1. Most people rebalance their portfolios at the end of the year, but for some reason Seth Davis decided to file his annual stock report at the start of 2016 (maybe his CPA doesn’t believe in tax-loss harvesting). In any event, it is a good refresher if you haven’t been focused on college basketball with the college football season mercifully ending. We agree with most of Seth’s buy, sell, or hold recommendations although buying the #1 team in this scenario seems akin to buying a stock with a ridiculous P/E ratio.
2. Indiana will be without sophomore guard James Blackmon Jr. for the rest of the season after he underwent season-ending surgery on his right knee yesterday. Blackmon, who was averaging 15.8 points and 4.2 rebounds per game this season (similar to the 15.7 and 5.3 he averaged last year) had surgery on his left knee over the summer and appeared to recover. It is unclear if this injury was related to him overcompensating with the other leg or just a coincidence. In any event, the Hoosiers will have to find a way to make up for the lost offense although as we have seen their problems are usually on the other side of the ball. So far they are off to a good start with their win over Wisconsin last night.
3. One of the bigger stories of this season that has flown under the radar is the success of Southern Methodist as the Mustangs have started the season 13-0, but are banned from participating in the postseason. That ban is in large part due to issues around the recruitment of Keith Frazier, who had been averaging 11.9 points per game, but decided to leave the program because he feels that he is being blamed for the postseason ban. Given Brown’s history it is an amusing twist that the last stop of his coaching career will end with a player leaving him after the recruitment of that player led to the third time that a program run by Brown has been sanctioned by the NCAA.
4. Speaking of sanctions, it appears that San Diego State will not face any from the NCAA for allegations that they provided recruits with improper benefits. According to the original reports these could have potentially resulted in Level 1 violations. The full extent of the reported violations never came out publicly (possibly because there wasn’t enough evidence to substantiate them), but given Steve Fischer’s history of being fired at Michigan in the wake of the Ed Martin scandal we can understand if San Diego State fans and the administration are feeling a sense of relief.
5. It might seem early to be talking about impact transfers, but Louisville appears to have landed one for next season in Penn guard Tony Hicks, who led the Quakers in scoring the past two seasons. Hicks is sitting out this season and will graduate in May making him eligible to play next season for Louisville as a graduate transfer. We aren’t ready to start thinking of Louisville as another version of Iowa State, but Hicks will be the third significant transfer to Louisville in the past two seasons with Damion Lee (17.6 points and 4 rebounds per game) and Trey Lewis (14.3 points and 2.4 assists per game) leading them this year.

After a non-conference season that seemingly flew by, we’ve now moved into Big Ten play. Saturday’s action in particular featured a number of games that allowed anyone who hadn’t checked out much of the Big Ten a chance to catch up on what they’ve missed. All 14 team played over the weekend, so what follows are a few of the highlights from the first slate of weekend action.

Melo Trimble did a little bit of everything for Maryland as they knocked off Northwestern on Saturday night. (Leon Halip/Getty Images)

Player of the Weekend: Yogi Ferrell (Indiana) and Jarrod Uthoff (Iowa) played well in their teams’ wins, but Maryland’s Melo Trimble gets the nod here for his play on both ends of the floor. He and Rasheed Suliamon made things miserable for Northwestern’s shooters, holding Tre Demps to 4-of-16 shooting and the Wildcats to 2-of-20 from behind the three-point line. While Trimble’s perimeter defense was outstanding, his play on the offensive end was also noteworthy. Seven of his eight assists came in the first half when his shot wasn’t falling, but he came alive for 17 points in the second half with timely long-range bombing every time Northwestern started to make a run. Trimble’s assist rate jump from his freshman season (21.2%) to this year (34.9%) is partially a function of a more talented cast, but his passing has really improved this season. He ended up with 24 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists as the Terrapins notched a quality road win in Evanston.

