1. Tom Crean channeled his inner Gene Hackman when asked about his team’s upcoming trip to Madison Square Garden for the finals of the 2K Sports Classic. Crean said, “It’s still a 90- foot court with 10 feet from the floor to the rim ,” when he was asked about how it would be different for his young team to go on the road for the first time. While Indiana is a bit more athletic and not nearly as much of an underdog as the fictional Hickory High from the movie “Hoosiers,” they will be tested by their games against Washington in the opener, and against Boston College or Connecticut in the second round. Keep an eye on the point guard match-up in the first game, as Yogi Ferrell squares off against freshman Nigel Williams-Goss.
2. Those that expect Mitch McGary to live up to all of the preseason hype he received might have to curb their enthusiasm for at least a week or two. John Beilein said on Tuesday that he is going to stick to playing McGary around 18-22 minutes a game for the upcoming tournament in Puerto Rico. McGary alternated between being a dominant presence and someone who needs to play himself back into shape in Michigan’s loss on Sunday to Iowa State. Look for more of the same as he builds toward a potentially dominant season once B1G play starts in January.
3. All is not well in East Lansing despite Michigan State being the newly-minted number one team in the country when the latest polls came out on Monday. Tom Izzo is upset about the lackluster crowds at the Breslin Center for both Friday and Monday night’s games. November games against teams like Columbia and Portland aren’t necessarily going to move the needle too much in terms of getting a packed house, and it’s safe to assume this will be a non-issue once they play someone like North Carolina in two weeks. With Michigan State’s football team likely heading to the B1G Championship game, and with the number one team in basketball, Michigan State essentially doesn’t have much to complain about athletically right now.
4. Purdue struggled for the second time in three games against Rider on Sunday. A big reason was the fact that A.J Hammons was saddled with foul trouble, which caused him to miss the majority of the first half. This came after Hammons registered seven blocks in his first game back from suspension against Central Connecticut. A big reason he got into foul trouble was because he had to help his guards who were getting beat of the dribble and getting into the paint too easily. Regardless, this can’t be the start to the reason Hammons was hoping for as he looks to live up to the hype of being a potential lottery pick in the future.
5. Finally, if you had money on Frank Kaminsky being the talk of all of college basketball for something other than maybe getting viciously dunked on by somebody, then you’re are a rich man/woman. Kaminsky set a Wisconsin single-game record last night scoring 43 points in the Badgers’ 103-85 victory over North Dakota. Kaminsky followed up his 16 point-8 rebound game on Saturday against Green Bay with this record-breaking output. Lost in the shuffle a little bit is the fact that Wisconsin also scored the most points as a team since 1995. Bo Ryan probably wasn’t thrilled giving up 83, but he has to be thrilled his squad has started off 4-0 with two great resume wins against St. John’s and Florida.

It’s been impossible to avoid noticing the difference in foul calls so far this season. The new hand-check rules and officials intent on enforcing every foul has caused free throw attempts to shoot up and games to slow down. Across all of Division I basketball, free throw attempts are up a whopping 22.8 percent (about 4.5  more attempts per game). This amounts to about 24.3 attempts per game, the highest mark since 1971-72 when it was at 25.6 FTA per contest. This has caused some complaints among B1G coaches, most notably Purdue‘s Matt Painter, who called them “excessive” following his Boilermakers’ recent win. While the foul calls and free throws may slightly drop as officials adapt and study film, almost any contact for now causes a whistle to blow. With this in mind, it seemed like a good time to look at the Big Ten team’s free throw shooting so far this season compared to last season’s totals through roughly the same amount of games. You can look at the table below to get a good gauge of exactly what has and is happening with your favorite B1G team and the conference overall.

Some notable trends:

• Overall, the B1G is shooting free throws at an even higher rate than the country with a 28.2 percent increase as it has attempted 232 more total free throws than at this point last season. This equates to more than 19 additional free throw attempts per team so far. Only Michigan State has shot fewer free throws at this same point, and Michigan and Minnesota are near where they were last year at this time. Every other team is up.
• Could more trips to the line mean more comfort while there? Most teams at this point have experienced a positive change in free throw percentage, with Penn State, Indiana, Ohio State and Nebraska the four teams showing a decrease.

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Week one is in the books. One of the reasons college basketball is so great is because elite teams choose to play other elite teams early in the season. This was the case last week, as Michigan State played Kentucky and Kansas played Duke in Tuesday’s Champions Classic in Chicago. The Spartans and Jayhawks were victorious in these marquee match-ups, and as a result, they both leaped the Wildcats and the Blue Devils into the top few spots of our poll. Losing to top competition did not impact Kentucky and Duke’s positions too much, as they both remained in the top five. Michigan was the only team that fell out of the preseason top 10, as the Wolverines were victim on the road to Iowa State and Hilton Magic on Sunday afternoon. Due to the victory, the previously unranked Cyclones also moved into this week’s RTC25.

