***** – quit your job and divorce your wife if that’s what it takes to watch this game live
**** – best watched live, but if you must, tivo and watch it tonight as soon as you get home
*** – set your tivo but make sure you watch it later
** – set your tivo but we’ll forgive you if it stays in the queue until 2013
* – don’t waste bandwidth (yours or the tivo’s) of any kind on this game

Brian Otskey is an RTC contributor.

Monday was a good night for Pennsylvania as Pittsburgh handed Connecticut its first loss and Penn State knocked off Indiana on the road. Conference play rolls on today with two key Big Ten matchups in the upper Midwest. All rankings from RTC and all times eastern.

#11 Purdue @ Michigan – 2 pm on Big Ten Network (***)

Purdue Handled Michigan Last Season (Mich Daily/T. Sharman)

This Tuesday matinee is a great opportunity for Michigan to put itself back on the Big Ten map. The Wolverines are 9-2 against D1 competition and had a very close loss to a top five Syracuse squad. This game pits two guard heavy teams against one another, though Purdue has JaJuan Johnson in the paint. Michigan is vulnerable inside making Jordan Morgan and Evan Smotrycz important players for John Beilein this afternoon. They have to defend Johnson well but more importantly they must grab rebounds. Purdue is not a tremendous rebounding team and neither team shoots all that well so there are going to be plenty of chances for the Wolverines to pick up extra possessions. Michigan is #210 in offensive rebounding percentage and they’ll have to do a much better job than that in order to score inside. As was the case with his West Virginia teams, Beilein loves the three ball. Michigan launches an average of 24 treys per game but connects on just a third of them. Still, the three pointer is the great equalizer in college basketball and when you shoot that often, a lot of shots are going to go through the net. The problem for Michigan is that Purdue ranks #4 in the nation in three point defense and third in defensive efficiency. It’s going to be difficult for the Wolverines to score but Darius Morris will try to make things happen. Michigan’s dynamic guard is averaging 16 PPG and almost eight assists as well while shooting over 50% from the floor. He needs to have a good game and set the table for others like Tim Hardaway Jr. and Zack Novak, a tremendous rebounder for his position and size. Hardaway is shooting just 30% from deep and must get going for Michigan to take the next step up and into the middle of the Big Ten pack. For Purdue, Matt Painter has hinted he’d like to go big but expect a lot of four guard sets with Lewis Jackson and E’Twaun Moore running the show. Outside of Johnson, Purdue’s bigs have averaged just over four PPG and six RPG in 25 minutes of play combined, clearly not getting it done. In order to win, Michigan has to shoot the ball well, control the boards and play solid defense. Beilein loves his 1-3-1 zone and it can work wonders against a team that doesn’t see it often. Expect him to use it in this game and adjust if Johnson does damage underneath the basket. Smotrycz is a key player because he can pull Johnson away from the basket, possessing the capability of knocking down a triple here and there. If the Wolverines can get Johnson into foul trouble early, they’ll have a great chance to pull the upset at home. Purdue is the better team but this should be a very close game today in Ann Arbor.

#13 Minnesota @ #14 Wisconsin – 7 pm on ESPN2 (****)

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John Templon of Chicago College Basketball is the Rush the Court correspondent for the Big Ten Conference.

A Look Back

Last week the Big Ten was almost able to avoid any bad losses (Penn State’s loss to Maine being the only exception), but it also couldn’t secure any good wins in the final big week of non-conference play. Losses by Michigan State (home against Texas), Illinois (versus Missouri) and Northwestern (versus St. John’s) left the conference behind the eight ball a bit.

A more comprehensive look back on an individual scale can be found at Chicago College Basketball where I named the 1^st and 2^nd team all-conference performers. Here’s a sneak peak at my first team:

• F Jared Sullinger, Ohio State
• F John Shurna, Northwestern
• C JaJuan Johnson, Purdue
• G Demetri McCamey, Illinois
• G E’Twaun Moore, Purdue

The post has the second team, honorable mentions and an explanation about some of the tougher picks, including why Wisconsin’s Jon Leuer wasn’t included.

