1. Here’s something we don’t see coming out of Wisconsin very often: a player going too fast. The Badgers, known to slow the pace and get the most out of each and every shot clock, have a player in Ben Brust, who sometimes finds himself speeding things up a little bit. “There are times when you’re on the interstate, so to speak, and there are times when you’re in a residential neighborhood and you have to know when you can go faster,” associate head coach Greg Gard said of Brust, who has a 3.0 assist-to-turnover ratio, but can sometimes get into trouble when he dribbles into traffic. “Time and score of the game. Flow of game. Do we need a basket? Are we on a run? When is the time to slow things down and get a high-quality possession or make the other team guard? All those things come into play. He’s getting better and better at it.”
2. Want an easy — and sometimes early — indicator for how Indiana might do on any given night? Watch Christian Watford. The Indiana Daily Student points out that any time Watford is a key contributor, the Hoosiers have rolled. To be more concise, Indiana’s 23-point win against Penn State this week was its smallest of the season in games in which Watford scored 15 points or more. Each of those previous wins were by at least 31 points. Watford has always been somewhat of an enigma, and an “as he goes, the team goes” type of player. So the Hoosiers would do well to get him involved early and often the rest of the way.
3. Iowa got smoked when it traveled to Ann Arbor to take on No. 2 Michigan last week. So what is coach Fran McCaffery considering doing to remedy the problem? Possibly keeping arguably his two best players — Aaron White and Devyn Marble — off the floor. McCaffery told the Iowa Gazette he is considering changing some things with his rotation, pointing to the two aforementioned players as culprits in a Hawkeyes’ struggling defense that surrendered 95 points in each of its two true road games this year. Michigan State comes to town on Thursday, and is just the No. 7 scoring offense in the conference (71.1 PPG), but a big scoring output from the Spartans coupled with Michigan State’s typically-stingy defense could be a recipe for an 0-3 start to begin Iowa’s Big Ten campaign.
4. One thing college basketball pundits love to debate is the importance of a loss over the course of the season — whether an undefeated team needs to lose at some point, or a team on the roll might want a wake-up call before the NCAA Tournament. Michigan, of course, has not lost a game this season, but with the Big Ten shaping up the way it has, they are almost assured to do so. And what happens then? AnnArbor.com‘s Nick Baumgardner explores that idea in this column, pointing out that Michigan has led in nearly 93 percent of the minutes of action of its contests this season and has not faced a great deal of adversity. This team is young — it relies on freshmen for scoring and as fantastic as he’s been this season, Trey Burke is only a sophomore — and when a problem hits, John Beilein might just welcome it at this point.
5. We have posed this very question on this site a number of times since the season started, and the Big Ten Geeks would like to know the same thing — is Ohio State good? As we have mentioned, and as the NCAA-released RPI showed this week, the Buckeyes don’t have a real quality win this season (although they looked better at Purdue last night, certainly). The Big Ten Geeks point out that a strong second scoring option behind Deshaun Thomas hasn’t presented itself at this point and the Buckeyes will need that to contend in the Big Ten. They make a number of other interesting points about the rest of the conference as well. Be sure to check it out.

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

Tonight’s Lede. Pyrrhic Victories For Missouri and Duke. There is nothing surprising about the outcomes of Duke and Missouri’s Tuesday night conference match-ups. The Blue Devils predictably smothered a marginally-skilled Clemson team at Cameron Indoor while the Tigers dropped 84 points on Alabama’s unusually forgiving defense. Both teams will finish the year near the top of their respective leagues, and both should secure top-three seeds in the NCAA Tournament. Duke and Missouri are rolling right now. They share another commonality: a dearth of quality frontcourt depth. And by virtue of sharing that personnel characteristic, Duke and Missouri must now weather a very real problem: injuries. With Ryan Kelly and  Laurence Bowers both exiting their games with specific ailments, Duke and Missouri could be without two hugely important interior pieces for the foreseeable future (each player will undergo further testing Wednesday to determine the severity of the injuries). It’s not a crushing blow for either team – remember, we’re talking about NCAA Tournament locks. Life could be worse. But with both teams coming upon tricky Saturday road games – Duke at NC State, and Missouri at Ole Miss – playing without Kelly and Bowers, respectively, is going to require substantial adjustments. These teams are versatile and adaptable enough to make it work, but the difficulty level of an already hazardous road test could now be that much higher. Not having Kelly and Bowers is going to affect those games — whether their absences are enough to flip the outcome in the home teams’ favor is an open question.

