1. While most of the country was about to go to bed last night, Bo Ryan decided to shock the college basketball world and announce his retirement, effective immediately. If you remember, Ryan said in the offseason that this would be his last year at Wisconsin, but then backtracked on those comments before the season started. This is a transparent move on Ryan’s part to get his protege — Greg Gard, who will become interim coach the rest of the season — at least a shot to show he can coach this program well into the future. However well Gard does with the remainder of the season, however, look for athletic director Barry Alvarez to see if he can pry Tony Bennett from Virginia as soon as the season is over.
2. After their disastrous showing at the Maui Invitational where they went 1-2 in the losers bracket, followed by an embarrassing shellacking at Duke on national TV, Indiana has been largely ignored by the media and written off as serious Final Four contenders. But don’t look now, the Hoosier have won three decisive victories in a row (all games won by 30+ points) and are ranked at #23 on KenPom. In the last couple contests, no one has stepped up more than Troy Williams who has averaged 14.0 points, 13.0 rebounds, 3.0 blocks, 2.5 assists, and 2.0 steals–which was good enough to be named CBS Sports Player of the Week. The junior wing has seemed to resurrect his standing within the team after being benched in the St. John’s game. We’ll see if the team as a whole can resurrect itself this Saturday when they play Notre Dame in the Crosstown Classic.
3. While Williams was named of POTW by CBS, Jarrod Uthoff was chosen for the same honor by the Big Ten thanks to his impressive 32-point performance in a disappointing loss to Iowa State. A few days before, the sharpshooting senior scored 27 points against Western Illinois. While Uthoff is virtually unstoppable when he has his shot going, he still hasn’t found the ability to force his will onto a game. Against the Cyclones, Uthoff scored 30 of his 32 points in the first half; in the second half, when Iowa State made their run to overcome a 21-point deficit, Uthoff was nowhere to be found (until the very end of the game). It’s clear this Iowa team can play with anyone when Uthoff is on fire, but it’s unclear if they’re able to compete when he is having an off-night.
4. Uthoff wasn’t the only POTW selected by the Big Ten, he shared the award with Melo Trimble. The Maryland point guard has been absolutely stellar and has made a big jump in some important categories from his freshman season. The most important facet of his game that has seen improvement is his ability to distribute the rock. Trimble is averaging over two assists more a game than last season which is vital given that he now has more talented teammates looking to score. Now that Maryland’s point guard, and candidate for National Player of the Year, has developed a complete game–with the ability to score and distribute–the sky is the limit for the Terrapins.
5. Another high-performing team in the Big Ten has been Purdue, which finds itself at 11-0 going into a much anticipated game against Butler in the Crosstown Classic. The anchors of both the defense and offense has been the Boilermakers three frontcourt players — A.J. Hammons, Isaac Haas, and Caleb Swanigan. How good are they? All three made BTN‘s Jess Settle’s Top 10 player list, by far the most for any one team. With talent like that up front, they are making good on their promise of a special season for Purdue fans.