• Team of the Week: Iowa. The Hawkeyes beat Louisiana Tech 77-58 and considering the struggles of the rest of the conference last week, especially that of the bottom tier, this was a good win. Plus, this might be the last time I’m able to write something positive about the Hawkeyes as Ken Pomeroy currently projects them for a 6-12 conference record (which seems awfully generous to be honest).
• Player of the Week: Jared Sullinger, F, Ohio State.  Sullinger averaged a double-double with 12.5 points and 12.5 rebounds in victories over UNC-Asheville and Oakland last week. He’s won the Newcomer award so many times I thought maybe it’d be good to let these two outstanding freshman split the awards this week.
• Newcomer of the Week: Tim Hardaway Jr., G, Michigan.  Hardaway Jr. scored 20 points in the Wolverines’ victory over Bryant this week. He also had five rebounds and two assists.

Power Rankings:

1. Ohio State (12-0) – Jared Sullinger continues to dominate and the Buckeyes had no problems with UNC-Asheville or Oakland last week. Ohio State has a relatively easy start to the Big Ten season playing at Indiana and at Iowa, so it just has to avoid a slip-up early.
2. Wisconsin (10-2) – Blasted Coppin State. Who cares?
3. Purdue (11-1) – More shrugs, we will actually figure something out on Tuesday when the Boilermakers play Michigan. According to Ken Pomeroy the Wolverines are the third hardest team Purdue has faced all season.
4. Minnesota (11-1) – The Golden Gophers beat South Dakota State. Yeah!
5. Michigan State (8-4) – It’s officially time to start worrying about the Spartans as they dropped a game at the Breslin Center to Texas last week. Washington is the only elite team that Michigan State has beaten this season.
6. Illinois (10-3) – Mike Tisdale’s really poor decision on an intentional foul helped Missouri pull out a 75-64 victory in the rivalry game last week. The Fighting Illini enter Wednesday’s game against Iowa on a two-game losing streak.
7. Michigan (10-2) – For a team that wasn’t expected to do much the Wolverines are sitting pretty entering conference play. Can they keep it going as the competition gets tougher? This is a good piece from UM Hoops about that exact topic.
8. Northwestern (9-1) – The Wildcats failed their first major test against St. John’s, but also got two victories over lesser opponents. Northwestern now starts a brutal early Big Ten slate: at Purdue, versus Michigan State and at Illinois.
9. Indiana (9-5) – The Hoosiers are in a bit of a slide having lost two very winnable games in Las Vegas last week and Monday night’s home game against Penn State.
10. Iowa (7-5) – The Hawkeyes’ defense appears to be keying a mini-resurgence here at the end of non-conference play. It’s back to reality in Big Ten play though with Illinois, Ohio State, and at Purdue to start.
11. Penn State (8-4) – A double-digit loss at home to Maine gets you sent to the doghouse even with a win on Monday against the Hoosiers in Bloomington.

A Look Ahead (all times EST):

• 12/28 – Purdue at Michigan, 2 p.m., Big Ten Network
• 12/28 – Minnesota at Wisconsin, 7 p.m., ESPN2
• 12/29 – Illinois at Iowa, 9 p.m., Big Ten Network
• 12/31 – Northwestern at Purdue, 12 p.m., ESPN2
• 12/31 – Minnesota at Michigan State, 4 p.m., Big Ten Network
• 1/2 – Wisconsin at Illinois, 6 p.m., Big Ten Network
• 1/3 – Michigan State at Northwestern, 7:30 p.m., Big Ten Network

Fun with Efficiency Margin and KenPom: Big Ten play starts on Monday! Next week this space will get interesting.

Here’s your post-Christmas Top 25… as always, the QnD analysis is after the jump and we encourage any comments to tell us where you disagree.

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John Templon of Chicago College Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the Big Ten conference.

