1. The up-and-down early part of Derrick Walton Jr.‘s college career took another turn on Saturday in Michigan’s loss to Arizona. Walton only played 14 minutes and contributed one point, one assist, and one turnover. John Beilein still has faith in his rookie point guard, though, and he will still be the starter when the Wolverines take on Stanford on Saturday. The fact that Walton hasn’t quite been what Michigan has expected so far is minimized by the play of Spike Albrecht, though. There’s no Darius Morris or Trey Burke to lead the way, but Michigan still has a chance to go far in March if the combination of Albrecht and Walton Jr. can be effective.
2. The success Wisconsin has had so far has been the story of the B1G so far, and maybe the biggest story nationally in the first six weeks of the season. The major reason for this success is, of course, the coaching talent of Bo Ryan. Ryan runs one of the unique programs in the country, mainly because he preaches and practices the same fundamentals that many other coaches tend to gloss over. This is why the running joke in the preseason every year seems to be to avoid placing Wisconsin lower than fourth no matter who his players are. Ryan’s system and attention to detail is probably worth 18-20 wins a season by itself, but now that he has it in place and the talent on this year’s unit, you can see why the Badgers are 12-0 and the number-one ranked team in the RPI.
3. Penn State blew a golden opportunity on Saturday, as the Nittany Lions let Princeton come back from a 20- point deficit to beat them in overtime. This overshadowed the team’s return to its old on-campus arena, the Rec Center. The Nittany Lions got a tremendous turnout at the gate, and the game seemed to bring some excitement to a program that hasn’t always been that popular in the shadow of a formerly dominant football program. The biggest takeaway from this game and some of the other losses B1G teams suffered on Saturday was that the middle pack of the league is still wide open. Minnesota, Illinois, Penn State, Nebraska  and Purdue are all pretty equal, and the games when they play against each will go a long way to determining which teams go where in the postseason.
4. Despite the success Indiana has enjoyed in the last two seasons and the success he had previously at Marquette, Tom Crean still has his fair share of critics. But the Hoosiers’ head coach was his own worst critic after Indiana lost to Notre Dame in Indianapolis on Saturday. Crean mainly thought his team did a poor job of getting the ball inside to center Noah Vonleh. The Hoosiers are not a great or even a good long-distance shooting team, and with a lack of great big men in the league, a renewed emphasis on pounding the ball inside will lead to better looks for shooters that need clean looks. The Notre Dame loss could serve as something of a wake-up call in terms of strategy and potentially turn the Hoosiers’ season around.
5. Ohio State is winning, and they are winning with one of the best defensive teams in the country. One of its key contributors has been Shannon Scott, who along with fellow point guard Aaron Craft, is averaging over two steals per game. The Buckeyes have already had some notable defensive performances, highlighted by holding Marquette to 19 percent shooting from the field in its own building. On Saturday the Buckeyes held North Dakota State’s Marshall Bjorkland, the NCAA’s active field goal percentage leader, to a ‘mere’ 50 percent shooting, which is significantly less than his career mark of 66.6 percent. Defense is the primary reason why Ohio State is ranked second in the country and will have as good of a chance as any team in the B1G to cut down the nets in April.

Author’s note: This analysis was performed on Sunday night, December 15, and does not include Monday’s Northwestern game against Mississippi Valley State.

Welcome to the third edition of our Big Ten non-conference analysis.  By now, you should be familiar with how we’re measuring teams’ performances; but if not, please re-read our first post describing the methodology. In short, we’re comparing how Big Ten teams have performed against their preseason expectations according to KenPom. Since our last analysis two weeks ago, the Big Ten/ACC challenge has come and gone, and we’ve had some major interconference match-ups. Unfortunately, Big Ten teams have mostly ended up on the losing side of these games, especially last weekend as Iowa State outlasted Iowa, Arizona beat Michigan, Notre Dame shocked Indiana, and Butler held off Purdue. To see how these losses have shaken things up from the expectations viewpoint, see the updated performance table below.