Your Watercooler Moment. Georgetown Has Problems.

Offense remains a huge problem for Georgetown (Photo credit: AP).

You don’t need to have the world’s most efficient offense to chase conference championships and NCAA Tournament berths. You do need to be at the very least competent on that end of the floor. Georgetown qualifies, but only barely. They masked their offensive deficiencies throughout the non-conference season with a handful of ugly wins – including a 37-36 line against Tennessee and a 46-point output against Towson at home. Big East teams know better; they know the limitations of John Thompson III’s Princeton offense, and so far, Marquette and Pittsburgh have exploited those weaknesses by handing the Hoyas two straight losses to open Big East play. Georgetown scored a combined 93 points in those two games. The first loss is not a huge injustice by any stretch; Marquette is a tough out at the Bradley Center. The latter is worrisome, if only because the Hoyas compounded their poor offense by allowing Pittsburgh to shoot 55 percent from the floor and 62 percent from three. Georgetown doesn’t have the offensive firepower to keep up, much less contend, when opponents shoot that well from the floor. The Hoyas grounded their early success on stingy defense, and that formula worked for the first two months of the season. The Big East is a quite simply a different beast. Georgetown needs its typically stifling defense as a baseline for success. It can’t expect to get caught up in high-scoring fixtures. The Hoyas don’t play that game. They force turnovers, block shots, protect the rim and do just enough offensively. That formula only works with seamless defensive execution intact. Against Pittsburgh, the defense wasn’t there. Georgetown has fought this trend in recent years – winning in November and December, only to fall flat in Big East play. Avoiding another conference slide will necessitate some measure of offensive capability. Failing that, the Hoyas can’t afford any defensive lapses from here on out.

Tonight’s Quick Hits…

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Bennet Hayes is a regular contributor for RTC. You can find him @HoopsTraveler on Twitter. Night Line runs on weeknights during the season, highlighting a major storyline development from that day’s games.

Any Big Ten road win accrued this season holds value, as the conference is an especially treacherous version of its normally solid self here in 2012-13. So kudos Ohio State; you went into West Lafayette tonight and gave the home team only a few sniffs of the upset they sought, and in the process earned your first Big Ten road victory of the year. Purdue may be young and a year or two away from Big Ten relevancy, but good teams will exit Mackey Arena losers this winter; this game was far from an automatic W. Praise the workmanlike effort tonight from Thad Matta’s bunch, but do not mistake it for a cure-all to the recent ails of the Buckeyes. For Ohio State to live up to both preseason expectations and the standard set by Buckeye squads of years past, the performances in the statement games must improve – beginning on Saturday, when arch-rival and undefeated #2 Michigan arrives in Columbus. But does this Ohio State team have it in them?

Deshaun Thomas Is Averaging 20 PPG, But Are Other Buckeyes Ready To Help Shoulder The Load?

Like it or not Buckeyes, the recent success of your program has created a standard of significant height, one that can really only be matched by a handful of programs across the country. That recent excellence, combined with the returns of starters Aaron Craft, Deshaun Thomas, and Lenzelle Smith prompted pollsters to rank Ohio State fourth this preseason, and few blinked an eye. The Buckeyes have done nothing that ranks as truly cringe-worthy thus far, but they also can’t lay claim to a victory over a team likely to make the NCAA Tournament field (unless you are bullish on Washington winning some games in the Pac-12). Ohio State has also whiffed on their three big-time chances for statement Ws (at Duke, Kansas, at Illinois). The polarizing nature of the schedule is partially to blame here, as Craft and company have had no opportunities to prove their worth against solid Tournament teams (giving Illinois the benefit of the doubt here as “elite,” partially because that game was in Champaign). Still, we are comfortably into the New Year and Ohio State, a team some still consider to be among the nation’s best, has absolutely nothing of major substance on that resume.