A Look Back

• Until the shock of the week in college basketball on Saturday, Illinois’ 57-54 loss to UIC, not much happened during Big Ten play. Finals kept most teams quiet and the ones that did play mostly scored easy non-conference victories. But now, conference play is just moments away, and don’t we all wish it would just start already.
• Team of the Week: Ohio State: This award was handed to the Buckeyes because they beat South Carolina, which was probably the best win in a middling week for the conference.
• Player of the Week: John Shurna, F, Northwestern: In two games, against Long Island and American, Shurna averaged 27 points per game, 5.5 rebounds per game and 4.5 assists per game. He shot 19-25 (76%) from the field for the week.
• Newcomer of the Week: Jared Sullinger, F, Ohio State: Sullinger scored 30 points and grabbed 19 rebounds in the victory over South Carolina. He also had 11 points and two steals against Florida Gulf Coast.

Power Rankings

1. Ohio State (10-0) – The Buckeyes dominated South Carolina to continue their stranglehold on the top of the power rankings. Sullinger was dominant again. Maybe Keith Benson and Oakland can make him work a little harder this week. Fun fact, recently tweeted by John Gasaway, the Buckeyes’ Dallas Lauderdale is blocking almost one in every five two-point attempts by opponents when he’s on the court.
2. Wisconsin (9-2) – The Badgers topped Green Bay to finish a sweep of the state of Wisconsin and is now in the midst of a 10-day layoff.
3. Purdue (10-1) – The Boilermakers beat the Indiana State Syrcamores, which elicits nothing more than a bunch of shrugs.
4. Michigan State (8-3) – The Spartans beat Prairie View A&M last week, but this week, they play one of the most interesting Big Ten games of the week as Texas comes to visit. Tom Izzo’s one-game suspension will hardly be a footnote in his career.
5. Minnesota (10-1) – The Golden Gophers beat Akron. Yeah!
6. Illinois (10-2) – Bruce Weber was hoping to have a Top 10 team by Christmas. Now, with the loss to UIC and a tough game coming up against Missouri, I think he’d be happy to be in the Top 25 come next Monday.
7. Northwestern (8-0) – Two relatively easy wins over relatively inferior competition don’t impress anyone, especially at home. The Wildcats have a chance to at least creep onto the national radar if they can win the MSG Holiday Festival this week. After blowing out St. Francis (NY) on Monday, they’re off to a nice start
8. Michigan (9-2) – The numbers are starting to look very good for Michigan. The Wolverines are up to #52 overall in Ken Pomeroy’s rankings after a very good 18-point win over Oakland and a rout of North Carolina Central. My guess is Bryant isn’t going to give them any trouble this week either.
9. Indiana (9-2) – Indiana needs a good win over Northern Iowa this week to prove they’re for real and then will get a chance to play either New Mexico or Colorado. If it’s the Lobos, it’ll be a great test for the Hoosiers. Then Tom Crean gets four days to work the remaining kinks out before the first conference game of the season versus Penn State.
10. Penn State (7-3) – The Nittany Lions were idle, and take on Maine before they go to Bloomington.
11. Iowa (6-5) – The Hawkeyes got a good win in beating Drake by seven. Now they have to hold serve against Louisiana Tech on Tuesday.

A Look Ahead (all times EST):

• 12/21 – Northwestern vs. St. John’s or Davidson at MSG Holiday Festival; 7 or 9:30 p.m., MSG
• 12/22 – Michigan St. vs. Texas, 7 p.m., ESPN2
• 12/22 – Indiana vs. Northern Iowa at Las Vegas, Nevada; 7:30 p.m., CBS College Sports
• 12/22 – Illinois vs. Missouri at St. Louis, Missouri; 9 p.m., ESPN2
• 12/23 – Ohio State vs. Oakland, 8 p.m., Big Ten Network
• 12/23 – Indiana vs. New Mexico/Colorado at Las Vegas, Nevada; 7:30 or 10 p.m., CBS College Sports
• 12/27 – Indiana vs. Penn State, 6:30 p.m., Big Ten Network

Fun with Efficiency Margin and KenPom: Four Big Ten teams currently rank between 50 and 54 in Ken Pomeroy’s rankings. New Mexico must really wonder what the heck they did to get mixed up with the rest of those guys.

