After everything has calmed down in the aftermath of the B1G/ACC challenge, it’s time to take a first look at the resumes that each team in the league has put together. Granted, this is going to be a fluid situation all season, but right now this is how it shakes out. I won’t reveal my exact methodology, but suffice it to say that I used a combination of KenPom efficiency ratings and the RPI to assign a specific value to each team’s wins and losses. Starting from the bottom and working up, this is how B1G teams stand right now as we head into the exams period. I’ve listed teams #12-#7 here, with teams #6-#1 to come tomorrow.

12. Northwestern (5-5)

Chris Collins’ First Season in Evanston Has Been Challenging So Far

• Best Win: Western Michigan  (51-35)
• Worst Loss: Illinois State (68-64)
• Breakdown: Northwestern has played four power conference teams but did not win any of those games. The Wildcats played Missouri reasonably close, but they lost by 21 to an NC State team that is predicted to finish in the middle to the bottom of the ACC. They have a chance to finish the season with more than 20 losses given the formidable conference slate Chris Collins’ team has ahead of it. They got back on track slightly with a win against a top-150 Western Michigan team on Saturday, but don’t expect the wins to pile up here.
• Status Right Now: No postseason.
• Projected Status: No postseason. Not trying to pick on the Wildcats, but they’ve done nothing to show that they are better than all the other bottom-level teams in the conference right now, and might only win three or four games in league play.

11. Nebraska (6-3)

• Best Win: Miami (60-49)
• Worst Loss: @ Creighton (82-67)
• Breakdown: When listing Creighton as their worst loss here, this is more because of the fact that the Cornhuskers blew a golden opportunity to get a signature win, and because they looked so bad in doing it. That said,  Tim Miles’ squad has probably slightly exceeded expectations. They’ve started 6-3, but have no wins versus anyone that would be in the field of 68. Their first two losses to UMass and UAB weren’t horrible ones, and neither is the Creighton loss, but the Huskers need a win at Cincinnati on December 28 or they would need to do some significant conference damage.
• Status Right Now: No postseason.
• Projected Status: No postseason. This team could pull off some upsets and get to five or six B1G wins, and if so, they could find themselves headed to the NIT.

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Michigan State’s run as the number one team in the land is likely over after losing convincingly to North Carolina in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge Wednesday night. The Spartans went down 79-65 in a game in which they were outrebounded, outhustled, and just generally beaten down by the enigmatic Tar Heels. While not an excuse, the Spartans’ three best players all suffered some sort of ailment in the contest, as Gary Harris tweaked his injured ankle, Keith Appling suffered a hip pointer from a nasty spill, and Adreian Payne had a muscle cramp that he couldn’t shake. But nobody else stepped up, as the team shot only 35.9 percent from the field, allowed the Tar Heels to score 1.09 points per possession, and were whipped on the defensive glass (UNC grabbed 39 percent of its offensive rebounding opportunities). None of this will happen to Tom Izzo’s team very often as the season plays out. To answer the titular question, though, the loss isn’t all that meaningful in that it was to a team that very well may spend a good portion of the season in the Top 25. But questions remain that Michigan State will have to answer if it is really to prove that it is a serious national title contender. Here are three in particular.

Roy Williams got the last laugh Wednesday night against Tom Izzo and Michigan State