This week’s QnD after the jump…

Quick ‘n Dirty Analysis.

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Every season always brings new opportunities for unknown players to become known. If a player performs well, he can become a staple in a team’s rotation and see quality minutes during conference play; if not, he could be banished to the end of the bench never to be heard from again. It’s still very early in the year, but here are five Big Ten players who have been pleasant surprises through one week of the season:

Michigan’s Caris LeVert has been tremendous to start the season. (Credit: Getty)

• Jaylon Tate of Illinois wasn’t even a recruiting target of head coach John Groce last year. But once Illinois lost out to Demetrius Jackson (Notre Dame) and Xavier Rathan-Mayes (Florida State), Groce went after Tate, who was a high school teammate of fellow Illini Kendrick Nunn and Duke’s super freshman Jabari Parker. After Ahmad Stark’s waiver to play immediately was denied, Tate became the full time backup point guard to Tracy Abrams and he has flourished. Tate is averaging nearly 20 minutes per game and leads the team in assists thus far. Don’t be surprised to see Groce playing both point guards together down the stretch. Read the rest of this entry »

The start to the Big Ten season has certainly gone well. Granted, there have been a few closer games than expected (we’re looking at you, Indiana and Purdue) and one loss, but nonetheless, the conference now sits at 23-1 going into Thursday morning. (It should be noted this topic was originally written with the assumption Penn State would not lose and the Big Ten would still be undefeated, but alas, we’ll settle for 23-1). It also has two of the biggest signature wins of the young season with Michigan State over Kentucky and Wisconsin downing Florida on Tuesday night. That said, the Big Ten is the only power conference to have only one loss and sits tied with the WCC for best record overall as the only conference with just one loss. The next closest leagues are the Big East and AAC with three losses each. Granted, overall record isn’t the only way to measure conference strength, especially this early in the season with high-major schools playing teams they should beat. Still, it’s an impressive start and worth taking a look at the next few days to see exactly how long the Big Ten can keep it up. This post projects the next four days to determine how likely it is that the Big Ten stays at the one-loss plateau heading into next week.

Gary Harris led Michigan State to No. 1 in the country and the Big Ten sits as the top conference early on, too. (Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports)

Today: Maryland Eastern Shore at Iowa; Northwestern at Stanford

This is a legitimate underdog situation for the Big Ten. Iowa should cruise in its home game against UMES, but the Wildcats are traveling west to play against a good team in its building. Stanford may have given up 112 points against BYU, but the Cougars are no slouch in the WCC.

Loss probability: 80 percent. It’s Northwestern on the road.

Friday: Samford at Indiana; Columbia at Michigan State

If Northwestern pulls off the upset, the Big Ten is looking at 25-1 heading into the weekend. In these two Friday games, Indiana and Michigan State will be heavy favorites. The Hoosiers got their wake-up call against an inferior team on Tuesday night and won’t let that happen again. Michigan State just beat Kentucky, and they aren’t losing to Columbia with a veteran squad coached by Tom Izzo.