It might have been a very light week in terms of the amount of games played, but there were enough upsets to make the RTC Top 25 more interesting than it has been throughout most of December.  QnD analysis after the jump…

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So, let’s play a game. I tell you that I’m going to flip a coin (let’s say a 2009 U.S. quarter) exactly thirty times. Your job is to guess how many times that the coin is going to come up “heads.” Very cleverly, you notice that that typically a coin comes up heads about 50% of the time, so you should guess that, in this game, you will get heads about fifteen times. Okay, so I flip the coin the first five times and, surprise of surprises, I end up getting heads four out of five times. Does this mean you were wrong? Does this mean that the coin will continue to turn up heads at a 80% clip? Of course not. It’s just that variance is “magnified“ in small sample sizes. If we flip the coin the full thirty times, it’s almost certainly going to turn up heads less than 80% of the time.

Obviously, we are here not here to talk about flipping coins, but rather college basketball. So, what’s the relevance? The relevance is that right now, we are about a third of the way through the college basketball season and people are pointing to extraordinary statistics and acting as if they are going to hold up through March and April. The coin won’t turn up heads 80% over a big enough sample size, and Pittsburgh won’t continue to grab 47.9% of offensive rebounds against its opponents. Some of the extraordinary stats in college basketball are simply due to small sample size. Some teams tasting truly rarefied air in December are destined to fall back to Earth come March. Who’s due for a decline?

Glad you asked. What I’ve done is checked up on who was the leader on the offensive and defensive ends of the court in regards to each of Dean Oliver’s Four Factors at the end of the 2009-10 season. Then, I checked Ken Pomeroy’s rankings to see which teams were currently performing better than the very best team from last year. The logic is simple (and admittedly a little simplistic): It’s unlikely that many teams this season are going to perform too much better than what the best team in a given category did the year before. Unsurprisingly, at this point early in the season, there are quite a few teams performing better than any team performed last year. Let’s break it down category by category and figure out which teams are cruising for a bruising. Or a decline in efficiency. One or the other.

Effective Field Goal Percentage

None of these teams are shooting that much better than 2009-10 Denver (57.9%), but still, betting on Kansas or Georgetown’s shooting to cool off isn’t a bad bet. It’s a little early to predict Duke’s shooting to decline, but if Kyrie Irving’s absence isn’t explanatory enough for you, here’s another reason.

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Now that we’re a solid month-plus into the season, we have a much better idea about which teams have the best chance to cut down the nets in Houston next April.  Whether measuring statistically through the Pomeroy ratings or the traditional way through our own two eyes, it doesn’t take much to know that, as an example, Connecticut is a lot better than everyone expected and North Carolina is a lot worse.  At least at this point in the season.  Luckily, Vegas has been keeping its watchful eye on the college basketball season as well, and the bookmakers have adjusted their futures lines accordingly.  Some of the results may surprise you.

We’ve presented the schools who have risen and fallen the most (greater than 1% since preseason) below, but if you’re interested in the entire list and our thoughts on these changes, click for it after the jump. 

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John Templon of Chicago College Basketball is the RTC correspondent for the Big Ten conference.

A Look Back

• The Big Ten took on some road challenges this week against mid-major opponents and came out on the right side. Unfortunately, Michigan State lost the marquee non-conference game against Syracuse and now the Big East is getting a lot of credit, but objectively, the Big Ten is still the best conference in the country.
• Team of the Week: Wisconsin: The Badgers defeated Marquette 69-64 at the Bradley Center on Saturday. Jordan Taylor led the team with 21 points and Jon Leuer added 17. Wisconsin had 15 offensive rebounds and just 10 turnovers in the victory. Leuer was also the leading scorer with 20 points as Wisconsin thrashed Milwaukee, 61-40, earlier in the week.
• Player of the Week and Newcomer of the Week: Jared Sullinger, F, Ohio State: Sullinger looked unstoppable against IUPUI as he scored 40 points and grabbed 13 rebounds against an overmatched front line. He shot 23 free throws, making 16, and also showed good feet around the basket. He followed that up with a ho-hum 17 points and five boards against Western Carolina. Still, it’s obvious that this freshman is making a big impact on the court for the Buckeyes.

