Rush The Court

Another year down, another tally in the win column for the Big Ten in what is the top challenge series that college basketball has to offer. Per the norm, the teams that have traditionally dominated this series continued to do so, but there were some surprises along the way. Here are 10 key takeaways from this season’s event.

1. The Big Ten won again. Iowa’s thrilling 78-75 overtime victory over Florida State in Iowa City clinched back-to-back Challenge victories for the conference, with five of the last seven events going to the Big Ten. With the other two ties (2012 and 2013), it remains true that the ACC hasn’t won the challenge since George W. Bush was still President back in December 2008. That’s a really long time. It’s even longer when you consider that the ACC won every challenge during his presidency as well as the final two years of Bill Clinton.

2. Duke won again. The Blue Devils are a staggering 15-2 lifetime in the challenge and are undefeated at Cameron Indoor Stadium (7-0) during that time. This is even more impressive when you consider that Duke almost always draws one of the Big Ten’s best teams. You have to go back to 2011 Michigan State (19-15) to find a Duke opponent that didn’t win at least 28 games that season, and before that, 2006 Indiana (19-12) is the other one that didn’t win at least 20. Granted, this year’s Indiana squad is looking like it will slot in nicely with those couple of outliers.

3. BREAKING: Indiana can’t play defense. This has basically become a meme at this point and pretty much everyone is spilling ink about Tom Crean — whether he can coach defense; whether his team should play man or zone; and so on. The problem is that the defense is getting worse, with Duke eclipsing a point and a half per possession on its way to an easy 94 points on Wednesday night. The Blue Devils shot 11-of-24 from three with much-maligned freshman Brandon Ingram sinking 4-of-6 of his own. Here’s the scary part: defending the three was actually Indiana’s defensive strength last season! They were 77th in the nation in defensive three-point percentage, holding opponents to 32.5 percent. This year, the Hoosiers rank 252nd and are allowing 36.7 percent from behind the arc. They were bad enough at defending twos even before Thomas Bryant showed up — although he can perhaps be thanked for opponents now making a shade under 50% of their twos (49%, 197th) as opposed to a hair above (50.9%, 283rd.) Silver lining!

4. Maybe Maryland and UNC can’t, either. The marquee game of the challenge was something of a Rorschach test, with a number of different conclusions that could be drawn depending on how you wanted to view it. Were Maryland and North Carolina sinking difficult shots and trading blows? Or should the Heels have run the Terps and their 22 turnovers out of the Dean Dome early and were lucky they didn’t get Northern Iowa’d down the stretch again? Maryland has struggled mightily shooting the three this year, so for the Terps to hit 12 treys after Kansas State made eight and Northwestern nine in the Tar Heels’ two CBE Classic games may indicate that Roy Williams’s team shares Crean’s defensive issue on the perimeter. And Mark Turgeon might share Indiana’s interior issues, with Robert Carter and Diamond Stone once again amounting to little more than traffic cones for Kennedy Meeks and Brice Johnson to maneuver around on their way to 13-of-23 from two. Both of these teams clearly have a lot of talent but they also both have some glaring defensive holes to shore up.

5. Denzel Valentine is the best player in the country. Providence’s Kris Dunn would have a better argument if he had beaten Valentine’s team on Sunday, and Ben Simmons would have a better argument if he wasn’t 48 hours removed from a 4-of-15 shooting performance in a 12-point loss at the College of Charleston. What makes Valentine so special beyond his “quiet” 25 points, seven assists and five rebounds against the Cards is that he found a way to elevate his team’s play in the second half to make everyone around him better. Specifically, it was Bryn Forbes who got red hot from three down the stretch to complete the Spartans’ comeback win over Louisville.

6. Damion Lee and Trey Lewis can fill it up for Louisville. It was a game effort from the mostly young Cardinals but they needed their two senior transfers — from Drexel and Cleveland State, respectively — to score 44 of their 67 points (and that was while only making just four of their combined 14 attempted threes). Lee also had five steals and did a great job defending Valentine for much of the night. Louisville’s defensive performance on the perimeter dipped late and Rick Pitino clearly needs more from his bigs offensively, but they should be commended for coming along on the defensive end.

7. Wisconsin’s suddenly all better now. From losing at home to Western Illinois on opening night to winning in overtime at the Carrier Dome against an unbeaten Syracuse team that had just won Atlantis, the job that Bo Ryan has done in molding and developing his team represents his typical masterful stuff. Who the heck is Ethan Happ? Just a random guy who went for 18/15 in 43 minutes of action. As a contrast, he had 4/6 in 19 minutes against the Leathernecks. Get better every day, kids — for best results, let Bo Ryan teach you how.

8. Speaking of impressive overtime wins on the road… Miami got a really nice one in Lincoln on Tuesday night as the Hurricanes survived 28 from Shavon Shields to take down #Nebrasketball. Five guys scored in double figures and that’s not including 7’0″, 248-pound Tonye Jekiri, one of the dominant young forces inside this season, who grabbed 10 rebounds. This was an important bounceback win for Miami from the boneheaded buzzer-beating loss to Northeastern on Friday. Hey, at least it wasn’t a 28-point home loss to Eastern Kentucky.

9. Purdue is really big and really dangerous. The Boilermakers are actually the best team in the Big Ten according to KenPom (no, it’s not Wisconsin) and they pulled away down the stretch at previously unbeaten Pitt on Tuesday night. Winning in the Oakland Zoo is never easy but AJ Hammons made it look that way with 24 points in 31 minutes including a couple of threes. He, 7’2″ Isaac Haas and 6’9″, 250-pound freshman Caleb Swanigan are playing the kind of interior defense that the aforementioned Carter and Stone can only dream of right now. Purdue is tops in the nation in effective field goal percentage defense at 36.1 percent and the Boilermakers trail only Louisville in two-point percentage defense.

10. Virginia did what UT-Arlington and Louisiana Tech did! Yes, winning at Value City Arena isn’t as impressive as it usually is with the remnants of D’Angelo Russell-less Ohio State struggling, but that doesn’t mean Malcolm Brogdon scoring 22 to lead Virginia to a nice road victory isn’t important. The Cavaliers are going to have games like that on their travels all season — it comes with the territory when you play Bennettball — and Brogdon is going to  have to be the one to carry them. It was too little too late at George Washington a couple weeks ago, but it was more than enough on Tuesday night.