Super Sub of the Weekend: Indiana’s Troy Williams hasn’t started conference play very well and James Blackmon, Jr. is out indefinitely. Luckily for the Hoosiers, OG Anunoby has emerged as a legitimate playmaker with the extra minutes — a stat line of 11 points in 11 minutes on a perfect 4-of-4 shooting against Nebraska should surely earn him some additional court time in the future. His key steal in the late stages of Saturday’s game when the Cornhuskers were still within striking distance allowed Indiana to close it out. Tom Crean is not afraid to play a deep bench, so look for Anunoby to see extended minutes as Big Ten play progresses.

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1. Michigan State has started off 1-1 in Big Ten play and 2-1 overall since losing senior Player of the Year front-runner Denzel Valentine. The Spartans have especially struggled on the offensive end of the floor without Valentine’s scoring and play-making abilities. Sparty will only have to hold serve a bit longer however, as Valentine has targeted Michigan State’s January 10 game against Penn State for his return to action. According to ESPN.com, Valentine said that he’s just waiting on some of the swelling in his knee to go down. This means he will miss only one more game — on January 7 against Illinois.
2. Iowa won at Purdue on Saturday for the first time since 2006, and it did so by erasing a 17-point halftime deficit. Senior leadership played a role as Jarrod Uthoff rallied the troops during a spirited halftime speech. The senior backed it up on the court as well, scoring 25 for the game. This means that Iowa will more than likely make their way into the Top 25 for the first time all season, and gives them two huge resume-enhancers for the week after they beat Michigan State earlier in the week as well.
3. Marc Loving continues to lead a resurgence of sorts for Ohio State, as the Buckeyes held off Illinois on Sunday afternoon to go to 2-0 in league play. The junior wing went on a personal 6-0 run to help squelch an Illinois rally in the second half. Loving ended the game with 27 points, doing so by getting to the free throw line 19 times. The Buckeyes have needed someone to become their go-to-scorer, and Loving looks to be starting to emerge and take the offensive burden on his shoulders. Ohio State has now won six in a row, and look like they’ve turned a corner after their important non-conference win over Kentucky.
4. Despite some uneven play during their first 14 games, Maryland is still a threat to cut the nets down in April as one of the most talented teams in all the land. They submitted one of their best performances of the season on Saturday when they beat Northwestern in Evanston. The Wildcats had been burning people with their perimeter shooting, but the Terrapins held them to a woeful 2-for-20 night from deep as Melo Trimble and Rasheed Suliamon harassed their shooters all night. After a shaky offensive effort against Penn State in their conference lid-lifter, the Terrapins won this one by displaying a stingy defense that if sustained, makes them one of the favorites to win the regular season crown in the Big Ten.
5. In an assessment of Indiana’s two wins to start off Big Ten play, one of the major positives has been the play of the freshmen and of the bench at large. With James Blackmon Jr out of action, the likes of Nick Zeisloft, OG Anunoby, and Max Bielfeldt all have increased their production. This bodes well for if/when Blackmon Jr comes back into the lineup, as a deeper bench will allow the Hoosiers to more effectively play their uptempo offensive style without a drop off with the subs in the game. Bielfeldt and freshman Thomas Bryant have also done a nice job scoring in the post, giving the Hoosiers more ways to beat teams instead of always relying on jump shots.

