Another year down, another tally in the win column for the Big Ten in what is the top challenge series that college basketball has to offer. Per the norm, the teams that have traditionally dominated this series continued to do so, but there were some surprises along the way. Here are 10 key takeaways from this season’s event.

1. The Big Ten won again. Iowa’s thrilling 78-75 overtime victory over Florida State in Iowa City clinched back-to-back Challenge victories for the conference, with five of the last seven events going to the Big Ten. With the other two ties (2012 and 2013), it remains true that the ACC hasn’t won the challenge since George W. Bush was still President back in December 2008. That’s a really long time. It’s even longer when you consider that the ACC won every challenge during his presidency as well as the final two years of Bill Clinton.

Peter Jok (left), who notched 24 points in Iowa’s 78-75 victory in overtime over Florida State, was one of the shining stars of the challenge. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

2. Duke won again. The Blue Devils are a staggering 15-2 lifetime in the challenge and are undefeated at Cameron Indoor Stadium (7-0) during that time. This is even more impressive when you consider that Duke almost always draws one of the Big Ten’s best teams. You have to go back to 2011 Michigan State (19-15) to find a Duke opponent that didn’t win at least 28 games that season, and before that, 2006 Indiana (19-12) is the other one that didn’t win at least 20. Granted, this year’s Indiana squad is looking like it will slot in nicely with those couple of outliers. Read the rest of this entry »

After one day of competition, the annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge is tied at one game a piece, with 12 more matchups to come tonight and tomorrow (schedule below). Wake Forest tipped things off Monday night by using a furious late rally to top Rutgers, 69-68, while Minnesota held off Clemson, 89-83, in the evening’s nightcap behind a strong performance by freshman Jordan Murphy. Both of those games were played at Big Ten venues, but the ACC will have the home court edge tonight by hosting four games. To prepare for this evening’s action, the ACC and Big Ten microsites are once again here to defend the schools they cover. Patrick Engel (Big Ten) and Brad Jenkins (ACC) make the case for each team in their respective leagues for all six contests that will take place tonight on the ESPN family of networks.

Michigan at N.C. State (7:00 PM ET, ESPN2)

• Patrick: We’ve seen Michigan at both its best and its worst so far this season. As I detailed on Monday, it’s becoming clear that the Wolverines have plenty of shooters but are going to once again struggle in the paint. NC State isn’t great at either defending the three (35.7%) or shooting it (32.4%), but the Wolfpack are one of the biggest teams in the country (ninth in height). Michigan has to find space against NC State on the perimeter without getting beat in the paint or on the glass to earn a win here.
• Brad: The obvious advantage here for the Wolfpack is in the paint. N.C. State should control the boards, and it will need to because Michigan is bound to hit more threes than Mark Gottfried’s team. As long as he can stay relatively fresh, Anthony Barber (39.2 MPG) should win the point guard matchup with Derrick Walton. The Wolfpack aren’t deep and must avoid foul trouble, but they can’t shy away from being physical in defending the offensively-potent Michigan wings.

Northwestern at Virginia Tech (7:00 PM ET, ESPNU)

• Brad: There’s no way to sugarcoat Virginia Tech’s opening home loss to a SWAC team (Alabama State), but Buzz Williams’ guys have shown some recent signs of improvement. Iowa State beat them handily in the semifinals of the Emerald Coast Classic last week, but the Hokies bounced back to beat a decent UAB squad in overtime the next night. If Virginia Tech is to win this game, it probably will have to do so by living at the foul line.
• Patrick: The Wildcats have survived without Vic Law so far. They’re not elite in any one area, but they also don’t have a singular glaring weakness. They’ve been a perimeter-oriented team to this point, but Alex Olah’s ability to get to the free throw line will challenge a Virginia Tech team that rarely lets its opponents get there. Northwestern has a good chance of winning this game on the road if it can earn charity stripe opportunities while keeping the free throw-minded Hokies (nation-leading 60.9% free throw rate, per KenPom) away from the line.