1. Does Michigan State have the depth it needs to contend for a national title? This game would have been the perfect opportunity for someone like Branden Dawson, Travis Trice, or Denzel Valentine to take over, but it didn’t happen. Dawson was silent to the tune of scoring only two points and more importantly grabbing only three rebounds. Trice had five steals, but along with only two assists and four turnovers. Valentine shot 1-of-4 from the field and didn’t do anything else to make an impact. If your three best players are struggling with injuries or just off nights, someone else has to come through and none of these likely candidates stepped up. This team is built on the big three of Harris, Payne and Appling, a trio that might be the best group in terms of combined talent and experience of any team in the country, but the others will have to contribute more consistently if Sparty is to reach the final weekend of the season. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Despite the fact that the tournament this year just finished last Saturday, the field for the 2014 Battle For Atlantis was announced on Tuesday afternoon. Wisconsin is one of the eight teams listed, along with UCLA, North Carolina, Florida, Georgetown, Butler, Oklahoma, and UAB. Without the benefit of having a crystal ball to determine how all these teams will look next year, on paper this is a loaded field. The Badgers should return pretty much everyone of merit except for Ben Brust. Even if Sam Dekker decides to leave early, look for Wisconsin to do some damage here much like they have done with their non-conference schedule so far this season.
2. Nebraska has gotten off to a decent start so far, but that hasn’t stopped Tim Miles from doing some tinkering with things at the early juncture of the season. He wouldn’t specifically name the changes to the starting lineup, but he just said that there will be some changes for the Miami game on Wednesday. If one were to speculate, Ray Gallegos would be a good candidate as someone to get the nod. Gallegos isn’t playing particularly well after returning from injury, so this could be something that gets the senior guard back to the level he was at last season. Nebraska has a lot of inter-changeable parts, so regardless of who starts, 9 players will probably get at least 10 minutes of playing time.
3. Basil Smotherman was not overly hyped coming into his freshman campaign at Purdue, but he definitely made his presence felt for Purdue as they salvaged one victory in the Old Spice Classic in Orlando. Smotherman made his first career start in their win over Siena in that tournament on Sunday. He has shown that he has elite athleticism and the ability to guard multiple positions on the floor. Purdue seems to be still figuring out their rotation and how to divide up minutes one game at a time. If Smotherman keeps playing like this, he may cut into the minutes of players like Rapheal Davis and Errick Peck, who have not played consistently well in the early going.
4. Have no fear Michigan State fans, Gary Harris has less than a 1% chance of not playing against North Carolina on Wednesday night at the Breslin Center. Harris missed the Spartans previous game against Mt St. Mary’s due to an ankle problem that has kept him from being 100% healthy thus far. Despite all this, Harris is the team’s leading scorer at 17.7 points per game, and although they didn’t need him in their last win, his presence will be beneficial against an up-and-down Tar Heel team that beat Louisville, but lost to Belmont and UAB.
5. More injury concerns are happening right now in Evanston, as Drew Crawford suffered a back injury against Missouri last Friday. He is also planning on playing tonight as Northwestern takes on North Carolina State. Crawford is equally, is not more important to his team than Harris is simply because Northwestern simply doesn’t have the same amount of talent residing on their roster. The Wildcats are already an underdog playing in Raleigh, and without Crawford, they would really have their work cut out for them. If Northwestern wants to turn things around, Crawford absolutely has to stay on the floor as much as possible.

With its win Tuesday night, Penn State upped its record on the young season to 5-1. As they head into their weekend mini-tournament in Brooklyn tonight, they will be tested by the likes of St. John’s and either Ole Miss or Georgia Tech. These are all “power conference” teams, but they are all beatable. If the Nittany Lions want to continue the roll that they’ve gotten on this season, they will need to continue to get contributions from their starting frontcourt. Players like Ross Travis, Brandon Taylor, and Donovon Jack are not household names outside of State College, but they have all been huge factors in the team’s play as of late.

Brandon Taylor has gotten off to a hot shooting start for Penn State thus far (Jesse Johnson, USA Today).

In its victory over La Salle, Penn State had all five starters in double figures. With a pass-first type of point guard getting them great looks with his dishing prowess, Taylor, Jack, and Travis have shown they can take advantage and hit shots. While none of these three is very physically imposing, they all have certain useful skill sets that they’ve displayed in the early going. Travis is a banger and a slasher, leading the team in rebounds at a 7.3 RPG clip. He has a nice mid-range game and can get to the basket, but his main role is that of someone to do a lot of the heavy lifting on the boards. Taylor went for 25 points in the team’s lopsided win against Longwood, mostly on the strength of his 5-of-9 shooting from deep. He too showed in that game and in others that he can knock down an open shot from mid-range, and displays athleticism and length defensively. Taylor is 11th in the B1G in block rate (5.78%) going into Brooklyn, and has a high of four in one game. Jack has a season high of 18 points, and while he tends to get pushed around a some in the low block, he works well in a high pick-and-roll situation with Frazier. Jack has also become a big fan of taking three-pointers from the top of the key, which will at times bring a center or power forward away from the basket and allow the others to crash the offensive boards.