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With the latest edition of the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) rankings released by the NCAA this week, we can take a closer look at what it might potentially mean for the Big Ten teams as conference play really heats up this month. The RPI is not the end-all-be-all for evaluating teams, and has become somewhat antiquated in a more statistical age of evaluation,  but it remains a huge factor for the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee in determining whether teams get into the Big Dance and what kind of seed they receive. All that said, here are a few things that stand out about the latest rankings:

OSU Needs to Get Some Quality Wins Soon

• The RPI supports what we already know, which is that the Big Ten is excellent from top to bottom: By now we’ve learned that the Big Ten is the toughest conference in the country. You can see it in the polls, and you can see it when you watch the teams play night in and night out. No game is easy, no team a cupcake. And the RPI backs it up. There are five teams in the top 22, with Michigan (No. 3) and Minnesota (No. 7) clocking in in the top 10.
• Michigan is as good as we think they are: Nobody in the Big Ten has impressed more than the Wolverines this season. They’re undefeated, and have dominated each Big Ten team that’s stepped in their way. The schedule will heat up for them later this month, but for now, they’re the undisputed top dog in the conference. Of note: They’re one of two teams in the RPI top 10 (Gonzaga is the other) who has a win against a non-Division I opponent. In fact, of the top 19 teams, four have wins against non-Division 1 teams. Two are mid-majors (Butler and Gonzaga), and the other two are from the Big Ten (Michigan and Illinois).
• Ohio State really hasn’t beaten anybody: You can look at this from two angles. The first being the Buckeyes’ own ranking (No. 41). That’s not what you’d expect to see from a team that’s been ranked in the Top 10 all season. But then again, when we look at the second angle — the teams they’ve beaten, and where they rank — should we be surprised? The Buckeyes’ best win of the year is probably a toss-up between games against Washington and Nebraska. (If they beat Purdue tonight, that will be in the mix, as well). So that means the best team they’ve beaten is either No. 78 (Nebraska), No. 73 (Washington) or could be No. 149 (Purdue). That’s not a lot to hang your hat on. Read the rest of this entry »

Non-conference play is a beautiful thing: it marks the start of a new season, is littered with many early season and holiday tournaments in places where one would more likely find a beach and surfboard than basketball hoop, and pits teams against one another that would otherwise never play. However, there is nothing quite like the beginning of conference play as rivalries are rekindled and teams seemingly play with a little extra juice. Duke remains atop the RTC25 for the seventh consecutive week, while Michigan closely follows as the Wolverines picked up nine #2 votes—it is very clear to pollsters who the top two teams in America are. A disappointing team that continues to fall each week is Ohio State, who may be one more loss away from dropping out of the RTC25 altogether.

Quick n’ Dirty Analysis. Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

The Weekend’s Lede. This weekend brought a comforting turn in the hoops calendar. It was the first weekend spent in the throes of conference play. On Saturday, starting at 11am ET with Pittsburgh at Rutgers and on through Sunday night, high-quality games could be found on various networks. There were upsets, blowouts, and predictable results – all of which we’ve seen at different stages this season. But there’s a different vibe when it comes to conference play, to me at least, and it was refreshing to take it all in. Gone are the days of high majors beating down cupcakes. Most conference games are real, competitive, no-sleep-walking-allowed basketball games. And they’re here to stay, at least until April. This put me in an especially rosy mood, which is a good sign for what lies ahead in 2013, and an even better sign for college basketball in general. League competition is already shaking perceptions and standings in noticeable ways, and we haven’t even yet broken free of the college football fever. Just wait until February; I can hardly hide my excitement. So let’s recap the first conference weekend. It was a good one.

Your Watercooler Moment. CJ McCollum Breaks His Foot.

After bursting on the scene during last season’s upset over No. 2 Duke, McCollum could very well have seen his last sample of NCAA Tournament basketball (Photo credit: AP).

Twice this season C.J. McCollum has left NBA Scouts looking for refunds on game tickets. The first time was a minor medical ailment. McCollum sprained his ankle and couldn’t suit up for a Dec. 20 game against North Texas. Saturday’s injury was far more severe. What’s truly saddening about McCollum’s broken foot isn’t the lengthy eight-to-ten-week recovery or the implications for his NBA draft status. It’s the fact that McCollum made the move most college basketball fans wish future first-round picks would make more often. McCollum eschewed guaranteed millions to play out his eligibility. In April, he penned a reflective piece explaining his decision. The SportingNews’ Mike DeCourcy dug up one of McCollum’s pivotal justifications: “By returning for my senior year, I give myself a chance to complete my degree at a prestigious university, while putting myself in a position to be successful no matter what happens in my future.” McCollum will still accomplish those goals, but the basketball component of his senior year won’t go as planned. Passing up the professional game for another year in college is always risky business. Many players wind up hurting their “draft stock” and regretting their decisions. McCollum should be back before the end of the season, and I have little doubt he can redeem whatever shine he may lose during his recovery, whether that be in the midst of a late-season Tournament surge or in draft workouts. McCollum is a preternaturally gifted scorer. He belongs in the NBA. This will do little, if anything, to hurt his draft prospects – provided he returns to his pre-injury form. It’s a tough setback, but nothing McCollum, a determined, clear-headed and driven individual, cannot overcome.