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Fans of the Big Ten were bombarded with wall-to-wall Feast Week basketball over the past 10 days, and now it’s time to tip off the 17th annual Big Ten/ACC Challenge. Many of this year’s predetermined matchups are interesting and watchable, but there are always a few potential clunkers. Here is your Big Ten viewer’s guide to the best of the best and the worst of the worst in the 14 games occurring over the next three evenings.

• Can’t Miss: (Maryland-North Carolina; Louisville-Michigan State). If I can’t sell you on two top 10 teams that regularly played each other as conference rivals for the better part of a half-century and on a Tom Izzo vs. Rick Pitino coaching clash in as a rematch of last year’s Elite Eight game, then what am I doing writing about basketball? These two are staggered, tipping off on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, respectively.
• Serious Potential: (Indiana-Duke; Purdue-Pittsburgh; Michigan-NC State). Indiana could mess around and score 120 points or they could implode into a turnover hellhole of their own creation. Either way, it will be compelling television. Pittsburgh and Purdue have blue collar reputations, but they also both have zero losses and top 20 offenses through the first two weeks of the season. Michigan and NC State have both underachieved thus far, but the Wolverines and Wolfpack have enough talent and athletes on the floor to make this game entertaining.

Zak Irvin will be vital if Michigan wants a road win in Raleigh against the Wolfpack. (Getty)

• Solid if not Spectacular: (Wisconsin-Syracuse; Notre Dame-Illinois; Miami-Nebraska; Florida State-Iowa). All of these games could be competitive, as at least five of these teams should end up in the NCAA Tournament. Wisconsin trying to figure out its offense against the Syracuse 2-3 zone and Illinois playing its first game back in Assembly Hall are headlines, but also keep an eye on whether Nebraska can break through against a ranked team with loads of experience. The Cornhuskers hung with Villanova for a while and kept it close with Cincinnati in their only two losses. The Florida State-Iowa game should feature a ton of size, and appears to be one of the most balanced games on paper.

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The non-conference portion of the schedule hasn’t been great to the Big Ten so far this season, but Feast Week gave some of the league’s teams positive feelings about the future. Here are five schools that can feel good about themselves after the week that was.

John Groce got his full lineup back and his squad looked much better as a result. (USAT Images)

1. Illinois: The Illini have a lot of extra dead weight to shed from their 3-4 start to the season, but anyone who watched their win against UAB and the first 30 minutes against Iowa State saw that this is a different and better team with a full complement of players. Kendrick Nunn looked rusty but he averaged 18.5 PPG in the two games — a healthy Nunn, Leron Black and Jaylon Tate showed the potential that exists here. The knee injury to Mike Thorne, Jr., however, is a real downer.
2. Maryland: After struggling with teams that they shouldn’t have struggled with, the Terps finally put it all together against Rhode Island on Wednesday night in the championship game of the Cancun Classic. It appears as though Maryland’s on-court chemistry and offensive movement are improving with the realization that they any member of the starting unit can carry them for stretches — Rasheed Suliamon and Robert Carter Jr., for example, had moments where they looked like the best players on the floor. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Coming into this week’s Maui Invitational, Indiana was selected among the favorites to win the whole thing. But what was once a highly-anticipated event for the Hoosiers has turned into an early season meltdown as they finished 1-2 which for a sixth place finish. This has reignited dour discussions about the direction of the program and Tom Crean’s future. Indiana started the first round with a shocking four-point loss to Wake Forest, came back with a 10-point win over St. John’s, but ended the event on Wednesday with a three-point loss to UNLV. This is a devastating blow Indiana’s hope for a Final Four, as their resume has taken a hit with losses to two marginal opponents.
2. To add injury to insult, the Hoosiers have also had to deal with some offcourt issues as well. After Indiana’s loss to Wake Forest, Crean decided to change his lineup and bench Troy Williams. While this adjustment may have worked in its goal of motivating the players — they defeated St. John’s after the change — it did not sit well with Williams’ mother, who shared her displeasure on Facebook. She later apologized for the incident, but the whole situation was embarrassing for all involved and just added more publicity to what seems to be a deteriorating situation in Bloomington.
3. This has been a season full of early upsets, but a few Big Ten teams have already racked up two. Ohio State lost its second consecutive game of the season when they were defeated 82-74 by Louisiana Tech on Wednesday to move the Buckeyes to 2-2. This has been the worst start for Thad Matta in his entire 12 seasons at Columbus and follows what was a pretty middling season last year (at least compared to the usual lofty standard of Matta and Ohio State). All of the sudden, the trajectory for this program seems to be pointing downward after a long period of Big Ten success in the earlier half of this decade. The Buckeyes will have a chance to turn things around when they play Memphis on Friday.
4. On Wednesday, Maryland defeated Rhode Island, 86-63, to win the Cancun Challenge. The Terrapins may be 5-0 but they didn’t get there in dominating fashion; in fact, this was the first time since the opener that Maryland won with a comfortable lead. I’ve pointed out before how their defense has become an issue, but another major factor has been their pedestrian shooting from the three-point line — 30.1 percent before Wednesday’s game. The Terps may have turned the corner on their poor shooting against the Rams as they hit 10-of-17 attempts from long distance. Next they’ll see if they can keep up the good play versus Cleveland State on Saturday.
5. Finally, many believed this year’s Michigan team would bounce back from the disappointing and injury-plagued 2014-15 season, but things have not played out exactly as hoped. In addition to losing to Xavier on Friday, the Wolverines were easily handled by Connecticut in a 74-60 loss. While Caris Levert has been good as advertised, the rest of his teammates have yet to catch up. As of right now, this team looks closer to squad that lost to NJIT last year as opposed to the Michigan teams that won consecutive Big Ten titles a couple years ago.

