We are starting to see things shake themselves out in the Big Ten standings, but all it takes is one full slate of games to change that in a flash. There’s a nice lineup on Thursday night, so let’s take a look at the implications of three games around the conference.

#23 Wisconsin at Minnesota, 7 PM ET

• It has certainly been a topsy-turvy season of sorts for the Badgers, who have been uncharacteristically mediocre at home, but made up for it with staunch play on the road. This is another test for Wisconsin as it tries to keep pace atop the standings and a critical game for Minnesota’s NCAA Tournament chances. The Golden Gophers are on the bubble with a tough road ahead so they need to capitalize on all reasonable home opportunities with a return date set in Madison for February 28. The Badgers can put the conference’s top scoring defense to the test, while Minnesota — shooting 36% this season, third in the conference, from 3-point range — will try to knock the Badgers down from deep. This game comes down to how well Minnesota, 10th in the Big Ten in turnover margin, protects the ball at home against a stingy Badgers defense.

Illinois at #22 Indiana, 8 PM ET

• These teams are neck-and-neck in the standings, 3 1/2 games behind first-place Ohio State, but Illinois needs this one just a bit more than Indiana. That said, with the way the Hoosiers have performed at home versus Illinois’ inconsistent play, it will be a tall order for Bruce Weber‘s group. It’s the lone meeting of the year between these two groups, and the Fighting Illini are sure to need another heroic effort out of Brandon Paul (he has scored in double figures in each of his Big Ten games) to keep up with Indiana’s high-flying offense. A loss Thursday and the Hoosiers just may switch places with the Illini in terms of NCAA Tournament chances.

Illinois is going to need a big effort out of Brandon Paul at Indiana. (Joe Robbins/Getty)

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That’s Debatable is back for another year of expert opinions, ridiculous assertions and general know-it-all-itude. Remember, kids, there are no stupid answers, just stupid people. We’ll try to do one of these each week during the rest of the season. Feel free to leave your takes below in the comments section.

This Week’s Topic: There are a number of teams trending up — Notre Dame, Florida, Pittsburgh, St. Mary’s, Florida State, Iowa State, etc. Among these and other non-elite teams, which one do you think has the best long-term prospects this season?

Andrew Murawa, Pac-12/MW Correspondent & Pac-12 Microsite Writer

When I’m looking for a sleeper team in the NCAA Tournament, I like to see size, depth, good guard play and an experienced head coach. When I look at Wisconsin, I can check off all of those categories with confidence. Still, while Bo Ryan’s Badgers have made the Tournament in each of his nine previous seasons and won at least a game in eight of those years, they’ve advanced beyond the Sweet Sixteen just once, in 2005 before losing a hard-fought regional final to North Carolina. The Badgers struggled early to replace several key big guys, and senior point guard Jordan Taylor’s numbers haven’t been up to last year’s lofty realm. But things are picking up now, as Taylor’s scored in double figures now in 14 straight games and frontcourt guys like Mike Bruesewitz and Jared Berggren have stepped into that typical three-point shooting big man role for Wisconsin. Given the right matchups, this team could be playing into the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, and possibly beyond.

Walker Carey, Correspondent

I am going with Notre Dame. Three weeks ago this answer would have been insane, but look what the Irish have accomplished in that time – wins at home versus Syracuse and Marquette and road victories over Seton Hall, Connecticut, and West Virginia. Mike Brey has his squad playing much better than anyone would have ever imagined. The most surprising part of Notre Dame’s resurgence has been that it has come without the services of preseason All-Big East senior forward Tim Abromaitis, who tore his ACL in late November. While at first the Irish struggled mightily without him, they are currently in a groove led by a variety of players. Sophomore guards Eric Atkins and Jerian Grant, freshman guard Pat Connaughton, junior forward Jack Cooley, and senior forward Scott Martin have all been instrumental to the season’s turnaround. If the Irish continue to show great defense, smart basketball, and timely shooting, I think it is reasonable to believe that Mike Brey’s squad will be a force to be reckoned with in March.

Kenny Ocker, Correspondent

With the exception of its second inexplicable conference loss Wednesday night, Florida State has the best prospects throughout the rest of this season, mostly because of its conference form and remaining schedule. Before the BC debacle, the Seminoles had run off seven straight wins to sit atop the ACC. In those seven straight wins are victories against the three other ACC contenders — a 33-point shellacking of North Carolina at home, a 76-73 win at Duke, and a 58-55 win over Virginia at home on Saturday. According to Ken Pomeroy, Florida State is in a dead heat with North Carolina to become the outright ACC regular-season champion, but the Seminoles hold the tiebreaker against the Tar Heels because they only play once this season. The best part of this recent run of form for Florida State is that it has been keyed by the team’s offense, which ranks second in the ACC in efficiency, but the team’s stalwart defense hasn’t gone anywhere either. Although the Seminoles seemingly peaked with their Sweet Sixteen run last season, the potential is there for this team to reach those heights again this season, or possibly go beyond.

