During Iowa’s 75-71 loss at Wisconsin on Sunday night, Fran McCaffery briefly lost his mind and went after the officials, getting two technical fouls in succession as his team was leading the game by two. He was miffed over a couple of non-calls on Gabriel Olasemi under the basket, and then a foul call on Olaseni on the defensive end as the Badgers’ Nigel Hayes went up and drew contact. McCaffery stated that he intended to get one technical foul, but that he didn’t plan on getting the second one. After receiving the whistle, he went after the refs in an aggressive manner and was immediately given the second T whereupon he was ejected. Today, per a release from the Big Ten,  McCaffery will have to serve a one-game suspension as a result. Iowa was also fined $10,000 and McCaffery was publicly reprimanded.

Fran McCaffery was suspended one game by the Big 10 for his actions on Sunday night against Wisconsin (Andy Manis/AP).

On the surface, this isn’t as big a deal as the amount of news and attention it’s receiving today. The reason for this is because Iowa’s next game is against Northwestern. Not to pick on the 7-8 Wildcats, but Iowa should be able to beat them with Peter Jok serving as player/coach. So in the general scheme of things, McCaffery missing one game is unlikely to affect the B1G standings. If you dig a little deeper, however, check back on Iowa at the end of January to see where they stand. Iowa is in a place right now that they haven’t been in quite a while in terms of expectations. None of the players currently on the roster have ever been part of a Top 25 team until this season, and none have never played in an NCAA Tournament game.

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1. Now that we are finally done with college football season we can welcome all of those people who spent the past few months rooting for teams that lost their chance at a national championship over a month before the final game of the season. The biggest celebration last night was undoubtedly from FSU fans we are sure that fans of college football (and sports in general) celebrated the death of the BCS, a ridiculous system that somehow survived sixteen seasons. Now that is finally dead we would like to welcome college football fans to the world of playoffs even if theirs looks like it will be somewhat limited for the next few years.
2. We have no idea why the FBI would be investigating suspended UTEP juniors McKenzie Moore and Jalen Ragland, but it probably goes without saying that it isn’t good. The two were suspended indefinitely by Tim Floyd in late December and nobody has commented on the suspensions, which were reportedly for a violation of team rules. As usual those team rules could be virtually anything, but the in our experience the only time that the FBI has really gotten involved with basketball players is when it involves point-shaving. Obviously, we are a long way away from that, but it is worth keeping an eye on even if UTEP’s original statement on the suspension would not appear to indicate anything that serious.
3. Most people who invest in the stock market rebalance their portfolios at the end of the year (or some pre-specified date). With that in mind Seth Davis has his Hoops Thoughts Stock Report where he assesses whether you should buy, sell, or hold on 63 teams. Overall, we agree with most of Seth’s ratings so we will not get into the details of his rankings of the individual teams (we might get into that later with the microsites), but it was interesting to see Seth leave Iowa off the list–a team that we called the most underrated in college basketball back in November.
4. As expected Duke‘s streak of 122 consecutive weeks in the AP Top 10 ended yesterday as the Blue Devils fell to 16th, which is their first time outside of the Top 10 since December 2007. Coming on the heels of their loss at Notre Dame on Saturday it leaves them 33 weeks shy of the record of 155 consecutive weeks in the AP Top 10 by UCLA from 1966 to 1976. Frankly, Duke probably should have been out of the Top 10 a few weeks, but remained in it for the same reason that Gary Parrish is able to do a weekly Poll Attack–voter inertia. Regardless of that it is an impressive feat and one that is unlikely to be duplicated any time soon.
5. We still have over half the season left, but with conference play just starting it seems like a good time to review how the top incoming freshmen have performed. Dan Hanner decided to take a look at the top 100 freshmen according to the RSCI rankings in a two-part post (part 1 and part 2 here). As you expect it is a fairly exhaustive statistical analysis of the top 100 incoming freshmen, but the one thing we would caution you on is remembering the level of competition these guys are playing against.

With sub-zero temperatures dominating Sunday across the Midwest, the Wisconsin vs. Iowa match-up in Madison had the intensity of a cold-weather bruiser football game. Previous to Sunday night’s game, the average margin of victory over the past five meetings between these two teams was 3.8 PPG. Last season’s double-overtime thriller at Wisconsin is one such example, and this year’s thrilling 75-71 Badgers win was must-see television throughout. It was a tale of two halves for Bo Ryan’s team because the Badgers were dominated for the first half, entering the locker room facing a 35-24 deficit. But as national title contenders tend to do, Wisconsin buckled down defensively in the second half and pulled off the big win to stay unbeaten. Let’s example the positives and negatives of the Badgers’ performance yesterday.

Bo Ryan’s Badgers showed that they can beat tough teams despite their weaknesses.