There are talented tournament fields everywhere this Feast Week. The Gulf Coast Showcase has a relatively strong mid-major field headlined by Murray State, Duquesne (which absolutely BLASTED Penn State on Friday) and Texas Southern. Four capable teams — Clemson, UMass (already a winner over Harvard), Creighton and Rutgers — will tussle in another four-team field in Vegas. Looking further ahead, Atlantis tips off on Wednesday before a handful of other events kick off on Thanksgiving Day and beyond. As we did with Puerto Rico and Charleston last week, here’s a look at the event favorite, a dark horse, and the teams who have the most on the line this week. We’ll also highlight a player and a storyline to watch.

Maui Invitational

Despite some early struggles, Bill Self and Kansas are still the clear favorite in Maui. (Getty)

• Favorite: Kansas. Even with no Cheick Diallo or Brannen Greene for the week and the second half collapse to Michigan State in Chicago notwithstanding, the Jayhawks are still the clear favorite in Maui as the only top 10 team in this tournament. Perry Ellis and Jamari Traylor are seniors. Frank Mason and Wayne Selden are juniors. This is an experienced team that might be going on its last ride together. As usual, there’s chatter about this being the year the Big 12 title streak is broken. Winning the Maui title would probably pump the brakes on that notion, at least for the time being.
• Darkhorse: UCLA. In terms of talent and potential, the Bruins are a clear sleeper. Aaron Holiday, Bryce Alford, Tony Parker — you could easily see a team with talented pieces like these upsetting a still-not-quite-right Kansas in the semifinal and then taking out Indiana or Vanderbilt the next night. Of course, they’re flaky enough that they could brick the last Maui quarter to UNLV, especially after that whole Monmouth thing.

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We are a week into Maryland’s most anticipated season since the early 2000s and as of this post, the Terps are 3-0 and will remain the third-ranked team in the nation when the AP Poll comes out on Monday. But with three contests under their belt, their defense — typically a strength for any Mark Turgeon-coached team — has emerged as a vulnerability. On Friday night, Rider (0-3) came into the Xfinity Center, ripped the Terps interior offense to shreds, and almost completed the upset; Maryland pulled out a 65-58 win in the final five minutes. If the Big Ten favorites can’t get back to playing stellar defense like they did a year ago, their season will fail to meet all the hyped expectations.