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Bill Hupp is the RTC correspondent for the Big Ten Conference. Follow him on Twitter (@Bill_Hupp) for his thoughts on hoops, food, PR, various city river walks and life.

Reader’s Take

The Week That Was:

• Halfway Home: As of this week, the regular season conference schedule is officially more than halfway done. And – with apologies to Dennis Green– teams are pretty much who we thought they were at the beginning of the season. Ohio State is the class of the conference; Michigan State, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana are solid NCAA Tournament teams; Purdue, Minnesota, Illinois, and Northwestern are fighting for seeding while Iowa, Nebraska, and Penn State pick up the rear. Of course, there have been some upsets and many compelling games, but now that the dust is starting to settle, the cream of the crop has risen to the top.
• Super Shurna: Leave it to a savvy veteran to catch fire at just the right time. With Northwestern’s hopes of making its first NCAA Tournament fading fast, John Shurna won co-Big Ten Player of the Week honors after he shot a blistering 71% from the field and averaged 26 points, four rebounds, and two steals to lead the injury-depleted Wildcats to a home win over Nebraska and a road victory over Illinois. Shurna is up there with Michigan State’s Draymond Green and Wisconsin’s Jordan Taylor as the most valuable players to their respective teams.
• Close Calls: Illinois may be struggling at the moment, but they aren’t getting blown out. Each of the Illini’s last six games has been decided by five points or less. Unfortunately for the Orange Crush, they are just 2-4 in those games. Now they get to go on the road for four of their next five, starting with a doozy of a week with games at Indiana and at Michigan.

Will Draymond Green And The Spartans Snap Ohio State's Impressive Winning Streak In Columbus Saturday? (Al Goldis/AP)

Power Rankings

1. Ohio State (21-3, 9-2) – With the amount of scoring options Thad Matta has, it’s really just a matter of if Ohio State wants to defend you. They didn’t do that against Indiana or Brandon Paul (though he was just on fire that day), and sure enough, they lost both games. Purdue gave the Scarlet-and-Gray all they could handle before OSU escaped with an 84-81 win. Buckeyes face an interesting test when Michigan State comes calling to Columbus on Saturday. A win would put them in a comfortable position to win the regular season crown.
2. Michigan State (18-5, 7-3) – All of East Lansing waited with baited breath to learn the results of Draymond Green’s MRI. After Green left the game with a minor knee injury, Michigan State struggled mightily in a 42-41 upset loss. They bounced back nicely against their in-state rivals, and sure enough, Green led them with 14 points and 16 boards. As good a season as State has had, it could be even better: Two of the three conference losses have been by a single point on the road. Read the rest of this entry »