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1. National Letters of Intent were beginning to be signed yesterday with several Big Ten programs reeling in top talent. One of the best classes in the conference belongs to Northwestern as head coach Chris Collins signed four solid recruits. Collins’ first class is highlighted by forward Victor Law, rated No. 86 by Rivals, who Collins was more than happy to build a class around. The class is rounded out with three other 3-star players, including guard Bryant McIntosh, who turned down offers to play for Memphis, Purdue, Iowa and Clemson, among others. The group provides Collins with a strong first recruiting class and shows promise for the Wildcats’ future. As the head coach attempts to get the program to its first NCAA tournament berth, this recruiting class could prove to be the turning point as he likely picked up two starters from day one.
2. Michigan certainly can’t wait to get Mitch McGary back from injury, but for now, it helps to have a player like Jon Horford who can step into the starting line-up. The redshirt junior has experience in the system and understands his role, which was on display in Michigan’s latest game where he scored nine points along with grabbing 15 rebounds against South Carolina State. The Wolverines would certainly prefer to have Horford in a backup role to McGary, but his increased playing time now could be crucial later in the season should he ever be called upon for large minutes. Horford isn’t as versatile offensively, but on a team that has plenty of scorers and shooters on the outside, his ability to grab rebounds and get some points down low complement the rest of the team well.
3. It wasn’t the normal home opener for Wisconsin on Tuesday against No. 11 Florida. With an impressive performance, though, the Badgers showed they will be able to compete with the best this season. This early season slate certainly is one of the most challenging Bo Ryan has ever had for his team. It has given a good chance to see what the Badgers have after the loss of its three big men from last season’s squad and the early answer is plenty. The team has gotten out in transition more as Billy Donovan noted in the article, willing to use their guards compared to just slashing, cutting and battling down low in a half court set. If Wisconsin can get some more points along with their always stingy defense, don’t be surprised if once again we are talking about this squad playing some important games in the Big Ten race come February and March.
4. Ohio State has started the season 2-0, but a few problems have already come up for the Buckeyes. Most notably in their 79-69 win over Ohio was rebounding, which was 34-33 in favor of Ohio State. Thad Matta has really pressed defense with this group realizing its offense could need some work, so it has to be troubling that the rotations on the defensive end are causing issues with rebounding. With players rotating away from the basket the Buckeyes were left vulnerable on the glass as no player had more than four defensive rebounds. This is a problem that needs to be fixed quickly with the game against No. 17 Marquette Saturday, which had 21 offensive rebounds alone in its last win.
5. Purdue‘s Ronnie Johnson had a wake-up call earlier this year when freshman Bryson Scott started over him in the Boilermakers’ first exhibition game. Since then, Johnson has used the team competition to push himself. It’s showed early on as he hit the game-winning free throws in Purdue’s first game and scored 11 points with four assists to only one turnover in the win last night against Central Connecticut State. Johnson is a player some expect to have a breakout season for the Boilermakers, so anything to help push him more is certainly a good thing. It also helps Purdue overall to have back-ups who force the starters to play well to keep their spot, but don’t expect to see Johnson losing it any time soon either.

Opening weekend has come and gone, and every Big Ten team has played at least one game, with Illinois and Iowa suiting  up for two. After the weekend, the Big Ten sits at 14-0. Of course, such a short examination period isn’t the best time to make judgments, but they certainly were out in force for some teams and players. With this post, we will examine some of the potential overreactions involving Big Ten teams. We’ll also try to gauge if that overreaction could be warranted as something to worry about as the season progresses or if really it was a one-game situation that will be forgotten by next week.

Iowa is 2-0 and That’s About All That Matters at This Point

Illinois

Our Ray Rice is better than Baltimore’s Ray Rice.

— The Champaign Room (@Champaign_Room) November 10, 2013

It was an impressive opening two games for Rayvonte Rice, shooting 55 percent from the floor while putting up 35 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. Thinking the redshirt junior (he transfered from Drake and sat out last season) will sustain close to these numbers against better teams is foolhardy, though. A big question mark coming into the season was how accurate Rice would be (he shot 43.6 percent in his last season at Drake) and it’s unlikely his strong opening weekend shooting will continue. He’ll be good, but not this good all season.

Indiana

Indiana's freshman single-season rebound record is 238 (Alan Henderson, 1991-92). Noah Vonleh may have a shot at that.

— Jeff Rabjohns (@JeffRabjohns) November 9, 2013

It was quite the debut for heralded freshman Noah Vonleh, finishing with a double-double of 11 points and 14 rebounds. Some people even started comparing him to Cody Zeller after one game. Well, Vonleh certainly was spectacular in his debut, but let’s not put him down as an All-American already. This rebounding pace won’t continue at such a high rate and his offense still needs a lot of work. It’s likely he makes an All-B1G of some sort and could be Indiana’s best player, but one game against inferior competition isn’t All-American status just yet.

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There are expectations, realistic or not, that come with a #10 ranking, and that includes piling on small conference schools early in the season. Florida didn’t live up to this expectation against North Florida, as the Ospreys hung around for most of the game at the O’Connell Center Friday afternoon. Should the Gators be concerned heading into their game at #20 Wisconsin on Tuesday? Absolutely, but nothing happened Friday that should cause concern in the long run.

Patric Young had a difficult opener, but it’s not likely his struggles continue.

First, Billy Donovan warned that a game like this might happen. “When you looked on paper at the guys that were supposed to be on our team, we looked like a very optimistic, promising team,” Donovan said. “Right now, we’re not a very good team. […] We’re not the same team. If everybody looked at it on paper before the season started, each guy is healthy, each guy is here, what our team would look like. Our team is not that team on paper.” The absence of backup forwards Dorian Finney-Smith and Damontre Harris was felt early. Patric Young picked up two fouls within the first eight minutes of the game, and Will Yeguete looked rusty as he recovers from offseason surgery. This led to Donovan giving 26 minutes to walk-on forward Jacob Kurtz. Kurtz primarily played at the top of the defense, and while he did a good job, that’s an important role in Donovan’s defense and there was a talent drop-off. Donovan also went with lineups with Casey Prather as the biggest player. Both of these configurations took the Gators away from their core strength: balanced lineups with athletic big men.