Here are our two main takeaways:

• Wisconsin has improved its long-term season outlook the most and has also been the most consistent team in the Big Ten.Things are murky at the top of the league. Michigan State, Iowa, Ohio State and Michigan all have questions surrounding them or outright blemishes on their early season resumes. But the Badgers have been the league’s lone shining star by going undefeated, a record that includes seven wins against the RPI Top 100 (2-0 against the Top 50), more than any other team in the country. Furthermore, according to our analysis, Wisconsin has only underperformed in one game the entire season. Not only have they played well throughout, but they’ve been consistent in their efforts which is shown by their league-low 5.1 standard deviation (basically measuring variability in performances). Finally, Bo Ryan’s team’s long-term outlook has improved as they’re now expected to win seven games more than originally thought, which includes projected wins against Florida, at Indiana, at Minnesota, at Purdue, Ohio State, at Illinois and at Michigan State. As of right now, the Badgers are the class of the league. Read the rest of this entry »

Author’s update: In an earlier version of this M5, I stated that Andre and Austin Hollins were brothers. This was incorrect and they are not related. This post has been revised to correct this error.

1. Ohio State’s senior point guard Aaron Craft has had a heralded career in Columbus. On Saturday, he put his name in the record books by becoming the school’s all-time assist leader with number 581 against North Dakota State. While Craft’s defensive prowess and leadership have been an integral part of the Buckeyes’ success the last four years, his offensive shortcomings have been a consistent knock. And though he is still averaging less than 10.0 PPG, his win-share per 40 minutes is higher this season than it’s ever been (.226). The senior point guard may never be the offensive star some hoped that he’d grow into, but his contribution and place in history regarding the Buckeyes’ program are already cemented.
2. When we’re talking about a Hollins going off for Minnesota, we’re almost always talking about Andre. But Austin Hollins likes to remind us every now and then that not only is he the second best player for the Gophers, but he can also go off and drop 20 points in a game. Last week, Austin Hollins scored 20 points and grabbed 14 rebounds to record his third double-double and surpass 1,000 career points for his career. To top it off, he was named the Big Ten Player of the Week for the first time, an award that Andre hasn’t yet won this season. While it’s clear Andre is the more talented Hollins, it is nice to see Austin get his due too.
3. The season has been a disappointing one thus far for Purdue, as the Boilermakers were expecting/hoping that the Johnson brothers and A.J. Hammons would be able to show enough leadership to take them back to the NCAA Tournament. While Hammons has not made the “sophomore leap” coach Matt Painter was hoping for, one bright spot may be the emergence of freshman guard Bryson Scott. The young player is one of only three on the team currently averaging double-figure points per game (Terone and Ronnie Johnson are the other two). On Monday, he was named the Big Ten Freshman of the Week for the second time this season, coming off an impressive performance (15 points, 6-of-9 FG) against Butler. While Purdue seems likely to miss the NCAA Tournament this season unless things change in a hurry, there still may be some excitement in West Lafayette as Scott challenges in-state rival Noah Vonleh for Big Ten FrOY.
4. When the AP poll came out on Monday, Wisconsin found itself again at the #4 spot. It has been a spectacular start for the Badgers as they are 12-0 with signature wins against St. John’s, Florida, Virginia and Marquette. They are already an astonishing 9-0 against the RPI Top 100 and are projected to be a #2 seed according to Lunardi’s most recent bracketology. According to ESPN’s replication RPI index, it is the best start for the Badgers in the modern era. If Bo Ryan can keep it going, and there’s every reason to believe he could, he may have his first 30-win and Big Ten championship team since 2008.
5. Greg Whittington was dismissed from Georgetown earlier this season while still healing from a knee injury, after the talented sophomore had missed all of last season due to academic issues. On Sunday, he announced that he would be transferring to Rutgers, which will be part of the Big Ten by the time he suits up next season. The 6’8″ forward is described as a “difference-maker” who averaged 12.1 points and 7.0 rebounds per game before he was suspended in 2012-13. Not many people are excited about having Rutgers basketball join the Big Ten fray, but Whittington now gives the Scarlet Knights a talented player who will at least keep them intrigued.

It wasn’t a good day for the Big Ten contingent at the Crossroads Classic in Indianapolis on Saturday. Indiana and Purdue both lost games they really needed to win, and now find themselves still without a marquee win on their NCAA resumes. The losses also gave Indiana (1-2 in Crossroads Classic history) and Purdue (0-3) losing records versus their in-state brethren Notre Dame (2-1) and Butler (3-0) in the event. So maybe the B1G schools don’t actually rule the state after all. Here are three keys from each of Saturday’s games and some questions facing the Hoosiers and Boilermakers following each.