1. With Alex Olah out indefinitely, Joey van Zegren started at center for Northwestern in its Wednesday Big Ten opener at Nebraska. But freshman Dererk Pardon stole the show in his college debut, with 28 points and 12 rebounds off the bench. Originally slated to redshirt this year, Chris Collins burned Pardon’s redshirt as a result of Olah’s injury. The Cleveland, Ohio, native made a case that he, not van Zegren, should carry the load at center while Olah is out.
2. Illinois signed wing Kipper Nichols in November as part of its 2016 recruiting class, and the former Tulane signee officially joined and started practicing with the Fighting Illini earlier this week. Nichols, an Ohio native, enrolled and briefly attended class at Tulane this fall. He did not play a game, but he will still likely have to wait until December 2016 to play and will have three and a half years of eligibility left. In addition to Tulane, Nichols held offers from Northwestern, Maryland, Nebraska, Xavier and Butler out of high school. Scout.com originally rated him a three-star prospect in the 2015 class.
3. Rutgers forward Deshawn Freeman hasn’t played since Nov. 30 because of a knee injury, and was scheduled to be re-evaluated around the start of Big Ten play. Now, he won’t be re-evaluated until the second week of January, keeping him out for at least the first three of Rutgers’ conference games. The junior was averaging 13.1 points per game before his injury.
4. Indiana guard James Blackmon Jr. missed Wednesday’s 79-72 win over Rutgers with a right knee injury suffered in Monday’s practice. Head coach Tom Crean said it was a non-contact injury suffered during a drill, and is still in the “evaluation stage.” Right now, it’s unclear how serious the injury is or how much time he will miss. The sophomore was averaging 15.8 points per game prior to sustaining the injury.
5. Illinois is down yet another player after point guard Khalid Lewis missed Wednesday’s loss to Michigan with the mumps, leaving Jaylon Tate as the Illini’s only healthy true point guard. Lewis was kept away from the team with the contagious disease and won’t practice again until healthy. Tate played a career-high 34 minutes in the 78-68 loss, scoring six points and handing out four assists. Illinois’ next game is Sunday at Ohio State.

The Big Ten non-conference schedule ended on Sunday and conference play begins this evening when Purdue ventures into the Kohl Center and battles a Bo Ryan-less Wisconsin team at 6:00 PM CT. Now that we’re at this natural evaluation point, the Big Ten microsite has rank-ordered the 14 Big Ten resumes using KenPom rankings instead of RPI — which the selection committee uses — because the RPI does not become a reliable metric until later. The table below displays each resume from best to worst and illustrates each team’s KenPom current ranking, strength of schedule, record against different groups of rankings, best win (and whether it was home, away, or neutral game), and worst loss. Below that we provide a few notes of interest on each resume.

Resume Notes

• Michigan State: The obvious top pick. Not only are the Spartans undefeated but they have three wins against the KenPom top 25: Kansas (KP#2), Louisville (KP#6), and Florida (KP#22). Tom Izzo usually challenges his teams with difficult non-conference schedules, a tactic which usually leads to a handful of early losses. This year, however, Sparty escaped unscathed. If Michigan State can simply manage to tread water while Denzel Valentine is out of the lineup for two weeks, it will be in the running for the overall #1 NCAA Tournament seed in two months.
• Purdue: The Boilermakers were surprisingly routed by Butler (KP#20) in last week’s Crossroads Classic, but they still have three top 30 wins against Vanderbilt (KP#18), Florida (KP#22), and at Pittsburgh (KP#27). The rest of Purdue’s schedule is generally unremarkable except in that it has dominated its opponents, winning by an average margin of over 20 points per game. Right now, Purdue is headed toward a top-four protected seed in the NCAA Tournament.
• Maryland: While the Terrapins didn’t play the most challenging non-conference schedule, they did enough with wins against Connecticut (KP#31), Rhode Island (KP#63), and Georgetown (KP#75) to carry a top-three resume. Their only game against an elite team was at North Carolina, where they put up a valiant fight but eventually succumbed to their only loss. Despite the missed opportunity, Maryland is also in line for a top-four protected seed.

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The book has officially been closed on the non-conference portion of the Big Ten schedule. As a collective, the league finished with a 130-49 record. This is a tad worse from last season’s 136-44 mark, and even further down from the conference’s 122-32 mark of two seasons ago. And as much as league official would like to do so, this can’t all be blamed on Rutgers’ 6-7 record to start the season. Despite the fact that the conference appears to have fallen off a bit, there are a number of positives and negatives to glean from this season’s opening chapter.

