aaron white – Rush The Court

The Big Ten’s Biggest Surprises, Improvements & Disappointments

Patrick Engel — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 21:41:26 +0000

Iowa is atop the Big Ten after Valentine’s Day, Indiana is (mostly) better defensively and Minnesota still hasn’t won a conference game. Those are typical of the team surprises, improvements and disappointments that appear over the course of every Big Ten season. The same thing happens on an individual level: some players seem to come out of nowhere, others take impressive leaps in production, and still others regress or plateau. With conference play now two-thirds finished, here are some of the biggest surprises, improvements and disappointments among this season’s Big Ten players.

P.J. Thompson’s ball-handling has helped give Purdue [...]

Rushed Reaction: #7 Iowa 83, #10 Davidson 52

Andrew Murawa — Sat, 21 Mar 2015 02:41:47 +0000

Rush the Court will be providing wall-to-wall coverage of each of the NCAA Tournament from each of the 13 sites this year. Follow our NCAA Tourney specific Twitter accounts at @RTCeastregion, @RTCMWregion,@RTCsouthregion and @RTCwestregion.

Three Key Takeaways.

Aaron White Led Iowa in a Big Way Friday Night (USA Today Images)

Runs. With 8:47 left in the first half, Davidson head coach Bob McKillop subbed senior Tyler Kalinoski back into the game, already with two fouls. Twenty-seven seconds later, with Iowa’s senior Aaron White attacking the hoop for a layup, Kalinoski picked up his third foul. Over the next four-plus minutes, Iowa [...]

Big Ten Weekend in Review

Brendan Brody — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 17:01:52 +0000

The regular season is finally complete, and the Big Ten looks to have a solid six NCAA Tournament teams with Indiana and Illinois still with work left to do. With a busy seven-game slate from the weekend to cover, there’s really not else in the form of an introductory paragraph needed. Here is the final Big Ten Weekend in Review of the season.

DJ Newbill scored 31 points and hit a buzzer-beating three to give Penn State a win at Minnesota. (GoPSUsports.com)

Player of the Weekend: DJ Newbill would get a bunch more recognition if Penn State hadn’t finished the season [...]

Big Ten Weekend in Review

Brendan Brody — Tue, 03 Mar 2015 22:05:30 +0000

On the penultimate weekend of Big Ten conference play, the heavy hitters came up with some large performances.Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky, Ohio State’s D’Angelo Russell, Iowa’s Aaron White, and Illinois’ Rayvonte Rice all stated their cases for all-Big Ten inclusion in leading their teams to key wins. The quartet combined for 99 points over the weekend, showing that they are ready to go as the calendar has flipped to March. Nothing too earth-shattering happened in terms of results from the weekend games, but as always, here are some of the highlights.

Frank Kaminsky managed to put up 31 points in his final home game in Madison Sunday. (AP [...]

Big Ten M5: 02.25.15 Edition

Brendan Brody — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 14:41:14 +0000

Iowa lost a member of its deep roster earlier this week, as sophomore point guard Trey Dickerson decided to leave the program. The junior college transfer simply wasn’t seeing much time with Mike Gesell and Anthony Clemmons ahead of him in the rotation, playing in only 15 games (9.7 MPG). He did flash some athleticism and the ability to get to the rim in his brief cameos on the floor, but with those two upperclassmen ahead of him, he wasn’t likely to get much of a shot at substantial playing time in Iowa City. After a 12-1 start to the season inspired questions as to whether Penn [...]

Big Ten Weekend in Review

Brendan Brody — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 20:48:14 +0000

We would hope that the games would improve heading into the Big Ten Tournament in a couple of weeks, but last weekend proved that this isn’t always the case — there was only one Big Ten game where the outcome wasn’t decided until the final minute. Teams at the bottom of the standings like Nebraska, Penn State and Rutgers are basically raging dumpster fires right now, which reveals one of the biggest differences between last season and this one. The notion that “any Big Ten team can beat another on any given night” doesn’t seem to have much to it this year. It’ll [...]

Big Ten Weekend in Review

Brendan Brody — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 23:15:23 +0000

In a league defined by chaos this season, last weekend was fairly uneventful and arguably almost normal. There were no upsets, although there were a couple close calls as an undermanned Illinois squad had to sweat it out against Penn State at home, while Rutgers hung with Indiana thanks to the heroics of Myles Mack. Michigan State needed overtime to knock off a gritty Michigan team that once again was without the services of point guard Derrick Walton Jr. Meanwhile, Minnesota avenged an earlier loss to Nebraska by forcing an obscene 20 turnovers and holding the Cornhuskers to just 42 points. It would be obscene not [...]