1. Wisconsin’s lack of interior presence was exposed by Iowa. Frank Kaminsky (6.0 RPG) and Sam Dekker (6.4 RPG) had no answer for Iowa’s Melsahn Basabe and Aaron White in the first half as they were outrebounded 27-16 on the glass. Rebounding and toughness in the paint is a concern for these Badgers because they don’t have a designated forward whose job is simply to defend and clean up the glass. Jared Berggren was that player over the past two seasons, but Kaminsky can’t fill those shoes because, despite what he adds with his offensive versatility, he gives it back in terms of rebounding. With Mike Gesell and Devyn Marble consistently attacking the basket, the Badgers couldn’t control the weak side, and as a result, Iowa’s front line was able to feast on easy baskets. This will continue to be a concern for Bo Ryan when the Badgers face stronger front lines such as those at Michigan State and Indiana. At this juncture, there is no good solution for the problem except to ask the guards to play tougher perimeter defense to ensure their men don’t beat them off the dribble. Players who can beat Josh Gasser or Ben Brust off the bounce have an open lane to score easy baskets because Kaminsky is not a dominant defensive force inside. Read the rest of this entry »

The game to watch this weekend is, without a doubt, today’s match-up of Iowa visiting Wisconsin. It’s the only Big Ten contest this weekend where both teams are ranked, and the Badgers are a robust eight-point favorite according to KenPom.com. This isn’t surprising given that the Badgers have been the most impressive team in the conference and Madison is a tough place for any team to visit. It would therefore seem as if this game is all upside for Fran McCaffery’s group as it has nothing to lose. Thus far, Iowa has been good enough to break into the AP Top 25 and steadily move up the rankings, but not great enough to convince skeptics that the Hawkeyes are poised to battle the likes of Wisconsin, Michigan State and Ohio State for the conference title. Iowa needs an impressive road win to convert those doubters and start to make a case for a coveted high seed in the NCAA Tournament. Their best hope for doing just that today is to capitalize on the few defensive vulnerabilities of the Badgers.

Aaron White may need a big game to get a win in Madison (Credit: Brian Ray/The Gazette via AP)

It will be no small task to get a win at Madison — both teams are highly efficient at scoring (Wisconsin scores 1.17 points per possession vs. Iowa’s 1.16) and the Badgers have the edge on defensive efficiency (0.92 PPP vs. 0.94). Bo Ryan relies on excellent man-to-man defense to deny the other team good looks at the basket; still, Iowa can look to exploit several facets of the Badgers’ defense. More specifically, the Badgers’ lack of a true shot blocker has resulted in a low block percentage of 8.6 percent (206th nationally). If McCaffery can set up Roy Devyn Marble and Jarrod Uthoff on cuts to the basket to draw weak side defenders, even slightly, they can dish it off to Aaron White, who is shooting a blistering 75 percent under the basket. Another flaw in Wisconsin’s defense is that it does not cause many turnovers. This is good for Iowa since it is not turnover-prone itself but does cause opponents to give up the ball at an above-average rate (19.5 percent of possessions).

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With the conference season now upon us, the writers at the microsite decided it would be a good idea to re-rank how we believe the teams will finish in the race to a Big Ten championship. The conference has to this point laid a solid claim as the best league in the nation, so it will be another grueling 18-game process for some lucky team win the crown. We’ve learned a decent amount about every school’ strengths and weaknesses by now — including just how good Ohio State’s defense appears to be, and how Michigan may not be ready to repeat its postseason performance from last year — but teams don’t truly reveal themselves until they start seeing their old familiar foes in conference play. Here are how the microsite writers believe the teams will pan out with a few notes on what has changed since before the season began.

Aaron Craft and the Buckeyes are the pick to win the Big Ten. (Jeff Hanisch/US Presswire)

1. Ohio State: Everyone knew the Buckeyes’ defense would be good, but it has been much better than expected. Ken Pomeroy ranks them as the most efficient defense in the country, so that keeps Ohio State in every game regardless of how the offense is playing. They’ve also gotten enough scoring from everyone (six players average more than 7.0 PPG), and LaQuinton Ross and Lenzelle Smith are starting to become reliable scorers every night out.
2. Wisconsin: One of the biggest surprises of this college basketball season, the Badgers have become a force offensively as well as defensively. Bo Ryan’s squad has shown a propensity to win every style of game this season and unearthed a huge bright spot in Frank Kaminsky. Wisconsin ranks in the top 20 in both offensive and defensive efficiency while playing one of the most challenging non-conference slates in the country, so don’t think for a minute that its early success will peter out. Read the rest of this entry »

Iowa and Penn State both got better within the last couple of weeks, as each team welcomed back a player who had been out of the lineup. The Hawkeyes’ Josh Oglesby returned after missing about six weeks due to a foot injury. Meanwhile, in Happy Valley, the Nittany Lions debuted Pitt transfer John Johnson and SMU transfer Jordan Dickerson. Both players had to sit out the first semester due to transfer rules. The additions of these players to both programs will help tremendously as B1G conference play tips off later today.