1. In big rivalry games such as Sunday’s Michigan vs. Michigan State showdown in East Lansing, you typically like to see the stars come out to play. But Michigan’s Tim Hardaway, Jr., was nowhere to be found. Michigan State’s defense deserves some of the credit, but this is not the first big game-turned-Michigan-loss where Hardaway’s presence has hardly been felt. Hardaway had a season-low four points on a career-worst 1-for-10 shooting Sunday afternoon. As AnnArbor.com‘s Kyle Meinke points out, Michigan is 2-4 in the six games in which Hardaway has failed to score double figures this season. The problem for the Wolverines and their quest for a Big Ten title is that three of those games have come since January 14 and each of them has resulted in a loss.
2. Keeping with the showdown in East Lansing, so much attention was paid to the left knee of Michigan State senior captain Draymond Green after he apparently injured it in the final minutes of the Spartans’ one-point loss to Illinois this weekend. But as Green seemed fine (he singlehandedly outrebounded Michigan), it was freshman Branden Dawson who continued to shine for the Tom Izzo’s team. Dawson, who had just four points in 12 minutes in his first career game against Michigan earlier this year, stayed hot with an inspired 10 points and four rebounds Sunday. He is now averaging 14.0 points, 6.7 rebounds and 24.7 minutes in the three games since the first game against Michigan.
3. As for the other in-state rivalry game that played out in the Big Ten on Sunday, Illinois coach Bruce Weber was disappointed in his team’s performance at home against rival Northwestern, which took down the Fighting Illini 74-70 at Assembly Hall. “It would be an understatement to say it’s a disappointing loss,” Weber said afterward. It was the defense, in particular, that irked the head coach, who saw his team hold Michigan State to 24.1% shooting just five days earlier. On Sunday, Northwestern shot 60.4% from the field.
4. Purdue coach Matt Painter said this week that he wants a fight, but he may not want this much of a fight. After a home loss to rival Indiana on Saturday night, the Boilermakers face a serious uphill climb in the Big Ten and may soon find themselves on the outside of the NCAA Tournament looking in. Painter said in a teleconference earlier this week that this season has probably been the most trying at Purdue since his first, when the team was 9-19. “I don’t mind the struggle,” Painter said. “I just want a fight. You’re going to have struggle. Just want guys to stay together and fight. You can tell sometimes when we have a bad call go against us, we hang our heads when we go back down the court.” It certainly doesn’t get easier for the Boilermakers, who have have games against Ohio State, Illinois and Michigan State in the next two weeks.
5. He may go on to become one of the all-time leading scorers in Ohio State basketball history, but even William Buford needs a little confidence booster every once in a while. He got that on Saturday with a big three-pointer to key Ohio State’s massive victory at Wisconsin. It hadn’t been Buford’s best afternoon, but the bucket was a big one. “When we need him, he shows up,” Buckeyes center Jared Sullinger said. “That’s one thing about Will: Crunch time, you always want to leave Will out on the floor because he has the (guts) to take a shot like that.” Buford had missed 11 of his 14 shots in the game at that point, and it was Ohio State’s first three-pointer of the game, but helped the Buckeyes clinch their first victory at the Kohl Center in 12 years.

The Ohio State – Wisconsin game Saturday afternoon certainly was as good as advertised and, whether you’re a fan of either school or just good Big Ten basketball, it was a treat to watch. Here are a few things to take away from a contest that had major implications on the conference standings:

Jared Sullinger Dominated the Post in Madison Today ( Jeff Hanisch-US PRESSWIRE)

1. The effect on the standings — With the victory, the Buckeyes are now in the conference driver’s seat. As of the end of this game, Ohio State held a one-game lead in the standings over Michigan, with Michigan State and Wisconsin trailing the Wolverines by half a game. Michigan heads to Michigan State on Sunday and a Wolverines loss would drop them further back, giving Ohio State even more cushion. The Buckeyes still have to host Wisconsin, play Michigan State twice, and go to Ann Arbor, but a win in one of the toughest environments in the Big Ten against the conference’s hottest team secures Ohio State as the top dog in the conference right now. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when there was talk of Indiana as a Final Four-caliber team? And that Wisconsin wouldn’t even have a chance at dancing its way to New Orleans because there was an outside chance the Badgers would miss the NCAA Tournament? In calendar terms, those days aren’t that far behind us. But in basketball days, they seem light years away. In a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately society, we tend to get really, really excited about the here and now. Wisconsin loses a string of three games with a couple rare losses at home mixed in, and pundits are wondering what the heck has gone wrong in Madison. Indiana sends shock waves across basketball with a few early-season major upsets and lights up the first half of its schedule, and there seemed to be no limit to what the Hoosiers could do.

Cody Zeller and the young Hoosiers have struggled on the road this year. (Andy Lyons/Getty)

Well, about a month after Indiana was 15-1 and Wisconsin dropped three in a row, both clubs have returned to their mean. That is to say, both clubs have either regressed or progressed to just about where we expected them to be at season’s tipoff. Indiana has taken a tremendous step forward under Tom Crean and is showing signs that it will be contending for Big Ten titles soon enough. The Hoosiers are an NCAA Tournament team. Wisconsin, meanwhile, is back to competing for Big Ten championships, frustrating opponents (particularly at the Kohl Center), and dictating pace in the Big Ten.

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We’re just over halfway through the Big Ten conference season and are rapidly approaching probably the biggest weekend of the slate, and likely the biggest single game to date. We’ve got a couple huge rivalry games on tap and a chance for a shift in power at the top of the standings.

Michigan State and Michigan get set for a rivalry rematch this weekend. (K. Dozier/DFP)

Here’s a look at a few of the weekend’s biggest Big Ten matchups.

#4 Ohio State at Wisconsin, 2 PM on Saturday

• Without question, the Buckeyes were the favorite to win the conference this season, and perhaps by a wide margin. But they’ve been brought down to earth twice already during their Big Ten slate — at Indiana and at Illinois. Will their trip to Madison result in another mis-step? Or will Wisconsin, which already has mounted two rare home defeats, fall again on its home floor? The Buckeyes have proven to be the toast of the conference and a likely Final Four participant, while Wisconsin has re-emerged as a conference title contender. All that said, this should be a tremendous defensive game to watch. Both teams have potent offenses — though different in style — but the game should be won on the defensive end, as these two groups enter with the top two scoring defenses in the conference.  Individually, the backcourt matchup between Wisconsin’s Jordan Taylor and Ohio State’s Aaron Craft should be a real treat.