• The Leaders and Legends of the Big Ten Conference are going to be playing under the above new logo come next season. Gone is the subtlety of the ‘eleven’ hidden inside of the ‘Ten’ and, instead, we’ve got a conference logo that won’t have to change until they reach 20 teams. Despite the expansion to 12 teams, the Ten stays in the name. “Leaders” and “Legends” refer to the new names for the divisions in the 12-team conference. This isn’t little league, but all the Leaders will sound like they’re in first. I can’t wait till I have to write a sentence like ‘Ohio State now leads the Leaders by a game over Illinois,’ or some such nonsense.

Power Rankings

1. Ohio State (8-0) – Jared Sullinger had a great week and the Buckeyes got two victories. IUPUI put up quite a fight, though. The most interesting part of Ohio State’s week was the fact that head coach Thad Matta did a lot of lineup experimentation, including not subbing until almost garbage time against IUPUI and playing five freshmen at once against Western Carolina.
2. Illinois (10-1) – Illinois didn’t let up, taking down Oakland and Northern Colorado. The game against Oakland had the funniest story of the week, as part of the first half was played with a women’s basketball.
3. Wisconsin (9-2) – Offensive rebounding was the key to the Badgers’ not-as-close-as-it-looks 69-64 victory over Marquette. The game was at the hostile Bradley Center, so it’s a good victory. Wisconsin got the unofficial state crown on Monday with a victory against Green Bay.
4. Purdue (9-1) – Give the Boilermakers credit for going to Valparaiso and taking the Crusaders’ best shot before pulling out the 76-58 victory. Purdue’s defense has been excellent this season and will be the way this team wins games in Big Ten play and beyond.
5. Minnesota (9-1) – Tubby Smith’s team went on the road and won at St. Joseph’s, then came home and beat Eastern Kentucky. Two more home snoozefests against mid-majors probably won’t teach us anything about the Golden Gophers, so we’ll wait until they open Big Ten play against Wisconsin on December 28.
6. Michigan State (7-3) – At some point, the Spartans are going to have to beat a good team to be considered one. While the victory over Washington is nice, a miss against Syracuse and a narrow escape against Oakland just added to the national narrative that Michigan State is underachieving. Expect Tom Izzo to figure this out shortly. His team has one more big non-conference game against Texas on Wednesday, December 22.
7. Northwestern (5-0) – The Wildcats didn’t play until after this writing, so they stay right here at number seven. Northwestern is done with finals, thanks to the quarter system, and thus plays twice this week – both at home and both against inferior competition.
8. Michigan (7-2) – This team is starting to figure out its identity. Against Utah, the Wolverines did a great job of getting open looks on the way to scoring 75 points in 68 possessions. Darius Morris (16.8 PPG in his last five outings) continues to look like the real deal. This is a more dangerous team than any Big Ten opponent wants to admit.
9. Indiana (7-2) – The Hoosiers played Kentucky tough for a while, but they couldn’t do enough to make it close down the stretch in an 81-62 loss. Now Tom Crean’s powder puff scheduling comes back with a games against SIU-Edwardsville and South Carolina State at Assembly Hall.
10. Penn State (7-3) – Until the Nitanny Lions fix their defense, they’re going to be ranked pretty low. Talor Battle took 20 shots in a 79-69 loss to Virginia Tech, and made nine, but the odder thing was that he didn’t have an assist or a turnover in the game.
11. Iowa (5-5) – The Hawkeyes split against in-state rivals Northern Iowa and Iowa State. This team isn’t going to be as bad as everyone thought and might even get a few wins in conference play, which might make it even more difficult for the conference to sneak seven teams into the NCAA Tournament.