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After a frustrating first two years in Columbus where the word that might best describe his play would be inconsistency, Amir Williams has been much more of a factor in the first quarter of the year for the #7 Ohio State squad. Through the first five games of the year, Williams is averaging 10.0 PPG, 8.6 RPG, and 2.2 BPG on 65.4 percent shooting from the field. Coming into this season, he was a 50.9 percent free throw shooter, but is now knocking those down at a 76.2 percent clip. He’s also shown more engagement and aggressiveness than he has in his first two seasons. Last season he was a starter, but he still only averaged 16.5 MPG and was observed to kind of coast and float through games without making much of an impact other than occasionally blocking a shot or two. Now he is up to 24.2 MPG, and with this he’s been more productive and especially more active on the glass. So with this comes the question for a team that is struggling on offense despite their good start: Should Williams be getting the ball more inside?

Amir Williams has been a strong presence inside for Ohio State this season (Kirk Irwin, Getty).

In the Wyoming game, Williams got the ball on the block a whopping three times. If you look at his statistical line from the game, you might question my math. He went 5-of-9 from the field and scored 12 points combined with 16 rebounds. But the majority of all his points came from tips and putbacks on the offensive end. Throughout the course of a game where Ohio State probably has at least 60 to 70 possessions, he got the ball in post position three times. If this were a little kid parks and rec league, he might have quit or cried to his parents because the other guys on the team don’t give him the ball. I’m not saying he was hyper-aggressive in his post ups, but there were times they could have dumped it into him quite easily and the guards and wings simply moved the ball around on the outside.

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1. Tom Izzo should be on top of the world with the start he’s gotten off to, and while he’s happy about a number of things with his team, he’s also not a fan of the one-and-done college basketball culture today. In an interview that came out Tuesday afternoon, Izzo talked about how he feels sorry for Kentucky’s players and how they’re viewed if they don’t go right to the NBA after one year of college. Izzo also commented on a number of things related to his own team, including the improvement of Keith Appling and the potential of Denzel Valentine. Appling has been a perfect catalyst for the Spartans’ fast-paced offense so far, and has been essential as the team works through the shooting slump of Gary Harris. Valentine is in the running for B1G Sixth Man of the Year, and shows off a versatile game much like former Spartan great Draymond Green.
2. Minnesota took a tough loss in Maui on Tuesday afternoon, falling 87-73 to Arkansas. It was a somewhat unique match-up for the Gophers because Arkansas is also a team that likes to employ pressure defense and force turnovers. The Razorbacks essentially beat the Gophers at their own game, causing 16 miscues. Minnesota also had trouble with Arkansas’ size, which is something that could be a problem down the road. What the loss showed is that the team will have to get much more out of Joey King, Oto Osenicks, and the recently reinstated Maurice Walker to really get anywhere significant in the postseason.
3. Illinois  head coach John Groce went over things with his freshmen as basic as how to dress for a flight and how to eat and sleep on the road in advance of their first road trip of the season to take on UNLV Tuesday night. While the Illini has some veterans on the squad, there are also five freshman who see the court a decent amount of the time. It’s easy in Groce’s situation to take things like going over travel etiquette for granted, but he must have done something right in this instance. Freshman Jaylon Tate led the team with five assists as they squeaked out a 61-59 win in the waning seconds. There was no word on whether said freshmen met Groce’s expectations in terms of in-flight decorum, however.
4. College Basketball Talk announced its Player of the Year power rankings, and Keith Appling came in ninth in their 10-person list. He was the only B1G player selected, with Aaron Craft making it in the “others” category. While trying to avoid doing things like blasting Rob Dauster on Twitter, asking him if he’s ever seen Tim Frazier play, this list shows that Appling is making an impact nationally and people are starting to take notice. Averaging 16.8 points and 5.7 assists per game, all the while shooting 57.1 percent from three for the top-ranked team in the country, should definitely put Appling in the running for postseason superlatives if those numbers stay consistent.
5. It’s far too early to talk about next season with the present one only being less than three weeks old, but apparently a Louisville-Minnesota tilt is being lined up for the beginning of the 2014-15 season. Furthermore, Rick Pitino said that things are being finalized to play the game on an aircraft carrier (let’s hope indoors). One takeaway was how eager he sounded to play against his son. Usually coaches don’t like playing against someone they are close to, but maybe the Pitino family is wired differently than most others in the coaching fraternity. One thing for sure is that the game would be entertaining, as both high-pressure defenses would make for a chaotic thrill ride for 40 minutes.

