Fans of the Big Ten were bombarded with wall-to-wall Feast Week basketball over the past 10 days, and now it’s time to tip off the 17th annual Big Ten/ACC Challenge. Many of this year’s predetermined matchups are interesting and watchable, but there are always a few potential clunkers. Here is your Big Ten viewer’s guide to the best of the best and the worst of the worst in the 14 games occurring over the next three evenings.

• Can’t Miss: (Maryland-North Carolina; Louisville-Michigan State). If I can’t sell you on two top 10 teams that regularly played each other as conference rivals for the better part of a half-century and on a Tom Izzo vs. Rick Pitino coaching clash in as a rematch of last year’s Elite Eight game, then what am I doing writing about basketball? These two are staggered, tipping off on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, respectively.
• Serious Potential: (Indiana-Duke; Purdue-Pittsburgh; Michigan-NC State). Indiana could mess around and score 120 points or they could implode into a turnover hellhole of their own creation. Either way, it will be compelling television. Pittsburgh and Purdue have blue collar reputations, but they also both have zero losses and top 20 offenses through the first two weeks of the season. Michigan and NC State have both underachieved thus far, but the Wolverines and Wolfpack have enough talent and athletes on the floor to make this game entertaining.

Zak Irvin will be vital if Michigan wants a road win in Raleigh against the Wolfpack. (Getty)

• Solid if not Spectacular: (Wisconsin-Syracuse; Notre Dame-Illinois; Miami-Nebraska; Florida State-Iowa). All of these games could be competitive, as at least five of these teams should end up in the NCAA Tournament. Wisconsin trying to figure out its offense against the Syracuse 2-3 zone and Illinois playing its first game back in Assembly Hall are headlines, but also keep an eye on whether Nebraska can break through against a ranked team with loads of experience. The Cornhuskers hung with Villanova for a while and kept it close with Cincinnati in their only two losses. The Florida State-Iowa game should feature a ton of size, and appears to be one of the most balanced games on paper.

• Maybe, Just Maybe: (Virginia-Ohio State; Northwestern-Virginia Tech). Maybe Ohio State and its youthful but athletic roster can conjure something interesting up for the experienced Cavaliers on their home floor. Or maybe Virginia runs out and wins this one by 30 points. In the other game, maybe Buzz Williams can find some of his Marquette magic and bring it to Blacksburg for a night. Maybe Bryant McIntosh and Tre Demps will prove to be too much for the Hokies. Maybe you just really enjoy the work of Joey Van Zegeren.
• I Hear “Gotham” is Pretty Cool: (Penn State-Boston College; Wake Forest-Rutgers; Clemson-Minnesota). Two of these three games happen on Monday night, so unless you’ve got serious problems with basketball addiction, you could probably get away with just reading the recap tomorrow. The Clemson-Minnesota tilt has the most potential here if you turn out to be interested, though, as the Tigers looked really good in beating up on Rutgers the other night; meanwhile, Minnesota is getting better.

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 Monday, November 30th, 2015 at 12:45 pm by Brendan Brody and is filed under big ten, microsites. Tagged: acc/big ten challenge, louisville, maryland, michigan st, north carolina. 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.