big ten – Rush The Court

NCAA Tournament Instareaction: Big Ten Edition

Tommy Lemoine — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 04:53:38 +0000

Below is a review of how the selection process concluded for each Big Ten team and what they should expect in the first few rounds of the upcoming NCAA Tournament.

Michigan State looks to carry its momentum into the Dance. (Dylan Buell/Getty Images) Michigan State, #2 seed, East Region. Michigan State backed up its regular season conference co-title by beating Michigan on Sunday en route to the Big Ten Tournament title. It was the Spartans’ third win over the Wolverines in three weeks, giving them more Quadrant 1 wins than any team in America. Their reward? A potential date with #1 overall [...]

Rushed Reactions: Michigan State 65, Michigan 60

Walker Carey — Sun, 17 Mar 2019 23:58:59 +0000

Much like 2019’s third installments of the Duke/North Carolina and Kentucky/Tennessee trilogies, this season’s third chapter of the Michigan/Michigan State rivalry was an epic that went down to the wire. The Spartans fought back from an 13-point second half deficit and used a ridiculous Cassius Winston drive and lay-in with 29 seconds remaining to ensure they finished the season 3-0 against their biggest rival. The following are three key takeaways from Sunday afternoon’s Big Ten Tournament championship game.

Michigan State Beat Michigan for the Third Straight Time This Season (USA Today Images)

Three Key Takeaways.

Cassius Winston willed Michigan State to victory. Some [...]

Rushed Reactions: Big Ten Semifinal Saturday

Walker Carey — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 22:35:33 +0000

While Minnesota‘s upset victory over Purdue on Friday night prevented the Big Ten’s top four seeds from all advancing to the conference tournament semifinals, Michigan State, Michigan and Wisconsin making it through to Saturday encapsulated how much of the conference season was dominated by the league’s top teams. The league will still likely send at least six teams to the NCAA Tournament — depending on your feelings about bubble teams Ohio State and Indiana — but this weekend’s action further illustrated that the class of the league possesses the necessary firepower necessary to make a significant run in the main [...]

Michigan Continues Rolling Despite Key Personnel Losses

Ryan O'Neil — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 19:45:39 +0000

Michigan’s Ignas Brazdeikis Has Been a Huge Surprise (USA Today Images)

Michigan is just 11 games into the season but this is already turning out to be John Beilein’s magnum opus. It was reasonable to expect that the Wolverines would take a step back from last season’s national runner-up performance, but Michigan — fueled by an elite defense (third nationally, per KenPom) — has just continued chugging along. A team that lost three starters has already locked up a trio of top-15 offenses (Villanova, North Carolina and Purdue), and when necessary, has also shown that it can dictate tempo. In the Wolverines’ ACC/Big Ten [...]

Is the Big Ten Better Than Expected?

Ryan O'Neil — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 20:45:54 +0000

Before the season began, there was a lot of skepticism nationally about the Big Ten, a conference that placed only three teams in the preseason AP Top 25: Michigan State (#10), Michigan (#19), and Purdue (#24). After Michigan State was thoroughly dominated by Kansas at the Champions Classic, the rhetoric only became more harsh. The conference’s presumed best team had been outplayed in every aspect by the Jayhawks, so experts and fans alike were left to wonder if the Big Ten was even worse than previously thought. Two weeks into the season, however, has introduced a different narrative — one [...]

Big Ten Wrap-Up: Lasting Impressions and an Early Top Five

Tommy Lemoine — Fri, 06 Apr 2018 15:01:19 +0000

Has Donte DiVincenzo stop hitting shots yet? Okay, good. Now that Monday is behind us, let’s take a moment to reflect on the season that was and look ahead to 2018-19.

Michigan had another year to remember. (PHOTO BY AP/DAVID J. PHILLIP)

Michigan is an elite basketball program. Before John Beilein took over in Ann Arbor in 2007, Michigan hadn’t reached the NCAA Tournament since 1998, a nine-year drought that made the historically great football school seem like just that — a football school. But that’s changed. Since the drought ended in 2009, Beilein has led the Wolverines to eight [...]

NCAA Tournament Instareaction: Big Ten Teams

Tommy Lemoine — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 01:08:04 +0000

Below is a review of how the selection process concluded for each Big Ten team and what they should expect in the first few rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

Can Michigan stay red-hot in the Big Dance? (SI.com)

Purdue, #2 seed, East Region. Fatigue played a role in Purdue’s late-season slide, which makes its first-round draw — a Friday match-up against Cal-State Fullerton — especially beneficial. While the Titans are the most aggressive squad in the country, scoring nearly 25 percent of their points at the free throw line, no team in the NCAA Tournament surrenders fewer points at the [...]

Rutgers’ Garden Party to Michigan’s Run: Big Ten Tournament Postmortem

Tommy Lemoine — Wed, 07 Mar 2018 18:15:04 +0000

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest what happened in Madison Square Garden last weekend, let’s examine some of the biggest surprises and takeaways from the early Big Ten Tournament.