Notre Dame 79, Indiana 72

Indiana’s Will Sheehey battles with Notre Dame’s Jerian Grant for a ball in the Crossroads Classic. Indiana faces plenty of questions following the loss to the Irish (AP Photo/Michael Conroy).

• Physicality Inside. Everyone thought it would be the Notre Dame guards who could lead the Irish to an upset victory, but everyone was pretty much wrong. Jerian Grant had a very good game (23 points), but it was the Irish’s inside play of Garrick Sherman (16/6) and bench players Tom Knight (yes, he still plays basketball) and Zach Auguste that killed Indiana inside. These players routinely went right at Vonleh and the other Hoosiers and just outmuscled them in the paint. The Hoosier freshman is very athletic and talented but he had no answer when they backed him down. This is an issue that could rear its head often for this team during Big Ten play if Vonleh doesn’t toughen up or the Hoosiers don’t find someone to match up defensively with the strong inside players in the conference.
• Go-to Scorer. Indiana never took the lead in this game despite coming close over and over again. The Hoosiers would pull within a few points or tie the game and could never quite get over the hump. Each time, Indiana either froze on assessing its options or the leaders who tried to take charge didn’t come through. Examples included Will Sheehey quickly pulling up for a three-pointer and missing, or Yogi Ferrell taking an isolation drive that was rejected. These two or someone else needs to emerge for Indiana to close out games like these in the future. Read the rest of this entry »

Late last week we took a look at seven Big Ten players who have put forth surprising performances over the first month of the season, so now it’s time to check in on five more Big Ten players who need to start playing up to the expectations they were afforded in the preseason. These five players were candidates for preseason accolades by various pundits, but none has played all that well to this point. If their respective teams want to enjoy deep NCAA Tournament runs in March, they will need to contribute at a much higher level than they have so far. Luckily, there’s still plenty of time to turn things around. It’s only mid-December.

Gary Harris needs to get healthy and start producing if Michigan State wants to get to the  Final Four.

• Glenn Robinson III, Michigan (13.0 PPG, 9.3 FGA, 32.4% 3FG, 3.9 FTA). Many thought that Robinson would have a breakout 2013-14 campaign, but Michigan’s close home loss to #1 Arizona on Saturday was the first time all season he looked like he might — 20 points and four rebounds on 8-of-9 shooting. For the most part, he has spent way too many possessions standing still on the perimeter instead of looking to attack the basket. Saturday’s game might be a start, but Michigan as a whole seems to still be figuring things out with the departures of Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway, Jr., but they need Robinson to play like a star if they want to come close to duplicating last year’s success.
• Will Sheehey, Indiana (10.2 PPG, 1.7 APG, 21.4% 3FG). To his credit, Sheehey has been really good defensively this year. For example, he absolutely locked down spectacular shooter Travis Bader last Tuesday in the Hoosiers’ win over Oakland. Where he needs to get his mojo back is on the other end of the floor. It was expected by many analysts that Sheehey would be able to pick up a good deal of the scoring slack. And although he put together his best offensive game of the season over the weekend with 22 points on 9-of-15 shooting, he’s having a horrible season putting the ball in the hole. On many possessions he seems to end with either a missed easy layup or a blocked shot. His shooting percentage has dropped nearly four percent and the career mid-30 percent three-point shooter is nowhere near that mark this season. If Sheehey can improve his scoring average by three or four points per game on good shooting in league play,  Indiana will be in much better shape come March.