With two quality victories in the bank already against St. John’s and Florida, Wisconsin will look to put another significant win on their resume Tuesday night in Cancun against a 5-0 St. Louis team. While the Billikens are not ranked in the Top 25 yet, they are the defending Atlantic 10 Tournament champions and a team with good experience at a number of key positions. This game could have been projected as a rock fight of the 45-43 variety in years past, but what makes this one particularly interesting is that Wisconsin is averaging 80.2 PPG despite not really playing terribly fast (67.3 possessions per game, 258th nationally). The Badgers are making things happen by simply shooting the lights out in the early going, notching a 45.2 percent output from three, and a 57.9% eFG. St. Louis is stingy in giving up the three-ball, however, and this highlights what will be one of the more intriguing Feast Week match-ups in the B1G.

Frank Kaminsky looks to stay hot against a quality St. Louis team. (Getty)

Wisconsin has been lights-out shooting the ball this season, but St. Louis has just as impressive numbers defensively. The Billikens are holding opponents to a minuscule 20.3 percent from behind the arc, and they also check in with a 41.8% defensive eFG. Both statistics rank in the top 20 nationally. For the most part, they play a hard-nosed man-to-man with athletic guards that will challenge the shooters and not give allow many open looks. Mike McCall Jr. and Jordair Jett fly around the perimeter making things difficult, and then collectively, the Billikens don’t give out too many second chances after a miss. SLU ranks 44th in the country (26.7%) in letting teams retrieve their misses. To summarize, St. Louis is good at forcing teams into tough threes, then grabbing the defensive rebounds off those misses that often lead to great looks from kickouts. Wisconsin only gets 28.6 percent of their offensive rebounds as it is, so chances are they won’t get many second chance opportunities Tuesday night.

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Friday night was a busy one for the B1G, as seven teams were in action spread out throughout the course of the day. When the final buzzer sounded at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the league had gone 5-2, with two instant classics in Michigan-Florida State, and Indiana-Connecticut. What follows are some observations from these games, and what they could mean to each Big Ten team going forward.

Nike Stauskas is quickly becoming a B1G POY candidate. .

1. Nebraska: Terran Petteway is an emerging go-to-guy. Petteway has averaged 24.5 PPG in the Charleston Classic thus far, after averaging 11.3 PPG in the Huskers’ first three wins. He’s did a tremendous job getting to the free throw line on Thursday, and on Friday he took more than 25 percent of the team’s shots from the field. Despite the losses in Charleston, Petteway is becoming the face of the Nebraska offense.
2. Michigan: This is becoming Nik Stauskas’ team. Glenn Robinson III and Mitch McGary got almost all of the preseason accolades, but Stauskas is quickly proving that he’s not just a deadly accurate spot-up shooter. He’s showing that he has far more athleticism in his ability to get into the lane, which helped Michigan turn the tables on Florida State Friday night. It’s obviously still early, but Stauskas is quickly playing his way into contention for B1G Player of the Year accolades. Read the rest of this entry »

Nebraska has gotten off to a 3-0 start and has shown a versatile new-look roster that has looked impressive so far. Tim Miles has brought in eight newcomers who have jelled rather nicely in the early stages of the season. The Cornhuskers will be tested this weekend, however, as they will travel to the Palmetto State to play in the Charleston Classic (full bracket here). Nebraska kicks off the tournament on Thursday afternoon against UMass, and with a win could take on nationally-ranked New Mexico on Friday. Regardless of the opponents that Nebraska ends up facing, here are some things to look for during their three games in the tournament this weekend.