Michigan dominated the Competition in Madison Square Garden. (Nicole Sweet-USA TODAY Sports)

Michigan established itself as a legitimate national threat. We knew Michigan was playing its best basketball of the season entering postseason play, and we knew it would probably make some noise last week in Manhattan. What we did not foresee was the Wolverines establishing themselves as a serious Final Four threat en route to a second [...]

The Big Ten Tournament’s Most Burning Questions

Tommy Lemoine — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 21:35:06 +0000

It’s not even March yet and here we are, Day One of the Big Ten Tournament. It’s a strange feeling. Perhaps the only stranger feeling will be watching these predominantly Midwestern schools battle it out in Madison Square Garden, the venue where Willis Reed was immortalized and Frazier beat Ali and no Big Ten school outside of Rutgers sits within easy driving distance. Jim Delaney be damned, let’s examine the most important questions to be answered this week in Manhattan.

Crazy as it sounds, the Big Ten Tournament is in the Big Apple. (scarletknights.com)

Can Nebraska do enough to earn an [...]

What We Learned From a Wild Week in the Big Ten

Tommy Lemoine — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 21:15:05 +0000

From massive upsets to historic comebacks and some ridiculous individual performances in-between, it was one heck of a week in the Big Ten. Let’s examine a few key takeaways.

Purdue should be just fine, assuming Vincent Edwards returns to action. (John Terhune/Journal & Courier)

Purdue fans need not panic (unless, of course, Vincent Edwards’ injury lingers). Entering its game against Ohio State on February 7, Purdue had won 19 straight, sat undefeated in the Big Ten (12-0), and looked seemingly unbeatable — especially in Mackey Arena, where it had crushed its opponents by 27 points per game. Then the Boilermakers [...]

Five Trends to Track During a Big Week in the Big Ten

Tommy Lemoine — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 17:33:05 +0000

Ohio State vs. Purdue and Maryland vs. Penn State tonight. Purdue vs. Michigan State on Saturday. Several potential bubble-busters in between. Needless to say, it’s a big week in the Big Ten. Let’s take a look at a few quietly-important trends worth keeping an eye on.

Purdue’s defense has been mediocre in recent weeks. (Anthony Souffle – Purdue Exponent)

Purdue’s Struggling Defense. Just because because the Boilermakers own the nation’s longest winning streak of 18 games doesn’t mean all is rosy in West Lafayette. After holding 12 of its previous 14 opponents to less than one point per possession, Purdue [...]

The Drive for Five: What Lies Ahead for the Big Ten Bubble Dwellers

Tommy Lemoine — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 15:01:39 +0000

The Big Ten has put at least five teams in the NCAA Tournament in every season since 2008, four years before the league expanded to 12 schools and seven years before it expanded to 14. In fact, you’d have to go back to the pre-Rutgers era (2013-14) to reach the last time the conference sent fewer than seven teams to the Big Dance. That will almost certainly change this season. According to Bracket Matrix, only three of 68 recently-updated bracket projections have more than four Big Ten schools in the NCAA Tournament. The fact is, outside of Purdue, Michigan State, [...]

Michigan State’s Turnover Bug is a Real Problem

Tommy Lemoine — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 20:24:38 +0000

If you glance only at the final score, Michigan State’s performance at Illinois on Monday was an unqualified success: The Spartans won by 13 points and trailed for only 1 minute and 51 seconds of game time. Dig deeper, though, and it’s clear that the preseason Big Ten favorite should have probably won by more — perhaps a lot more. The Spartans shot a ridiculous 68 percent from the floor (to Illinois’ 43 percent) and doubled up the Illini at the free throw line. They also crashed the offensive glass at their highest rate yet in conference play (60% OReb). [...]

The Big Ten’s Biggest Early Surprises

Tommy Lemoine — Fri, 19 Jan 2018 15:01:10 +0000

Now that we’re roughly one-third of the way through the Big Ten slate, let’s take a look at the biggest surprises and storylines taking shape in the Midwest.

Who had Ohio State pegged as a Big Ten title contender? (Joe Maiorana-USA TODAY Sports)

Chris Holtmann, Keita Bates-Diop, and the Buckeyes. Forget the Big Ten for a moment — Ohio State might be the biggest surprise in the entire country. The Buckeyes began the season ranked 74th overall by KenPom and picked to finish 11th — yes, 11th — in the conference. And after getting blasted by Gonzaga in the PK80 [...]

Five Reasons Why Michigan is For Real

Tommy Lemoine — Mon, 15 Jan 2018 15:01:03 +0000

After losing three of its top four scorers from last year’s Sweet Sixteen team — including point guard Derrick Walton, Jr. — Michigan was a mystery heading into this season. An NCAA tournament bid seemed likely but debatable; a Big Ten title seemed out of the question. After upsetting Michigan State in East Lansing on Saturday and nearly toppling Purdue earlier in the week, though, expectations have changed. Now 15-4 (4-2 Big Ten) with wins over the Spartans, Texas and UCLA, Michigan — ranked higher in KenPom now than it finished last season — is in position to compete for a [...]