1. In a game where Iowa led for 37 minutes and the game was tied for another two minutes and 21 seconds, archrival Iowa State found a way to win a game that looked like it was lost in Ames last night. The Cyclones ended the game on a 9-0 run, capped by Monte’ Morris’ game-winning floater with less than nine seconds remaining. On the backs of Jared Uthoff (32 points, nine rebounds) and Peter Jok’s (16 points in the second half) work, Iowa built a commanding 20-point lead only to have it erased in the final few moments. Iowa State remains undefeated as another thrilling chapter to the Cy-Hawk Series has been written.
2. Well, it’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt, right? As the buzzer sounded in Ames, Cyclones fans rushed the court in wild celebration. Randy Peterson, the Iowa State beat writer for the Des Moines Register, got caught up in the fracas, was knocked down and left Hilton Coliseum on a stretcher with a broken leg. So now the debate on whether college kids should or should not rush the court has picked up again. Our well wishes go out to Peterson as he begins to heal, and at least he apparently has a great sense of humor about things.
3. A name familiar to Big 12 fans made his highly-anticipated debut with Wichita State on Wednesday night. Yes, Conner Frankamp, the former Kansas guard, checked into a game for the first time since the Jayhawks’ upset loss to Stanford in the 2014 NCAA Tournament. Frankamp, the all-time leading scorer in Wichita high school history, struggled shooting the ball (0-of-5 shooting), but he did hit two crucial free throws late to give the Shockers a two-possession lead with 21 seconds to play. He’ll need to be an important piece for Gregg Marshall’s team as it enters Missouri Valley play but my guess is that Kansas (91.0 PPG) isn’t missing his scoring punch all that much.
4. Baylor’s Rico Gathers is aware of the fact that he is a very large person. He’s known this about himself for a little more than three years, at the very least. There’s almost no chance a low mid-major team like Northwestern State can adequately prepare for a player his size. Predictably, Gathers had his way with the Demons, scoring a career-high 31 points and outrebounding them by himself, 21 to 18, in the Bears’ 13-point win. He’s already the all-time rebounding king in the history of Baylor basketball with 938 and counting. It would be incredible if he gets to 1,000 boards before conference play opens versus Kansas on January 2.
5. Texas’ gauntlet of a non-conference schedule continues this weekend as North Carolina will invade the Forty Acres on Saturday. After nailing 15 of 30 threes against UT-San Antonio, can the Horns conceivably put up another respectable effort from outside against a much stronger opponent? With a healthy Marcus Paige back in the Tar Heels’ lineup, Shaka Smart’s squad might need another one of those everything-is-going-through-the-net type of games in order to stay with one of the favorites to cut down the nets next April.

Another year of college basketball must mean another mixed start to the season for Iowa. After thumping Marquette on November 19 and moving to 3-0, the Hawkeyes lost two of their next three games during Feast Week and walk into their Big Ten/ACC Challenge tonight sitting at 4-2. But things aren’t all bad for Frank McCaffery as their two losses are to Dayton and Notre Dame, a pair of likely NCAA Tournament teams next March. Furthermore, Iowa is currently performing well both on the offensive and defensive ends, ranking #19 and #29 in efficiency on KenPom, respectively. The high offensive rating on offense is especially notable after consecutive years of losing All-Big Ten players like Roy Devyn Marble and Aaron White. In this post, I’ll take a deep look at the Hawkeyes’ offense and see how they’re living up to the two previous seasons.

Iowa seniors (from left) Jared Uthoff, Adam Woodbury and Mike Gesell have sustained the offense to its highly efficient level of performance. (AP)

Last season, McCaffrey had the challenge of replacing Marble, a career 1,000 point scorer, and did so effectively thanks to the emergence of White. This year, the Hawkeyes are once again replacing their leading scorer now that White graduated with Jarrod Uthoff as the presumptive next star. Thus far, the senior wing has stepped up to the challenge and leads the team in scoring with 18.2 PPG, but he hasn’t done it alone. Iowa has seven players getting a majority of the minutes and all have averaged over six PPG: Uthoff, Peter Jok (12.0 PPG), Adam Woodbury (9.7 PPG), Mike Gesell (8.8 PPG), Anthony Clemmons (7.5 PPG), Brady Ellingson (6.8 PPG), and Dom Uhl (6.3 PPG). When compared to the two previous seasons, these Hawkeyes are certainly more balanced. But does deeper mean a more productive offense? The table below compares the performances in the first six games from each of the last three seasons. Read the rest of this entry »

We continue our Big Ten microsite predictions and superlatives with the second half of our preseason standings. We presented our preseason standings with teams #14 – #8 on the microsite yesterday; today, we unveil the top half. These are the teams that we as a group believe will finish near or atop the league when all the dust settles and will result in the likely conference representatives in the NCAA Tournament.  Enjoy!