Tim Miles Takes His Undefeated Team to Charleston Today

Offensively, the two things that stood out from the Huskers’ first three games was their ability to get to the free throw line and their low turnover rate. They went for over 80 points in two of the three contests, and they also shot over 30 free throws in each. They need to continue to use their abundance of athletic, rangy wings like Shavon Shields and Terran Petteway to get to the rim. If they fall into the trap of overdependence on the three-point touch of Ray Gallegos, they might be heading to the losers bracket rather quickly. Tai Webster has been the most aggressive Husker in terms of getting to the line, but he’s only 15-of-27 (55%) there thus far this season. Petteway and Shields are each shooting over 80 percent from the stripe, but Petteway needs to get there more instead of settling for shooting long mid-range shots.He’s gone 6-of-7 from the line, but obviously the problem is that he’s only been there seven times.

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1. Tom Crean channeled his inner Gene Hackman when asked about his team’s upcoming trip to Madison Square Garden for the finals of the 2K Sports Classic. Crean said, “It’s still a 90- foot court with 10 feet from the floor to the rim ,” when he was asked about how it would be different for his young team to go on the road for the first time. While Indiana is a bit more athletic and not nearly as much of an underdog as the fictional Hickory High from the movie “Hoosiers,” they will be tested by their games against Washington in the opener, and against Boston College or Connecticut in the second round. Keep an eye on the point guard match-up in the first game, as Yogi Ferrell squares off against freshman Nigel Williams-Goss.
2. Those that expect Mitch McGary to live up to all of the preseason hype he received might have to curb their enthusiasm for at least a week or two. John Beilein said on Tuesday that he is going to stick to playing McGary around 18-22 minutes a game for the upcoming tournament in Puerto Rico. McGary alternated between being a dominant presence and someone who needs to play himself back into shape in Michigan’s loss on Sunday to Iowa State. Look for more of the same as he builds toward a potentially dominant season once B1G play starts in January.
3. All is not well in East Lansing despite Michigan State being the newly-minted number one team in the country when the latest polls came out on Monday. Tom Izzo is upset about the lackluster crowds at the Breslin Center for both Friday and Monday night’s games. November games against teams like Columbia and Portland aren’t necessarily going to move the needle too much in terms of getting a packed house, and it’s safe to assume this will be a non-issue once they play someone like North Carolina in two weeks. With Michigan State’s football team likely heading to the B1G Championship game, and with the number one team in basketball, Michigan State essentially doesn’t have much to complain about athletically right now.
4. Purdue struggled for the second time in three games against Rider on Sunday. A big reason was the fact that A.J Hammons was saddled with foul trouble, which caused him to miss the majority of the first half. This came after Hammons registered seven blocks in his first game back from suspension against Central Connecticut. A big reason he got into foul trouble was because he had to help his guards who were getting beat of the dribble and getting into the paint too easily. Regardless, this can’t be the start to the reason Hammons was hoping for as he looks to live up to the hype of being a potential lottery pick in the future.
5. Finally, if you had money on Frank Kaminsky being the talk of all of college basketball for something other than maybe getting viciously dunked on by somebody, then you’re are a rich man/woman. Kaminsky set a Wisconsin single-game record last night scoring 43 points in the Badgers’ 103-85 victory over North Dakota. Kaminsky followed up his 16 point-8 rebound game on Saturday against Green Bay with this record-breaking output. Lost in the shuffle a little bit is the fact that Wisconsin also scored the most points as a team since 1995. Bo Ryan probably wasn’t thrilled giving up 83, but he has to be thrilled his squad has started off 4-0 with two great resume wins against St. John’s and Florida.