iowa and Purdue fall into the category of “still having work left to do.” It’s looking right now like the league will get as many as seven teams into the tourney, which means that someone from the group with work to do could end up on the outside looking in. Purdue has the most non-conference damage for which to compensate while Iowa way be in the midst of another late-season collapse. The next three weeks of Big Ten action will definitely be worth monitoring.

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, February 18th, 2015 at 8:31 am by Brendan Brody and is filed under big ten, microsites, morning 5. Tagged: draymond green, indiana, Jordan Fuchs, maryland, michigan, michigan state, nik stauskas, pat chambers, penn state. 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.