Josh Oglesby will add even more depth to the Iowa bench with his return from injury(AP).

Oglesby had a memorable debut in an unremarkable game, hitting the first four three-pointers he took in Iowa’s last game, a blowout victory two Sundays ago against Arkansas-Pine Bluff. This was covered in a previous post on the microsite, but Oglesby simply makes a very deep team even deeper — Iowa has no worries of foul trouble becoming a concern because they can and will utilize 11 players. The Hawkeyes can already match up and play different lineup combinations depending on the opponent, but the return of the junior wing simply adds to their flexibility. The team can play big or small with an almost infinite amount of lineup combinations. The Hawkeyes are currently sixth in the league in three-point percentage at 36.4 percent, and although he won’t go 4-of-5 from deep every game, Oglesby’s shooting skill can push this number closer to 40 percent with enough playing time. If Fran McCaffery needs defense and speed, he can give Peter Jok more minutes; but if he wants to spread the floor in the half-court and get perimeter shooting, he can call Oglesby’s number. Oglesby looked like he was fully healed last Sunday, playing 20 minutes and not showing any real signs of rust from his injured foot. This Iowa team that is already off to an impressive 11-2 start just got quite a bit better.

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The last week of primarily non-conference play has wrapped up and both of its remaining premier match-ups took place on Saturday with top 10 Villanova taking its undefeated record to Syracuse and the Battle for the Bluegrass in Lexington between preseason top three teams Louisville and Kentucky. Both games saw the home team prevail, as Syracuse weathered an early Villanova run and dominated the second half to cruise to a 78-62 victory, while Kentucky’s youth movement gelled very well and treated Big Blue Nation to a 73-66 win. With conference play in many leagues set to begin this week, it will be interesting to see how quickly and substantially the impact of playing familiar foes has on future polls. The quick n’ dirty analysis of this week’s poll is after the jump.

Quick n’ dirty analysis.

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1. Big East teams have wrapped up non-conference play, and with the start of conference games on the horizon with five straight games scheduled throughout Tuesday, writers are beginning to file their mid-year reviews of the new-look league. IndyStar‘s Zak Keefer cites conference winning percentage, true road wins, and the current RPI numbers in defense of the Big East. Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard also finds value in that last statistic: “[We have] six teams in the top 50. Rankings [the Big East has just one team, #8 Villanova, in the Top 25] don’t really matter. The RPI does matter.”
2. Not everyone is as high on the work that the Big East has done so far this season. USA Today‘s Nicole Auerbach digs into some of the same numbers and her findings aren’t too kind for the conference, especially without Villanova‘s impressive resume: “Just one of those 85 wins has come against a team with an RPI in the top 25. Even worse, Big East teams were just 5-19 against the RPI’s top 50. Villanova has done most of that heavy lifting on its own. Its sparkling 11-1 record — including a missed opportunity Saturday with a loss to Syracuse — features wins against Kansas and Iowa, ranked No. 3 and No. 38 in the RPI, respectively.” In the past, Big East teams could recover from mediocre Novembers and Decembers with big league wins against highly-ranked Syracuse, Connecticut or Louisville squads. Now, those opportunities will be much more fleeting.
3. Doug McDermott checks in at number two on RTC alumnus and Cleveland.com‘s David Cassilo’s weekly Player of the Year rankings. Cassilo praises McDermott’s elite shooting and all-around scoring ability, while noting his attention to detail: “Being a coach’s son (his father Greg is the coach of Creighton) means that McDermott pays special attention to the little things too. He’s averaging just 2.0 turnovers per game, 1.5 fouls per game and shoots 89.3 percent from the line.”  McDermott is the only Big East player on a list topped by Duke’s Jabari Parker. Former Big East players Shabazz Napier, Russ Smith, and C.J. Fair also appear in the top 12.
4. Despite a setback in Syracuse over the weekend, Villanova enters conference play as the favorite to win the new league. The Wildcats were expected by many to return to the NCAA Tournament and finish among the top half of the conference this season, but just a few years removed from a 13-19 nightmare, few would have guessed that they would be the only Big East team in the Top 25 and have wins against Kansas and Iowa to their name. Wright credits a refocus in the philosophy of the program for the success that the team has recently experienced: “We got caught in a situation where we had guys that were coming in thinking about leaving early, so we were backing ourselves up in recruiting thinking they were going to leave. Then they didn’t leave. They were frustrated they were here and the guys behind them weren’t getting the playing time to develop. I think we learned a good lesson from that.” Now, Villanova enters league play stacked to the brim with talented guards, as well as strong frontcourt players like JayVaughn Pinkston and Daniel Ochefu, and their upcoming opponents can’t be too excited to see the Wildcats on the schedule.
5. Big East commissioner Val Ackerman considers the Butler basketball program as a great model for what she believes the entire conference can achieve as a hoops-focused league in a college athletics landscape largely dominated by football revenues. She believes that schools can thrive in athletics without big time college football, and uses Butler’s recent Final Four runs as a strong example: “It was a bold move, don’t get me wrong, for all these schools to essentially say, ‘We’re not going to get into the football arms race’, but the commonality is what separates this league from others, and certainly from what the old Big East had become in terms of the division of interest between large and small, football and non-football.” Butler should reap the benefits of membership as well. As Zak Keefer notes, Butler’s conference schedule has been upgraded to include teams like Georgetown and Villanova as opposed to the Horizon League opponents it regularly faced, and increased exposure in places like New York City, where the conference will host its conference tournament, should help its recruiting take off.