Northwestern finished up non-conference play with a 12-1 record, putting themselves in position to make their first every trip to the NCAA Tournament. (AP Photo/Matt Marton)

A three-team pack has emerged as the clear front-runners heading into conference play. Michigan State, Maryland and Purdue have all impressed and can be viewed as potential Final Four teams. The trio has combined to lose only two games on the year, with both of those defeats coming to teams that are currently ranked in the top 10. Sparty has beaten a whopping seven teams among the KenPom top 100, while the Boilermakers have beaten four and the Terps three. All three of these teams are in line for protected seeds come March if they perform well during conference play.

Among other Big Ten teams, Northwestern has done exactly what it needed to do in getting to 12-1 with its sole loss to preseason No. 1 North Carolina. The Wildcats’ schedule wasn’t arduous but they avoided any resume-disrupting losses. They still may not end up in the NCAA Tournament, depending on how conference play goes, but Chris Collins’ team has done a nice job positioning itself for it. Iowa also really can’t complain after getting to conference play at 9-3. The Hawkeyes put together a 3-3 record against teams in the KenPom top 100, and also avoided the bad loss bugaboo.

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Now that the non-conference part of the Big Ten season is finished, we can enthusiastically look ahead at the conference schedule. Because of an unbalanced league schedule that requires 14 teams to play 18 games, some teams are going to get railroaded while others find an easier road to March. Every team will get tested in one way or another, of course, but some unlucky teams will be tested more than others. Here’s a look at three schedules that appear excessively tough and two others that could be a bit more manageable this year.

Shep Garner and Penn State will have one of the most difficult league schedules in the Big Ten. (Mark Selders Photography)

Most Difficult

• Penn State: The Nittany Lions are the only team that really didn’t catch a break with either their home or road slates. They play each of the league’s top three teams (Michigan State, Maryland and Purdue) on the road and also will visit three other potential NCAA Tournament teams (Iowa, Michigan, and Northwestern) this season. They also lost a home game by playing the return game with Michigan in New York City, and their other home-and-homes include Michigan State, Iowa, and Northwestern. The only silver linings here are avoiding Purdue and Maryland twice and an opportunity to sneak into NIT consideration with a few unexpected wins.
• Maryland: The Terrapins have to play Purdue twice and will face Michigan State in East Lansing. Their other home-and-homes include Michigan, Northwestern, Ohio State and Wisconsin. This schedule will certainly boost Maryland’s RPI and overall resume, but avoiding rematches with any of the bottom tier could make its road to a conference regular season title appear a bit taxing. Winning the majority of these games will do nothing but give Mark Turgeon’s group a bit of an edge when it comes to seeding for the Big Dance.
• Ohio State: The Buckeyes are still one of the biggest question marks in the Big Ten, but their win against Kentucky leaves them with much more realistic bubble expectations than previously. They will have the chance to undo some rough home losses by getting two cracks at Maryland and Michigan State along with road games against Indiana, Northwestern, Purdue and Wisconsin. Win three of those six contests and take care of business against the others and Ohio State could punch its dance card for the eight consecutive season.

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Your class, company, or family probably plays Secret Santa during the holidays. To get in the giving spirit this Christmas, we’ll play Secret Santa with the Big Ten’s 14 teams and coaches. As much fun as it would be to give Richard Pitino more hair gel or Tom Izzo some stilts, we’ll stick to practical basketball-related gifts that each Big Ten coach would be thrilled to unwrap.

Santa has a variety of interesting presents for Big Ten teams to unwrap

Here are the gifts we gave each coach and team (in alphabetical order):