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1. Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo has suspended redshirt freshman forward Kenny Kaminski indefinitely. Izzo had already suspended the freshman earlier this season, but this time there is no timeline for the return. After a close win over Oakland on Saturday, Izzo said, “Kenny Kaminski’s got to grow up, he’s just got to grow up. And I’m gonna keep suspending him or sitting him out until he takes care of all his business that he’s got to take care of, whether it’s in school, off the court.” Regardless of Kaminski’s playing time, the Spartans need to make sure they enter the Big Ten season with good chemistry, and most importantly, good health. If Izzo can get a healthy Gary Harris back in the lineup, his team should be in good shape to contend for the Big Ten title.
2. Before writing about college basketball for Grantland, Mark Titus rode the bench at Ohio State during the 2006-07 season when the Buckeyes made it to the national title game. Titus was a walk-on who didn’t play much during his time at Columbus, and Thad Matta doesn’t want Jake Lorbach, another walk-0n, to play like Titus. “He [told me], ‘I don’t want another Mark Titus. So just try not to do that.’ But sometimes you can’t help yourself,” Lorbach said. The 6’7″ forward has averaged only 1.5 PPG and is not expected to contribute immediately, but after a year under his belt, he may be able to play a reserve role on the team.
3. After a tough loss to Notre Dame at the Crossroads Classic on Saturday, Indiana still hasn’t secured a marquee win during the non-conference season. Inside The Hall‘s Jordan Littman discusses the Hoosiers’ ongoing search for an identity. After the game, Tom Crean said, “Our identity has got to be in the fact that going into the game, we were fifth in the country in field goal percentage defense, we were No. 1 in the country in rebound margin, we were way up in the country in getting to the free throw line.” Noah Vonleh needs to learn how to stay out of foul trouble against tougher opponents because his time on the court is too valuable. When he is on the court, the Hoosiers can rebound with reckless abandon, but without him out there, they lose their only strength at this juncture of the season.
4. John Groce’s Illini lost a close one to Oregon over the weekend, but the Illinois fan base did an excellent job of representing its team on the west coast. According to Illiniboard, 15 percent of the 10,000 fans in the arena were supporting the Illini, which is pretty impressive for a road game taking place in Portland. Groce’s squad led for most of the game in front of the raucous crowd, but it couldn’t find any kind of offense over the past five minutes of the game when the Ducks were able to get to the free throw line consistently. After two close losses to Georgia Tech and now to Oregon, the Illini need a win over Missouri next weekend before beginning conference play. The annual “Bragging Rights” game will take place on Saturday in St. Louis.
5. One more shot against Arizona and Michigan could have erased its disappointing non-conference season, but the Wolverines will need to wait a bit longer to regain their confidence. John Beilein’s team almost pulled off the victory over #1 ranked Arizona on Saturday afternoon, but it couldn’t close the deal over the last minute. When asked about beating good teams afterward, Beilein said, “The devil’s in the details.” Despite the loss, Caris LeVert continued to impress with 15 points, but he and his teammates couldn’t handle Arizona’s size and athleticism at the end of the day. After a tough first month of action, the Wolverines won’t have it easy against conference competition because the tougher defensive units in the Big Ten have traditionally given Beilein’s offense trouble scoring.

In a state that considers itself the mecca for hoops, Indiana’s premiere college basketball programs are set to play in the Crossroads Classic’s third edition later today. In the past two years the event has brought buzzer-beaters and an upset over a No. 1 team, but this season, all four teams desperately need a win here to help their future NCAA hopes. It’s a day for state supremacy and bragging rights at Bankers Life Fieldhouse — on a Saturday afternoon of great basketball around the country, the Crossroads Classic is unlikely to disappoint. Below you will find three keys to both games for Indiana and Purdue to notch wins in this afternoon’s event.

The Crossroads Classic is Becoming a Hoosier State Tradition

Notre Dame vs. Indiana 3:15 PM, ESPN

• Take care of the ball. The Irish are the more experienced team taking on the relatively young Hoosiers. This becomes especially important in the backcourt where Indiana’s Yogi Ferrell faces Jerian Grant and Eric Atkins. These two take care of and share the ball extremely well (Notre Dame is third in the country in assists per game). Ferrell will need to match their composure and not make mistakes if Indiana hopes to walk away with the victory here.
• Use its athleticism. Indiana struggled against Syracuse’s zone with all of its tall, athletic and physical players. Notre Dame at least has the tall and physical part going for it. This means that the Hoosiers will need to use their athleticism to get out and run. If Indiana can turn this into a track meet game, it has a better chance of winning the contest where its athleticism can outmatch Notre Dame’s experience. This also helps alleviate the Irish having a strong starting five versus Indiana typically having to rely on a couple players to explode (read: Noah Vonleh, Jeremy Hollowell, Ferrell).

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Who among college basketball fans hasn’t been frustrated by a volume shooter on their team? We all know the volume shooter, right? That player who hasn’t seen a shot he didn’t like. He starts off the game, seemingly, unable to buy a bucket. But then, all of a sudden, he gets hot and makes everything, maybe even the game-winning shot. Wash, rinse, repeat. The emotional roller coaster a volume shooter puts his fans through, while frustrating, is another example of the up-and-down nature of college basketball that diehards love about the sport. But how many players are really “volume” shooters? To clarify, how many players become more efficient the more often they shoot the ball? According to the numbers, the answer is not many, and they’re likely not the players you’d expect.