It’s Jarrod Uthoff’s turn to lead the Hawkeyes to another NCAA Tournament.

• 7. Iowa: With Aaron White now graduated, all eyes turn to senior Jarrod Uthoff to take the baton and lead the Hawkeyes to a third consecutive NCAA Tournament— something this program hasn’t accomplished since the early 1990s. With players like Adam Woodbury, Peter Jok and an experienced backcourt to work with, Uthoff will have a supporting cast with enough talent to get it done.
• 6. Michigan: The Wolverines are a talent-laden team with a number of players similar to Caris LeVert who fit perfectly into John Beilein’s prolific three-point offense. Both he and Derrick Walton were sidelined with injuries for the majority of last season, which gave the rest of the young roster experience to draw from this year. Now fully healthy, Michigan is set up for a comeback campaign pushing toward the top of the Big Ten.

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Last week, I broke down the race for the top four seeds in the Big Ten because finishing in that group guarantees those teams a double-bye in the upcoming Big Ten Tournament. Heading into the final weekend of the regular season, we have a much clearer picture of this race. Wisconsin and Maryland have already locked up the #1 and #2 seeds, but the #3 and #4 seeds are still very much up in the air. Currently, there is a four-way tie for third place between Iowa, Michigan State, Ohio State, and Purdue. All teams have a record of 11-6 with one game remaining — none of which are against each other. This means that there are 16 possible (and very confusing) combinations of outcomes from this weekend’s games. To help clear things up, I created a cheat sheet showing where each team will be seeded given each scenario. The table below displays the 16 possibilities: Michigan State gets a double-by in 12 of the 16 options; Purdue in nine; Iowa in six; and, Ohio State in five.

Below is a synopsis for each team:

• Michigan State. Thanks to a 3-0 record against the other three teams, the Spartans would win all of the tiebreakers and end up with a top four seed in 12 of the sixteen scenarios and with the #3 seed in nine of the 16 scenarios. It breaks down like this: If the Spartans beat Indiana on the road, they’ll lock up the #3 seed; if they lose, they’ll need at least two other teams to also fall to get the double-bye. In this four-team race, Michigan State clearly has the upper hand.
• Iowa. The Hawkeyes finish with a top four seed in six of the 16 possible scenarios. In head-to-head tiebreakers, they will have the advantage over Ohio State (2-0) but not against the other two teams (0-1). In situations where multiple teams are tied, Iowa is hurt by its two losses to Wisconsin because the others only have one loss from the Badgers.

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Fran McCaffery is an excellent coach. That notion should be widely accepted given the job he’s done in bringing Iowa back from the disastrous Todd Lickliter era. In his fifth season at the helm, he has managed to elevate the Hawkeyes’ program from the Big Ten cellar to the upper tier in a state that isn’t exactly a hotbed of prep basketball talent. The 55-year old clearly knows how to develop players and build a program, but like everyone, he has some flaws. And McCaffery’s most visible flaw — his general temperament — was on full display during last weekend’s standoffish press conference following a 71-55 win over Maryland. When asked about Adam Woodbury‘s much-discussed eye poke of the Terps’ Melo Trimble (his third such incident in the prior two weeks), the head coach dismissed the reporter by asking for an “intelligent question.” When queried as to why the previous question wasn’t intelligent, he responded with a condescending, “because I said so.” In a vacuum, an ornery response from a coach in a press conference is no big deal. But in McCaffery’s case, last weekend’s incident is just the latest example in a pattern of poor behavior that one day may come back to haunt him.

Fran McCaffery’s temperament can only hurt, not help.  (AP)

Let’s further examine Sunday’s incident. For the third time this season, Woodbury did his best Three Stooges impersonation by poking Trimble’s eye. He had done the same thing to Wisconsin’s Nigel Hayes and Frank Kaminsky in Iowa’s January 31 game against Wisconsin. Even if we give the junior center the benefit of the doubt and assume that all three incidents were accidents, the trend has now gone well past the point of inaction so that Woodbury must remedy the situation by altering how he uses his hands in a defensive stance. That much should be clear, and it seemed to be to everyone except Iowa’s head coach. On the contrary, McCaffery dismissed any question about it in kind, exhibiting himself as someone who is, at best, irrationally hostile to the media and, at worst, someone unconcerned with the well-being of opposing players. His reaction was an unnecessary gaffe, one that’s been skewered by national media and mocked on numerous blogs.