With opinions forming on various teams’ chances at winning a Big Ten title and advancing deep into March, it seemed like a good time to take a harder look at the league’s overall non-conference strength of schedule. With just over a week to go until the conference season opens up on New Year’s Eve, and some big games upcoming for B1G teams this weekend on slate (Michigan State at Texas, Notre Dame at Ohio State, Illinois at Missouri, Stanford at Michigan, and Purdue at West Virginia), now is as good a time as any. At this point, non-conference strength of schedule is relatively settled and we can begin to examine if a team’s current record is symptomatic of a particularly weak or strong slate.

Above you can see the RPI-based strength of schedule rankings for Big Ten teams from both CBSSports and ESPN. It should be noted almost every site has some differences in RPI rankings right now, but as much as we all might hate that it matters for NCAA Tournament purposes, that’s the reality we have to consider. Here are a few notes from an examination of the rankings.

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1. Most people have been surprised with exactly how strong of a start Wisconsin has had this season. It’s even has some wonder if this could be the best Bo Ryan-led squad to ever come out of Madison. Well, this team’s adaptability certainly makes it a strong candidate to go further than any other one. It’s normal for Ryan’s Wisconsin teams to win in low-scoring, grind-it-out type of games, but this year’s Badgers are winning those and high-scoring affairs. Wisconsin has won while scoring in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 100s (note to other teams: force a game in the 90s apparently). With a group of players that can play all over the floor, this team certainly has the talent level and ability to match-up with anyone and potentially make a deep run in March.
2. Iowa was on a lot of people’s radars as a team to watch this season in the Big Ten, but it hasn’t just been its slew of starters that are making that come to fruition. It’s been Iowa’s bench and depth that have really been a difference maker for the team. It’s reserves are ranked third nationally in scoring and blocked shots and first in rebounding. It’s impressive stats for the back-ups that the Hawkeyes will need to continue to be successful in Big Ten play. Some of the top teams (read: Michigan State) are relatively thin so Iowa will have an advantage in terms of depth where it can potentially wear teams down.
3. Tom Izzo has had plenty of worries these past few weeks. Namely, the injury report and who to play. Travis Trice and Gary Harris have both been held out this week with injuries, with no exact timetable for their returns. This has put a lot of pressure on Izzo to tinker and come up with varying line-ups that can be successful. Most stressful for the Spartans is that its lack of depth puts a bigger impetus on getting the starters and key reserves back quickly. With a match-up against Texas and the Big Ten season looming, how quickly they return will be critical to the team’s success.
4. It’s tough to knock an undefeated team, but sometimes context needs to come into play. For Ohio State, its non-conference schedule has it ranked in the bottom third for toughness, so the question arises if the Buckeyes are that good or simply a byproduct of a weak schedule? The team did have what appeared to be a challenging road game at Marquette, but the Golden Eagles have fallen quickly since the early part of the season. Still, it’s tough to knock Ohio State when it’s won every game dominantly. It can only play the team’s on its schedule and it is handling them well. For those still doubting Ohio State, the conference season is just around the corner, where everyone will find out if its early record is because of a weak schedule or a talented team.
5. With a week between games, Michigan coach John Beilein took a visit to a high-priority recruit this week. He ventured to Ohio to check on Luke Kennard, a 6′ 5″ shooting guard who is averaging just more than 40 points a game this high school season. Michigan made an offer to the five-star prospect this summer, the first for a Class of 2015 player from the Wolverines. Kennard is obviously a high-volume scorer and a top priority for Beilein and his staff. Being involved early in his recruitment certainly helps, too, as Kennard also has offers from Duke, North Carolina and just about every other Big Ten school.