Rasheed Sulaimon has been great on offense, but struggled to integrate defensively with Maryland.

Last season, Maryland was Top 40 in defensive efficiency allowing only an adjusted 95.1 points per 100 possessions. The Terps accomplished this by putting pressure on shooters which kept their opponents to 31.9 percent shooting from the three-point line and limiting easy buckets in the paint–under 30 percent of their opponents’ shots came at the rim. But this has not been the case this season. The Maryland newcomers — Rasheed Sulaimon and Diamond Stone — have been a boost offensively, but have struggled to fully adapt to Turgeon’s defensive philosophy. On Tuesday, the Terrapins nearly lost to Georgetown because they allowed the Hoyas to get off good shots (61.2 eFG%) which led to an offensive rating of 111. Three days later against Rider, Maryland got torched off the dribble as the Broncs hit 20 of their 36 2-point field goals–an overwhelming majority of which were at the rim. It should alarm the Maryland coaching staff that a team from the MAAC exposed their interior defense in such easy fashion. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Last night we were treated to an excellent slate of non-conference matchups involving three Big Ten teams. First, Nebraska traveled to Philadelphia and played Villanova tough for the first 10 minutes of the game before ultimately getting blown out. Next, Maryland rekindled an old city rivalry when it hosted Georgetown. The Terps edged the Hoyas behind Melo Trimble’s 24-point effort and transfer Rasheed Sulaimon’s late three to seal the game. Finally, Michigan State came back to win against Kansas after being behind the Jayhawks for almost the entirety. Denzel Valentine was phenomenal, becoming one of just a handful of players to record a triple-double in a Spartans uniform. It was an excellent all-around night of basketball for Big Ten fans.
2. For Bo Ryan, the challenge of rebuilding at Wisconsin since the departure of five instrumental players from his back-to-back Final Four teams is becoming real. First, there was a humbling loss to Western Illinois — a team that is projected to finish dead last in the Summit League — at the Kohl Center. Then, on Tuesday night, the Badgers learned that Andy Van Vliet — a 6’10” forward from Belgium — has been ruled ineligible for the entire season. This leaves Ryan short another player at a time when he’s still trying to figure out his rotation and the ultimate identity of his team.
3. On Monday, Indiana finished its two-game set of Maui Invitational opening round games when it walloped Austin Peay, 102-76. As expected, the Hoosiers’ offense has been humming along early, as evidenced by their 69.8 percent effective field goal percentage on the season. More promising, however, is that Indiana’s defense looks markedly improved as Tom Crean’s group has kept its opponents at under one point per possession so far this season. The true test for his team will be next week’s venture to the Maui Invitational where, along with Kansas, Indiana is the favorite to leave the island with some hardware.
4. In their first two games of the season, Purdue has showcased why it was selected as a preseason Top 25 team and considered a legitimate contender for a Big Ten title. Winning those contests by a combined 69 points, what’s even more impressive is that they’ve done so without the services of their best player, A.J. Hammons, who has been watching from the bench. Matt Painter has been ambiguous about the specific reason for his senior center’s absence, instead stating that “he’s got to take care of some business internally” before he can again see the court. Whenever he does return to the lineup, though, his presence will certainly add to a squad already performing at a high level — no doubt sending chills throughout the rest of the Big Ten.
5. One of the reasons the Boilermakers have been able to make do without Hammons in the lineup is because of the exceptional play of star freshman Caleb Swanigan. In his first two games as a collegian, the big-bodied forward averaged 12.5 points, 12.0 rebounds, and 2.0 assists per game while also shooting over 40 percent from the three-point line. For those efforts, Swanigan was awarded the Big Ten Freshman of the Week award on Monday. Look for the precocious Boilermaker to keep up this pace even when Hammons returns as he has already shown a developed ability to play away from the basket.