• Illinois (John Groce): This is one of the easier teams to shop for: The injury bug has cursed Illinois, so it gets healthy players from Santa. The Fighting Illini are playing this season without their starting point guard (Tracy Abrams), power forward (Leron Black) and center (Mike Thorne, Jr.).
• Indiana (Tom Crean): Another easy team to shop for. If you haven’t heard of Indiana’s horrific defensive efforts, you’ve been living under a rock. The Hoosiers gave up 70 points to Kennesaw State and 72 to Alcorn State, respectively. Those teams rank 322 and 349 in the KenPom ranks, and average 64.1 and 60.3 PPG, respectively. Crean needs to start thinking of new ways to get his players to play better defense. Santa gives him a “D-Fense” sign that he can throw at players after bad defensive efforts. Better loosen up your arm, Tom.
• Iowa (Fran McCaffery): The Hawkeyes aren’t elite in any one area, but don’t have a lot of gaping holes. They do struggle to get to the foul line, with a 25.8 free throw rate, which ranks 337^th in the nation, per KenPom. Santa gives Iowa more free throw chances, especially to Peter Jok. The junior wing is Iowa’s second-leading scorer, but has attempted just 23 free throws.
• Maryland (Mark Turgeon): The one knock on the Terps has been turnovers. They turn it over on 20 percent of their possessions and have six players who turn the ball over at least 19 percent of their used possessions. Maryland finds sturdy handles under its tree this year.

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Fall semesters have wrapped up across Big Ten campuses, and that means that league freshmen have now played 11 to 13 games and put a full semester of the collegiate experience behind them. As usual, their contributions run the gamut. Some have become invaluable parts of their teams; others are playing well but still going under-appreciated in fan circles; while a number of others haven’t yet cracked their teams’ rotations. As we enter the holiday break and look forward to league play starting on Tuesday next week, here is a look at how some of the Big Ten’s freshmen have performed so far this season.

Caleb Swanigan has been one of the Big Ten’s best freshmen and has helped make Purdue’s interior defense among the nation’s best. (AP Photo/Doug McSchooler)

Five Freshman Stars

(Note: Scout.com used for player ratings)

• Caleb Swanigan, Purdue: This former five-star recruit has made Purdue’s front line even tougher than it already was. Purdue likes to play the 6’9″, 260-pounder alongside A.J. Hammons or Isaac Haas, which creates a special circle of hell for opposing teams and allows for more big-to-big passing on offense. Swanigan is averaging 11.2 PPG, 2.5 APG and a league-best 9.3 RPG, but he has exhibited a bit of a turnover problem (3.4 miscues per game).
• Diamond Stone, Maryland: The No. 6 overall prospect in the class of 2015, Stone hasn’t been quite as good as fast as many thought he would be. Nevertheless, he has still put together a fine young season, averaging 10.7 PPG and 4.6 RPG as top-10 Maryland’s starting center. His 18.0 percent offensive rebounding percentage ranks ninth in the country, per KenPom.

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Things were looking bleak for Indiana at the Crossroads Classic, similar to how they looked in the Hoosiers’ three previous losses this season. Sloppy and ill-timed turnovers coupled with uninterested, passive defense had put the Hoosiers in a 56-40 hole with 15:11 left on Saturday against Notre Dame. But then something strange happened. Tom Crean’s squad held the Fighting Irish to 8-of-26 shooting for the rest of the contest, using contributions from throughout its roster to pull off an impressive 80-73 comeback win. A loss in Indianapolis — its fourth against a top-100 opponent this season — would have been catastrophic, but instead the Hoosiers found a new and different approach to earn the victory. Balanced scoring, crashing the boards, and — believe it or not — solid defense carried the day, showing that it’s far to early to give up on the Hoosiers making a deep run in March.

Indiana’s Comeback Win Was Cause for Celebration in Indy (USA Today Images)

One of the most important things to come from yesterday’s win was that Yogi Ferrell and James Blackmon Jr. only combined for 19 of Indiana’s 80 points. All nine members of the rotation played at least seven minutes, and four players scored in double-figures. Robert Johnson, Collin Hartman, and Thomas Bryant all had their moments on the offensive end, scoring several key buckets in crunch time. Meanwhile, Troy Williams got to the rim at will. This type of offensive balance is important for the role players’ confidence as Big Ten play approaches. A nine-man rotation where each player is capable of making a difference is a great deal more formidable than an attack consisting primarily of Ferrell and Blackmon taking a high volume of shots.

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