Also Worth Chatting About. Nothing Will Come Easy In The Big Ten.

The Illini didn’t need hot three-point shooting to dominate Ohio State in Champaign (Photo Credit: Getty Images).

The formula to Illinois’ early success was flawed. It depended heavily on the three-point shot, which is an inherently risky way to win basketball games, but even more perilous when you don’t have a reliable source of interior scoring. Which Illinois didn’t…..until Saturday. The Illini’s win over Ohio State wasn’t surprising. It was the way Illinois bombarded the Buckeyes not with long-range shots, but with effective low post play. Sophomore forward Nnanna Egwu was slowly, surely coming around of late, but he came up small in this week’s loss at Purdue, and one was starting to get the sense he was still a year or two away from contributing in meaningful ways. On Saturday, he showed up, and boy, does Ohio State wish he hadn’t. Egwu finished with 16 points and eight rebounds to bail out Illinois’ again poor three-point shooting (8-for-27). Illinois showed it doesn’t need the long-ball to knock off good teams – at least not when Egwu’s holding fort in the paint. The same problems remain with Ohio State: Can anyone help DeShaun Thomas shoulder the scoring load? Is Aaron Craft that guy? Will Shannon Scott, Laquinton Ross and Sam Thompson pick up steam as the season rolls along? This will give John Groce’s team boatloads of confidence for an upcoming home date with Minnesota, but the way the Gophers have looked thus far, it may need to recapture its hot three-point shooting stroke to spring the upset.

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Seven Sweet Scoops  is the newest and hottest column by Chad Lykins, the RTC recruiting analyst. Every Friday he will discuss the seven top stories from the week in the wide world of recruiting, involving offers, which  prospect visited where, recent updates regarding school lists, and more chatter from the recruiting scene. You can also check out more of his work at RTC with his weekly column  “Who’s Got Next?”, as well as his work dedicated solely to Duke Basketball at  Duke Hoop Blog. You can also follow Chad at his Twitter account  @CLykinsBlog  for up-to-date breaking news from the high school and college hoops scene.

 Note:  ESPN Recruiting  used for all player rankings.

1. Roy Williams Sees Andrew Wiggins For Third Time

If you’re a fan of North Carolina, you have to be extremely impressed with the amount of attention head coach Roy Williams is showing the No. 1 player in the class of 2013, Andrew Wiggins, as of late. On Thursday, Williams was in Huntington, West Virginia, to watch Wiggins for the third time this season. The recruiting efforts have essentially paid off for the Tar Heels for now, as Wiggins is expected to take a trip to Chapel Hill at the conclusion of his senior season at Huntington Prep (West Virginia). Including North Carolina, who has signed three top-100 prospects from the class of 2013 in Isaiah Hicks, Kennedy Meeks, and Nate Britt, the 6’8” small forward is also considering Florida State, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio State, and Syracuse. He has also already taken his first official visit to Florida State and has plans to also visit Kansas and Kentucky at season’s end.

North Carolina will receive an official visit in the spring from Andrew Wiggins

2. Junior Leron Black Backs Out of Baylor Commitment

For a number of underclassmen, the recruiting process can prove to be exciting for those that feel desired by a number of specific programs, thus leading to a quick and abrupt decision without carefully examining each and every option. Such was the case for Leron Black, the No. 11 overall ranked prospect in the class of 2014, who gave a verbal pledge to Baylor back in September after taking an unofficial visit to the school. On Wednesday, Black announced his intention to re-open his recruitment, citing that he made a rushed decision. John Martin of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal was the first to break the news. Shortly after backing out of his Baylor commitment, the 6’7” small forward out of White Station High School (Tennessee) had already heard from Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Louisville, Memphis, Missouri, North Carolina State, Ohio State, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt. Baylor will still remain in the mix; however, the odds will not be in their favor to re-establish a commitment. This time around, Black will be much more patient and disciplined prior to making his final decision, as he will be one of the most highly sought-after juniors in the class due to his great athleticism and ability to finish around the rim. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the ninth installment of our weekly Big Ten Power Rankings which we will publish each Friday. This week’s voters were Deepak Jayanti, Joey Nowak and Kevin Trahan of the Big Ten Microsite.