Brian Otskey is the Big East correspondent for RTC and a regular contributor. You can find him @botskey on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

There are lots of good games on Saturday, highlighted by the big one in Columbia. Overall it’s a very nice day of hoops despite only a handful of truly terrific games.

#4 Kansas @ #6 Missouri – 9:00 PM EST Saturday on ESPN (*****)

KU Needs Taylor To Be Good Tyshawn on Saturday (credit: Missourian)

• It doesn’t get much better than this. Two teams that don’t particularly like each other and a Border War rivalry with roots in the Civil War era. Missouri enters this game after surviving Texas in Austin on Monday. The Tigers have perhaps the best offense in the nation with incredible balance at the guard and wing positions. The question for Frank Haith and his team will be how effective Ricardo Ratliffe can be against Thomas Robinson inside. Ratliffe shoots almost exclusively in the paint and converts an astounding 75.1% of the time. However, Ratliffe will be going up against a front line of Robinson and Jeff Withey (3.1 BPG) in this one and needs to utilize his patented pick-and-roll more in this game. Ratliffe won’t have great success going one-on-one against either Robinson or Withey inside. Kansas’ defense ranks #4 in two-point percentage against but the Jayhawks are vulnerable to the three-ball. That’s where Missouri and snipers Marcus Denmon, Kim English and Michael Dixon can really take advantage of Bill Self’s team.
• The Jayhawk offense is essentially a two-man operation. While players like Withey and Travis Releford contribute offensively, Kansas’ fortunes depend on Robinson and Tyshawn Taylor. Taylor has taken his game to another level over the last month, highlighted by the back to back 28-point efforts against Iowa State and Baylor. The Kansas senior hasn’t shot under 40% from the floor since January 4 but will be the focus of Haith’s perimeter defense. Taylor is prone to turnovers and you can bet the Missouri guards will be ball hawking him all night long. If Taylor has a good ball handling night, Kansas will be in very good position to grab a road win. Robinson will get his points but it’s up to Taylor to put the Jayhawks in a position to win this game.
• It’s hard to pick against Missouri at home but if any team is going to win in Columbia, Kansas is the one. With ESPN in the house for the top two teams in the Big 12, this will be as charged an environment as you will see all year in college basketball. Despite Ratliffe’s stellar shooting percentage, Kansas should win the battle inside. The duo of Robinson and Withey is incredibly difficult to score against and Robinson is obviously a load on the offensive end as well. However, the friendly confines of Mizzou Arena and the Tigers’ perimeter attack and balance should be enough to put Missouri over the top.

#3 Ohio State @ #23 Wisconsin – 2:00 PM EST Saturday on ESPN (****)

•  Ohio State can take command of the Big Ten with a win in this game. The Buckeyes hold a one game lead over Wisconsin in the loss column heading into Saturday’s matchup. If Ohio State has one weakness, it’s three-point shooting. Thad Matta is not going to beat Wisconsin, a team that shoots well over 20 threes a game, from outside. Matta has the best player on the floor in Jared Sullinger and he needs to use him early and often in order to set the tone. Ohio State is not going to turn Wisconsin over and fast break points will be at a minimum. The Buckeyes must execute their half court offense in order to win this game and the way to do that is through the big man in the middle.
• The Badgers have righted the ship with six straight wins but will need a big game out of their supporting cast if they are going to make it a seventh. Jared Berggren in particular must contain Sullinger on the low block or else Aaron Craft can feed him all day long with no consequences. Offensively, Wisconsin will run everything through Jordan Taylor but guys like Josh Gasser and Ben Brust need to be hot from deep in order for the Badgers to pull off the win. Wisconsin will be limited to one shot per possession most of the time as it loves to run the shot clock down and shoot threes. Ohio State ranks fourth in defensive rebounding percentage, mostly thanks to Sullinger.
• This game features the top two defensive teams in the nation in terms of efficiency. It’s likely to be a low scoring, low possession affair that comes down to the final minutes. Players like Ryan Evans for Wisconsin and Ohio State’s Lenzelle Smith could be the determining factors. The battle at the point guard position between Taylor and Craft will be phenomenal but the complementary players usually put a team over the top in matchups like these. We think that’s what will happen at the Kohl Center on Saturday.