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1. On Saturday, Indiana lost its final non-conference match-up to Georgetown in Madison Square Garden. In the second half, the game became a duel between two former teammates and Indianapolis natives, the Hoosiers’ Yogi Ferrell and the Hoyas’ D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera. Ferrell scored a team-high 27 points, including two three-pointers that helped the Hoosiers tie the game and send it to overtime. As Zach Osterman explains, there is no shame in losing to Georgetown on a neutral site — the disappointment stems from what would have been gained with a win. A win over a good Big East team would not only have given Indiana a big boost going into its conference schedule, but also earned them their first resume win and mitigated some of the stain from their bad loss to Eastern Washington. Now, the Hoosiers will have to overperform in Big Ten play in order to earn an NCAA bid.
2. This weekend we also saw the return of Dez Wells when Maryland defeated Oakland. After missing five games with a wrist injury, Wells did not get the start but played 22 minutes, chipping in 10 points and four assists. The senior’s return adds to the momentum the Terrapins have built after going 12-1 in non-conference play. In Wells’ absence, Jake Layman has stepped up his production, emerging as a legitimate scoring option for Maryland; combine that with the standout play of freshman stud Melo Trimble and a healthy Wells and Evan Smotrycz, and Mark Turgeon now has a wealth of talent with which to develop his new rotation, shaping up Maryland to be a force in its first season in the Big Ten.
3. The slate of Saturday games also included Minnesota’s convincing win against UNC-Wilmington. This was the Golden Gophers’ eighth victory in a row, and it caps off a nice finish to their non-conference schedule after starting 3-2 — they’re now 11-2 with losses only to Louisville and St. John’s (both in KenPom’s top 20). Richard Pitino’s pressure defense has once again been a big part of their success (defensive turnover rate of 28.0 percent, third in the country), but it’s their ability to share the ball that has really boosted the offense and overall play, as evidenced by the 66.2 percent of field goals made that come off of assists (fifth nationally). Minnesota will see if its collegial philosophy on offense will translate to a step up in competition when it starts Big Ten play Wednesday at Purdue.
4. Now that the non-conference schedule season has wrapped up, it’s worth reviewing what has happened in the season thus far. We will have some look-back posts coming up here on the microsite, but the MaizeNBrew blog from SB Nation has compiled a pretty comprehensive version of its non-conference awards. Wisconsin was honored as the Best Team, while Northwestern shamefully beat out Rutgers to be named the Worst Team. Additionally, the Badgers’ Frank Kaminsky was awarded midseason MVP, Ohio State’s D’Angelo Russell was Best Freshman, Maryland’s Jake Layman was Most Improved, Wisconsin/Duke was the best game of the non-conference season, Iowa over North Carolina was deemed the Best Win, and Michigan’s infamous defeat to NJIT was identified as the Worst Loss. There are many, many more awards in the article, and it serves as a good recap of the early part of the season for the Big Ten.
5. Finally, fans have been grasping at straws to make sense of the “mushy middle”of this year’s Big Ten. It seems as if there is not much daylight between teams unless your name is Wisconsin (for good reason) or Northwestern and Rutgers (for not-so-good reasons). If you’re looking for some clarity, Jeff from the BasketballPredictions blog has updated his bracketology predictions to include Saturday’s results. His predictions and seedings reflect what he expects to occur by the end of the season. In it, he has eight Big Ten teams making the Dance: Wisconsin (#1 seed), Ohio State (#4), Maryland (#7), Illinois (#7), Iowa (#8), Michigan State (#9), Michigan (#11), and Minnesota (#12). This leaves out bubble-hopefuls Penn State (and their 12-1 record), Indiana, Nebraska and Purdue. These predictions seem to highlight how much uncertainty there is with any team’s record and/or performance in the non-conference, and that we’ll likely have a slugfest in the conference all season long for those precious NCAA Tournament bids. There are two exciting months of Big Ten play coming our way that will sort all of this out. Get excited!