1. Michigan – With a 14-0 start, Michigan is off to its second-best start in school history, and after Thursday night’s 94-66 win at Northwestern, the Wolverines look as strong as ever. The Trey Burke-Tim Hardaway Jr. duo looks like the best guard duo in the country right now and the freshmen are living up to their lofty expectations. While this is a guard-dominated team, the big men have also been extremely effective. A home game against Iowa could be a bit of a test, but it’s tough to pick against these Wolverines right now.

Trey Burke Has The Wolverines Rolling

2. Indiana – Indiana picked up a big road win at Iowa — its first win at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in five years. The game was in doubt until the final minute, but the Hoosiers pulled away in the end thanks to Cody Zeller scoring 15 of his 19 points in the second half. While Zeller has been good, Victor Oladipo has been sensational. He’s versatile and extremely dangerous in the open court, and he made some big buckets against the Hawkeyes to help the Hoosiers go on some runs. Indiana gets an easy game at Penn State this week before a huge home match-up against Minnesota.

3. Minnesota – The Gophers made it clear to rest of the conference that The Barn will be a tough place to win with their first conference game against Michigan State. Tubby Smith’s squad is deep and they have been hot since their loss to Duke during Thanksgiving. Smith is still controlling Mbakwe’s minutes, but the forward has been extremely efficient by pulling down 7.5 RPG in just 18.8 MPG this season. One concern for the Gophers may be their three-point shooting – as a team they are shooting just 32% from the long range. It may be tough for them to play catch-up without a consistent long-range shooter, but they play such great defense it is unlikely they will fall behind by too much in a game.

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Brendon Mulvihill is an RTC contributor. You can find him @TheMulv on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

The first weekend in 2013 dives head first into conference season. There are some key match-ups within the Big Ten and Big 12 that will set the tone early for who to watch over the next two months. Let’s get to the breakdowns!

#11 Ohio State at #13 Illinois – 2:15 PM EST, Saturday on BTN (****)

Aaron Craft needs to lock down the perimeter against Illinois (Photo credit: Jeff Hanisch/US Presswire).

• It seems odd to say that these two top 15 teams are in need of a win, but that appears to be the case in this particular match-up. Ohio State is 0-2 in its two big games against Duke and Kansas, leaving the Buckeyes without a marquee victory thus far, while Illinois has lost two of its last three games after starting 12-0. Illinois’ shooting has been quite poor over the last three games: star guard Brandon Paul has gone 5-of-18, 3-of-12, and 4-of-10 in that span. Alongside D.J. Richardson, the Illini guards will face a tough defensive test from OSU guards Aaron Craft, Lenzelle Smith Jr., and Shannon Scott. Paul is always capable of a breakout game, but keep a close eye on his shooting as Illinois typically goes the way he goes. In their two losses this season to Duke and Kansas, the Buckeyes have faced dominant post players. Illinois does not have that asset per se, so that bodes well for the Buckeyes, even in Champaign. Big forward Tyler Griffey is Illinois’ best inside option, but he could have his hands full on defense if he is matched-up against DeShaun Thomas. Craft and the Buckeye perimeter defense is the key to this game and it doesn’t appear that the Illinois defense is strong enough to keep Thomas from scoring. While it will be a raucous home crowd for the Illini, I think OSU pulls off the win.

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We are six weeks into our Pac-12 Pick’Em and Adam continues to edge out the rest of us. And now that we are completely done with non-conference play, the amount of available points will drop significantly. Last week was rough on all of us, thanks to teams like Oregon State and California choking away what we thought were sure wins. Drew was the only one to gain any ground, as he was the only one to correctly pick New Mexico’s road upset of Cincinnati. In our other game of the week, Missouri-UCLA, I came the closest to correctly picking the Bruin win. While everyone else picked the Tigers to win by 12 or 16, I had the game going down to the wire with UM pulling out a five-point win. So now, we enter week six. Colorado’s visit to Arizona and Ohio State’s meeting with Illinois headline the list as our games of the week.

The biggest differences in opinion this week come in Colorado’s visit to Arizona State. Parker and I pick the road-weary Buffaloes to escape Tempe with the victory, while Drew and Adam took the Sun Devils. Save myslef, everyone else matches on the remainder of the picks. I took Illinois in our national game of the week and Oregon State for a Civil War victory, opting for home-court advantage, something that can be pivotal in conference play.