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Folks, the season is finally here! With three ranked teams in the top-10 of the national polls, the Big Ten is ready to once again make its case as the deepest conference in college basketball. Over the next five months, our team of Big Ten writers – Jonathan Batuello, Brendan Brody, Deepak Jayanti, Max Jakubowski and Alex Moscoso — will provide our insights about the conference we love. To prepare you for the season, we’ve outlined all the posts we’ve written about each of the 12 teams in the league, listed below (sorry, Minnesota, we owe you one).

Which Big Ten Team Will Be Playing Into April Like Michigan Was Last Year?

Overall League Coverage

• RTC All-Big Ten First and Second teams.
• Who is the Big Ten’s best three-point shooter? We take a closer look at the analytics.
• RTC Big Ten Freshman of the Year: Noah Vonleh.
• RTC Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year candidates.
• The league features several good sophomores this year, but not everybody is ready to make the leap.
• None of the Big Ten coaches are on the “hot seat” this season, but each coach’s situation is discussed in a two-part series: Part I and Part II.
• The non-conference schedule is analyzed in a two-part series: Part I and Part II.
• Jim Delany‘s comments at Big Ten media day could indicate where conference re-alignment is headed over the next few years.
• We discuss the key injuries hounding the Big Ten teams.
• Your Big Ten Twitter must-follow list.

Michigan State

• One of the main concerns for the Spartans could be crunch-time scoring. The consistency of senior guard Keith Appling will be a pivotal factor in their run toward the Final Four.
• Gary Harris could have left for the NBA after one season at East Lansing. He is back to lead the Spartans to a Final Four, but we examine his case for the Big Ten Player of the Year.

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With the basketball season set to tip off for some Big Ten teams on November 8, the five of us at the Big Ten microsite took a poll to see how the 12 teams will finish this upcoming season. If you missed it, we have already previewed teams #12 to #9, teams #8 to #5, and broke down our second and first team preseason selections. We also highlighted some potential Sixth Man of the Year candidates and picked our Freshman of the Year. What follows are the four teams that we feel are the cream of the crop in the league this year. These are the teams that are expected to be a factor nationally, and anything less than the Top 25 and multiple NCAA Tournament wins would be viewed as a disappointment. So feel free to debate, argue and discuss how much or how little we know what we’re talking about after reading through our selections.

Ben Brust is one of Wisconsin’s many perimeter weapons. .(Photo credit: Brian Snyder/Reuters).

4. Wisconsin

• What they do well: Pick out any defensive metric from last season and Wisconsin probably did it well. The Badgers finished in the top 10 nationally in overall defensive efficiency, opponent eFG%, and opponent three-point percentage.
• What they don’t do well: Ryan Evans pretty much destroyed any chance of the Badgers rating favorably at the free throw line. He led the team in attempts but shot only 42 percent. This should improve simply by subtracting him from the roster, but the team that ranked 324th in free throw percentage also struggled in getting to the line, checking in at 320th in free throw rate.
• Get to know: Nigel Hayes. Bo Ryan can’t solely count on Frank Kaminsky to replace three senior starters in the frontcourt, so he will need contributions from Hayes earlier than he might have had to on a team with more veterans returning. Look for Hayes to make an impact as a banger and athlete who does a lot of little things if he can pick up the nuances of the offensive system.
• Why they’ll finish fourth: Losing Evans, Jared Berggren, and Mike Bruesewitz will be just too much for Wisconsin to replicate defensively and on the glass. Josh Gasser won’t be the same coming back from ACL surgery, and Sam Dekker won’t make the leap from talented freshman to go-to-guy. Ben Brust goes into a shooting slump and the Badgers don’t get much outside shooting elsewhere.
• Why they’ll finish higher: Wisconsin is one of those “pencil them in” teams. Meaning there are certain teams that finish around the same spot in the standings whether they lose a bunch of players or return everybody. They are one of the most consistent programs in the country, and can easily win the Big Ten regular season if Gasser comes back unscathed from his injury. Frank Kaminsky and Nigel Hayes step in and play better than the departed seniors, and Sam Dekker averages 18 PPG and becomes a legitimate All-America candidate.

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