1. The Big Ten emerged victorious in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge on Wednesday night after Iowa secured the series-clinching eighth win by shocking North Carolina with a 60-55 road victory. It was Mike Gesell who carried the Hawkeyes to victory with his 16 points on 5-of-7 shooting. The victory for especially sweet for Iowa’s point guard, as it came against former AAU teammate Marcus Paige, an All-American and someone he considers “his brother.” Iowa’s center, Adam Woodbury, was also on that same AAU team and described what the win meant to Gesell: “I think this is great for Mike… He played really well in AAU, and for him to be compared to Marcus was unfair. I think he showed [Wednesday] that he’s his own player.” For one night at least, Gesell came away with the acclaim over his friend in Carolina Blue.
2. While Iowa clinched the Challenge for the Big Ten, the game of the series was played later that night when Duke went to Madison and disposed of Wisconsin by 10 points. Evan Flood wrote a great summary on some of the lessons learned for the Badgers, including the continuing concern over the health of Sam Dekker’s ankle. Additionally, Flood shrewdly points out that the Badgers’ perimeter defense was sorely lacking, allowing the Blue Devils to shoot a blistering 58.7 percent from three and 67.6 percent from inside the arc. Defense was this team’s vulnerability last season and it could be the Badgers’ biggest weakness this year as well.
3. One of the Big Ten’s wins on Wednesday came at State College, where Penn State protected home court against Virginia Tech in a three-point win. It was somewhat of a revenge game for the Nittany Lions’ senior leader, D.J. Newbill, who has a legitamite gripe against Hokies’ head coach, Buzz Williams. While at Marquette, Williams pulled a scholarship offer from Newbill after he got another commitment from Jamil Wilson, who was transferring over from Oregon. Williams’ familiarity with Newbill showed, as Virginia Tech packed the paint and used double teams to prevent the Penn State guard from getting to the rim, ending his five-game streak of scoring 20 points or more. Luckily for Penn State, Newbill was able to get enough of his teammates involved to notch the win and get some payback on someone who was, at one time, the coach he hoped to play for.
4. Michigan State came up short in South Bend when they fell to Notre Dame by a point in overtime, but one of the bright spots in the game was the shooting of Cleveland State transfer Bryan Forbes. The 6’3″ junior guard scored 18 points, which included a 4-of-4 mark from deep. Forbes was not only accurate but timely, as he scored on a jumper at 9:03 in the second half that ended an 8-2 Irish run. Unfortunately for the Spartans, Forbes inexplicably did not take another shot after that. Moving forward, it’s going to be necessary to bring him more into the offense as Tom Izzo does not have as much offensive talent as he’s grown accustomed to having these last 15 years.
5. Finally, another loss on Wednesday occurred when Maryland was defeated by Virginia in College Park. With the Terrapins short-handed because of injuries to Dez Wells and Evan Smotrycz, it was an expected outcome. And while this made the Terps even more of a long shot against the reigning ACC champions, it also presented an opportunity to for some of their freshmen to get invaluable experience playing elite competition. The Terps’ super frosh, Melo Trimble, was able to grind out 16 points — mostly at the free throw line — while Dion Wiley also chipped in 12. Mark Turgeon would rather have his veterans playing than not, of course, but in the long run, a game like this may end up benefiting the team as a whole. The young players on the team will be better suited for Big Ten play when their squad is expected to be at full health.

