The Big Ten season is about halfway done and it looks like the top six schools–Iowa, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Purdue, and Michigan State – are putting some distance between themselves and the rest of the conference. While there are no head-to-head matchups between any of these teams this weekend, there are still a handful of consequential games. Here are the three most important of them:

Shavon Shields will take on a huge frontline this weekend when the Cornhuskers battle Purdue. (AP Photo/Doug McSchooler)

Nebraska at #21 Purdue (Saturday 4:30 pm ET, BTN). Time is running out for the Cornhuskers’ hopes for an at-large bid. While they have a nice win at Michigan State, they’ll need another win over a highly-ranked team to make up for some of the questionable losses of late 2015. They will get a great opportunity to do so this weekend when they travel to West Lafayette. The Boilermakers are still ranked in the Top 25 and sit 27th in RPI. But Purdue has also recently had some shaky performances, most notably a loss at Illinois and a near-defeat at Minnesota. If the Boilermakers look past Nebraska towards a matchup with Maryland next week, they could easily be upset. Look for Shavon Shields to try to find some open lanes against the massive Purdue frontcourt; if he’s successful, the Cornhuskers will have a shot at a critically important victory.

#8 Maryland at Ohio State (Sunday 1 pm ET, CBS). Both teams are coming off wins and will be looking to keep the momentum going with consecutive victories – although for different reasons. The Buckeyes escaped Champaign with an overtime win and are now looking to bolster their resume as they make a push to get back on the bubble. The Terps are coming off a huge win over Iowa that delivered them their first top 50 RPI victory of the season. When these teams met two weeks ago, the Buckeyes were blown out by 35 points. On that night, Ohio State’s defense was completely exposed by a red-hot Maryland team that hung three digits on the Buckeyes. That effort fits the mode of the Buckeyes’ defense – while it rates well according to the metrics, it has faltering against top-tier competition. They’ll need to reverse that trend in order to get an important road win on Sunday.

Wisconsin at Illinois (Sunday 7:30 pm ET, BTN). This isn’t exactly a matchup between conference powers, but the outcome may be significant for both programs. For the Badgers, a win in the State Farm Center will make it their fourth in a row, put them above .500 in conference, and keep them in range of an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. More importantly, if Wisconsin can end the season with any sort of momentum, it will make a stronger case to Barry Alvarez to keep Greg Gard on as head coach. On the other side, the bottom seems to be falling out for the Illini. They are now 10-11 (2-5 in the B1G) with no remediation in sight. Head coach John Groce has gotten a lot of sympathy for all the injuries his team has had to endure, but that excuse might wear thin if the Illini keep losing – especially with a new athletic director eventually coming in. For both teams, this game may help determine the fate of their head coaches.

Alex Moscoso (170 Posts)

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2016 at 3:03 pm by Alex Moscoso and is filed under big ten, microsites. Tagged: Greg Gard, illinois, john groce, maryland, nebraska, ohio state, purdue, shavon shields, 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.