Jarrod Uthoff is the type of player who gets more accurate the more shots he puts up.

For this post, we did a quick analysis to determine the Big Ten’s volume shooters. To start, we only looked at players averaging double-figure points per game and measured player efficiency by using true shooting percentage to take into account the full spectrum of scoring opportunities: three-pointers, two-point field goals, and free throws. We used “true” shots (the denominator of true shooting percentage) as the measure of quantity or “shots taken.” Next, we counted each game as one observation and plotted each player’s game efficiency and quantity of shots on a graph. Lastly, we ran a simple regression analysis for all players to determine which ones had the most positive relationship between efficiency and the number of shots taken. From this analysis, we found that Iowa’s Jarrod Uthoff (10.3 PPG), Wisconsin’s Ben Brust (12.0 PPG), and Frank Kaminsky (14.7 PPG) were the three players with the most positive relationship between efficiency and shots taken. To illustrate this, the graph below maps each player’s regression line with one another. As a comparison, we included the regression lines of the Big Ten’s leading scorers: Michigan’s Nik Stauskas (18.9 PPG) and Penn State’s D.J. Newbill (18.5 PPG). Keep in mind that a regression line maps a player’s expected efficiency given the number of shots he takes in a game. Click on the graph for a larger view.

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With the season now a little over a month old, it’s time to take a look at how different players are performing in accordance with their preseason expectations. I’m always more of a good news first kind of guy, so I’ll start with the guys who are making a better-than-expected impact first, with the disappointments coming next week. Many of these players are transfers, although some are simply just producing more in additional minutes. The common thread with all seven of these Big Ten breakout players is that they are heavily contributing to wins in more than one way, and doing so at a high level.

Frank Kaminsky has played his way into B1G Player of the Year consideration (Getty)

• Frank Kaminsky, Wisconsin (14.7 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 2.1 BPG, 1.1 SPG, 42.9% 3FG, 55.4% FG). “Frank the Tank” is leading the Badgers in scoring, steals and blocks. People thought that he’d be able to have an impact with more minutes due to the graduation of Jared Berggren, but no one thought he’d be capable of dropping 43 points in a single game. Kaminsky leads a balanced attack on the offensive end that has five different players capable of scoring 20 on a given night, and he’s a defensive presence to the tune of blocking 7.06 percent of all opponents’ field goal attempts. Wisconsin in general has been a surprise, but Kaminsky has been an even bigger one.
• Eliott Eliason, Minnesota (5.7 PPG, 8.4 RPG, 2.5 BPG). Eliason got lost in the shuffle last season with Trevor Mkakwe and Rodney Williams getting most of the frontcourt minutes in 2012-13. This year he has emerged as a major rebounding and shot-blocking threat for the Gophers. Eliason is currently third in the league in defensive rebounding rate (26.5%), sixth in offensive rebounding rate (12.6%), and third in block rate (11.74%). On a team that frequently features a three-guard attack, it is vital that someone can clear the glass and protect the rim, which Eliason is doing at an elite level in the early going.

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One of the best games of the weekend should take place in Ames, Iowa, on Friday night, as Iowa State hosts Iowa for state bragging rights. Big Ten correspondent Brendan Brody and the Big 12’s Brian Goodman decided to address some key questions heading into the contest in the hopes of providing some insights for the viewers to watch for as the game plays out.

Roy Devyn Marble will play a vital role if the Hawkeyes want to pull off a road upset against Iowa State Friday night (Joe Camporeale/USA Today Sports).

B12: Iowa State has risen to the Top 25 and is getting contributions from a number of players, but what is Iowa’s best bet to contain the three-headed monster of Melvin Ejim, Georges Niang, and DeAndre Kane?

B1G: The best way that Iowa can do this is to force turnovers and bad shots with their diamond press that they employ on a good number of possessions. Aaron White and Mike Gesell are the key defensive players here, with White’s length a problem for Iowa State at the head of the press. Gesell harassed Farleigh Dickinson’s best guard, Sidney Sanders, into a 5-of-17, four-turnover evening recently, so look for him to start off on Kane to try to force similar results. Another advantage the Hawkeyes have is strength in numbers. They have multiple players who they can rotate in and out to cover each of the Cyclones’ Big Three. Speaking of which, Iowa has one of the deepest teams in the country, with 10 players averaging over 15 MPG. How can the Cyclones negate this Iowa advantage?

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