1. Anyone who watched the Wisconsin game on Wednesday night saw what could have been the dunk of the season from Wisconsin-Green Bay guard Keifer Sykes. Sykes almost went full “Deandre Jordan on Brandon Knight” in his missed dunk attempt over preseason All-American Frank Kaminsky, causing the preseason All-American to take to Twitter after the game to talk about how the dunk “would have ruined my confidence as a basketball player.” This led to a very lighthearted exchange between the two players that you can read here. It’s nice to see two great players who both hail from Chicago being supportive and recognizing the skills that each of them possesses.
2. Many of us here at the microsite had written off Indiana after a tumultuous offseason, but after their 74-68 win over #22 SMU in Bloomington last night, we may need to reevaluate this group. Freshman sensation James Blackmon Jr. led the way with 26 points. This game also marked the return of three players from their suspensions — Troy Williams, Stanford Robinson, and Emmett Holt. What once looked like a bleak future for Tom Crean may be turning brighter thanks to the outstanding play of Blackmon Jr. — who has now proven he can play at a high level against nationally relevant teams. The freshman may singlehandedly pull the Hoosiers from the valley it found itself in just a couple weeks back.
3. In the midst of all the holiday tournaments going on either this weekend and next week, Michigan State announced that it will be part of the Wooden Legacy tournament next season. The other headliner in the field will be Arizona. Providence and Boise State also will be playing in Anaheim along with Boston College, Evansville, Santa Clara, and UC Irvine. The Spartans will lose two of their top three players from this year’s squad, but should return Denzel Valentine and Matt Costello next season.
4. It’s not always going to be pretty basketball, but if you’re into watching a player just go completely “Kobe” and chuck shot after shot, look no further than Penn State and D.J. Newbill. The prolific scorer put up 35 points on 33 shots in the Nittany Lions’ 97-106 double-overtime loss to Charlotte. Newbill had a chance to score the game winner with an open lane to the basket in the dwindling seconds of the first overtime, but it was blocked by Charlotte. The 35-point total was the most for a Penn State player since 1995, but without many other options on this team — especially with Tim Frazier graduated — look for more nights like these from Newbill. It’ll be entertaining if nothing else.
5. Maryland also struggled in its quest to stay undefeated, yet managed to pull away from Fordham to notch a win on Thursday night. Unlike Northwestern, their struggles were on the offensive end. This is what senior leader Dez Wells wanted however, as he spoke to wanting to see how the young team handled things when they weren’t hitting shots. They ended up winning this one on the defensive end, holding the Rams to only eight free throw attempts and to 30.6 percent shooting from the field. A game like this should help them, especially once conference play hits. They now know that they can still get a win even if things aren’t clicking on the offensive end of the court.

One of the Thursday night headliners will take place in Madison Square Garden where Iowa faces #10 Texas in the 2K Sports Classic. The Hawkeyes have gotten off to an impressive start by beating both their two opponents by an average of 32.5 points per game, but after last year’s late-season tanking, many are hesitant to jump back on the Iowa bandwagon. Fran McCaffery‘s squad is without question a talented bunch, so the Longhorns present a November opportunity to gain back some of that trust. An win Thursday night means the Hawkeyes would have a top 10 win before December, something they couldn’t muster at all last season. Here are three keys to the game that Iowa will need to address if they’re going to pull off the upset.

Adam Woodbury will look to use his size against Texas’s big frontcourt on Thursday night

• Use their size. It won’t be very often this season that Texas looks across the floor and sees a team that has more size than them, but that will be the case tonight against Iowa. Three of the Longhorns’ starters are listed at 6’8”, 6’9”, and 6’9”, while the Hawkeyes have three starters at 6’9”, 6’9”, and 7’1”. Iowa will need to use its size advantage in the frontcourt — especially with Adam Woodbury — to defend under the basket. Through two games, 35.6 percent of Texas’ total shots have come at the rim, and they have been extremely effective from this spot (76.2% FG). The Hawkeyes need to challenge every shot and dare the Longhorns to hit that same rate over the arms of their big guys.

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