1. As you may have noticed that was a lot of college basketball played over the past few days. The marquee event was Kentucky‘s win over Duke at the Champions Classic, but for our money the most exciting game/environment was Maryland‘s win over Georgetown due to the combination of the college environment and the fact that it was a more competitive game. As we mentioned last night on Twitter, we would love for the Champions Classic to rotate between the home arenas of the four teams involved, but unfortunately we doubt that will ever happen because of both the desire to keep the series in big markets and the reluctance of some coaches to play tough non-conference road games.
2. Kentucky didn’t just win on the court yesterday as the picked up another top recruit when Edrice Adebayo, the #6 recruit in the ESPN Top 100, committed to play at Kentucky next season. Adebayo, a 6’8″ 235-pound power forward, picked the Wildcats over North Carolina State and Auburn citing a desire to play for John Calipari given his relationship with Calipari and Calipari’s success in helping players reach the NBA. Adebayo’s commitment gives the Wildcats the #2 recruiting class behind Duke although there is still plenty of time and recruits who are still uncommitted.
3. The new rule changes implemented since the end of last season were the source of considerable debate, but they seem to have led to increased scoring at least through the first weekend. As Ken Pomeroy notes, the rule changes appear to have had the intended effect thus far. Not only is scoring up, but so is shooting both in terms of field goal/three-point percentage and three-point shot frequency. We are not sure if this will continue and there are definitely other ways that they could make increase scoring, but this appears to be a good start.
4. Northwestern State will be without star senior guard Jalan West for the rest of the season after he tore the ACL in his left knee late in their loss on Friday at Ole Miss. West, who averaged 20 points, 4.4 rebounds, 7.7 assists, and 2.1 steals per game last season, had scored 24 points in the second half before suffering the injury. Northwestern State probably wasn’t going to be better than Stephen F. Austin even with West, but his presence would have given them the possibility of getting hot in a one-game scenario and knocking off the Lumberjacks.
5. We have used this space to discuss NCAA eligibility issues a lot in the past as well as the various legal issues players find themselves involved in, but we don’t often talk about forgery and pretrial diversion programs. Thanks to Arkansas guard Anton Beard we can check off those two boxes after the sophomore, who was an All-SEC freshman selection last season, struck a deal to avoid jail time (for now) after being caught trying to use and exchange counterfeit $20 and $50 bills. The technical issues involved with his arrangement are a little too detailed for this space, but essentially if he doesn’t mess up he will be eligible to play starting December 18.

It’s amazing how quickly things can flip for a college basketball coach. Depending on the status of the program, restless fans and administrators can make someone who’s experienced some degree of success (see: Crean, Tom) feel like his job might be in jeopardy. Other times things can flip in a positive way. Maryland’s Mark Turgeon took a team that had lost four transfers and had little to no expectations coming into the 2014-15 campaign to a second place finish in the Big Ten and Round of 32 appearance in the NCAA Tournament. We here at the Big Ten microsite are banking on Maryland being even better this season; and because of this, the Terps’ head coach is our preseason Big Ten Coach of the Year.

Mark Turgeon is our preseason Coach of the Year in the Big Ten. (USA TODAY Sports)

Turgeon did a masterful job meshing his freshmen with his returnees last year. Dez Wells, Jake Layman and Melo Trimble had such great chemistry that it looked as if they had been playing together for years. Team chemistry and leadership were obviously a problem the year prior, so Turgeon deserves a lot of credit for putting things together on the team’s way to a 28-7 record. The one thing that might prevent him from becoming this season’s Big Ten Coach of the Year would be experiencing trouble getting his talented newcomers on the same page this season. Based on talent alone, Maryland has the best and most balanced starting five in the Big Ten. Robert Carter was able to practice with the team last season, so his adjustment shouldn’t be very difficult. But can freshman Diamond Stone and Duke transfer Rasheed Suliamon come in and play their roles without issue? The entire starting five has NBA aspirations down the line, so a major key for Turgeon this season will be getting everyone to share the ball for the betterment of the team. If they do, Maryland should win the Big Ten and rack up the hardware. Trimble could be the Player of the Year; Stone could be the Freshman of the Year; expect Turgeon to make it a clean sweep.