Big Ten M5: 02.03.15 Edition

Eric Clark — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 15:01:21 +0000

Injured Illinois players Rayvonte Rice and Aaron Cosby were suspended by head coach John Groce on Saturday, just hours before the Illini’s match-up with Penn State. Cosby, who is currently sitting out after suffering a retinal tear to his left eye, was recently medically cleared to practice, while Rice had been participating in non-contact drills. Groce said that the two weren’t ready to play, and Bryce Smith of The Champaign Room hopes that the suspensions were due to minor transgressions such as the pair not working out while they were injured – but Groce has declined to mention specifics. If Rice and [...]

Big Ten Weekend in Review

Brendan Brody — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 16:31:16 +0000

Two things that stuck out from a busy seven-game weekend in the B1G both involved Iowa. Fran McCaffery’s squad reentered last week’s Top 25 only to drop two games and potentially lose Aaron White to a shoulder stinger. Luckily, the team does not play again until Saturday in a rematch against Wisconsin. But the star senior may miss some time, becoming the fourth key upperclassmen to get injured once conference play has started. They may have lost to Purdue on Saturday anyway, but with White only playing seven minutes, things were made a bit more difficult for the Hawkeyes to steal a [...]

Big Ten Bracketology Breakdown: January 22 Edition

Eric Clark — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 19:45:39 +0000

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi released his latest Bracketology update on Thursday, tabbing six Big Ten teams in his projected field of 68. Lunardi had projected the Big Ten to snag eight spots back in November – but it’s no secret that the conference has underperformed against fairly lofty preseason expectations. Lunardi is usually spot-on with his predictions, nailing 67 of the 68 teams last season and correctly naming all 68 in 2013. Let’s take a deeper look at each of his relevant projections.

Wisconsin – No. 2 (East)

The Badgers have been pegged as a No. 2 seed for Lunardi’s last three editions of [...]

Big Ten Weekend in Review

Brendan Brody — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 16:01:16 +0000

Points were relatively easy to come by in the Big Ten’s third weekend of play, as only three teams of the 12 with games failed to crack the 1.00 point per possession plateau. There were also some outstanding individual scoring games on display, with Penn State’s DJ Newbill (37 points) and Minnesota’s Andre Hollins (31 points) leading the way in that regard. From a team perspective, Purdue and Indiana got crucial road wins to stay among the top half of the league standings, while Maryland continued its outstanding start by dismantling Michigan State in College Park. Elsewhere, Minnesota is no longer winless [...]

Big Ten M5: 01.06.15 Edition

Eric Clark — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 14:31:44 +0000

Michigan State seemed to get its mojo back in crushing Indiana on Monday night, holding the Hoosiers to just 20 percent shooting from long distance. Inside the Hall’s Ryan Corazza attributed Indiana’s loss to a poor first-half performance that amounted to a 19-point halftime deficit. The Spartans, six days removed from a heartbreaking double-overtime loss to Maryland, were able to stifle Tom Crean’s drive-and-dish offense by locking down the paint and effectively closing out on Indiana’s gunners. In fact, Yogi Ferrell and Emmitt Holt were the only Hoosiers to make a shot in the first half while the rest of the team went 0-of-19. This [...]

How Can Iowa Fix Its Offensive Problems? A Few Ideas…

Brendan Brody — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 22:59:24 +0000

Iowa has gotten off to an 8-3 start this season, with what should be an important road win over North Carolina already on its resume. The Hawkeyes also don’t have any bad losses (unless Syracuse ends up faltering in the ACC), using their depth and size to bully the teams that they should beat — winning those games by an average of 25.9 points. While last year’s bugaboo, the defense, has improved significantly, the offense has faltered, going from the fifth best offensive efficiency nationally to 64th. If it’s not one thing; it’s another — that might be the mantra around Iowa City this season. What has caused Iowa’s offensive problems this [...]

Big Ten M5: 12.16.14 Edition

Eric Clark — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 14:31:10 +0000

Indiana had a solid weekend, destroying Grand Canyon by 28 points and turning the ball over only four times in the process. Prior to that win, the Hoosiers had been averaging 12.9 turnovers per game. Their relative lack of turnovers this season has been a godsend for head coach Tom Crean, as Indiana ranked 330th in the country in turnover percentage last year. This year, they’re turning the ball over on only 17 percent of their possessions, which ranks among the top 40 teams in the country. Iowa’s offensive limitations were exposed against Iowa State on Friday night as the Hawkeyes took a 15-point thumping at home [...]

Iowa Feeling Good Again After Big Road Win at UNC

Bennet Hayes — Thu, 04 Dec 2014 22:01:22 +0000

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as the act of “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Fans have called Fran McCaffery crazy before, but the way his Iowa team finished last season had to leave the Hawkeyes head man questioning his own sanity. After a 19-6 beginning to 2013-14, his team lost seven of its final eight games, and the lone win in that stretch came against Big Ten bottom-feeder Purdue. Time and time again, McCaffery sent out the same talented group that had racked up points and wins in bunches all the way through January, and time and [...]