A Look Ahead (all times EST)

• 12/13 – Wisconsin vs. Green Bay – Big Ten Network, 8 p.m.
• 12/15 – Minnesota vs. Akron – Big Ten Network, 8:30 p.m.
• 12/18 – Ohio State vs. South Carolina – CBS, 2 p.m.
• 12/18 – Illinois vs. UIC – Big Ten Network, 2 p.m.
• 12/18 – Iowa at Drake – 8 p.m.

Fun with Efficiency Margin and KenPom: The Big Ten is ranked first in Ken Pomeroy and first in Jeff Sagarin’s ratings. The rating systems get to their conclusions in very different ways, though, as neither really agrees about how the bottom of the conference stacks up.

The Lede. What a ho-hum evening of basketball.  There were 19 games on the slate, but only a couple of them were even mildly interesting.  Get used to it.  There is a smattering of games throughout the week, but things don’t really heat up again until Saturday when most schools are finished with exams and heading into the holiday break.

Your Watercooler Moment.  The SEC West should consider seceding from the rest of the conference and joining the Southland.  After yet another embarrassing home loss to a low-major team tonight when LSU lost in overtime to Coastal Carolina, 78-69, the SEC’s redheaded stepchild of a division seemingly cannot get any worse.  Consider that in the first six weeks of this season, the six division members have lost to the following laundry list of national powers: Campbell, Jacksonville, ETSU, UNC-Asheville, Nicholls State, Samford, St. Peter’s and Florida Atlantic.  They have a combined eighteen losses already, which is more than the top twelve teams in the Big East and makes you wonder if Cam Newton has mesmerized everyone from Birmingham to Baton Rouge down there.  According to Pomeroy, the top team (Ole Miss) is the 60th best team in America, and the bottom (Auburn) is 210th, which puts this division roughly on par with the Missouri Valley Conference.  Yet if we put together a hypothetical SEC West/MVC Challenge, we’re pretty confident in asserting that the one-bid Valley would roast this sad-sack collection of southern teams.  Well, the good news is that four of the SEC West division teams rank in the bottom 75 schedules in the country so far, proving that even when you try to cook the books by loading up on easy wins in the non-conference season, the basketball gods may have something else in mind.

Maybe Football-Only is the Way to Go...

Five Games in Five Days.  If it feels like Mississippi State has been playing an awful lot lately, it’s because they have been.  Tonight they beat Nicholls State 67-58 behind Ravern Johnson’s 23/4, but you’ll forgive the Bulldogs if they’re running out of steam.  You see, on Saturday they played and lost to ETSU 63-62; yesterday the Bulldogs defeated NC A&T 74-58; and tomorrow, they’ll play Alabama State in Starkville.  Want more?  Well, on Wednesday, MSU will play its fifth game in five days, this time an exhibition against Belhaven College.  Honestly, we’ve never heard of anything quite like this where a school purposefully scheduled this sort of gauntlet, but there is a rhyme to the reason behind it.  Dee Bost’s nine-game suspension handed down by the NCAA didn’t take place until after the end of the fall semester, which was officially on Saturday.  So the school put together this schedule (along with upcoming games against Virginia Tech, St. Mary’s and three games at the Diamond Head Classic) so that Bost would be able to play in their SEC opener against Alabama on January 8.  We’re not sure if this is pure insanity or utter brilliance, but it’s certainly unique.

Tonight’s Quick Hits...

• SDSU Minus Kawhi Leonard & Chase Tapley.  Down two starters due to illness, the rest of the Aztecs gutted through one of those games that ends in a big-time upset if you allow it to.  Sure, it was exceptionally ugly — a 16-15 halftime score is all you really need to prove that — but Malcolm Thomas went for 18/15 and the SDSU defense held Cal Poly to only 29% from the field in order to secure the win and move to 11-0 on the season.
• Northwestern Still Unbeaten.  They’ve been very quietly going about their business so far this season, but Northwestern’s win over LIU, 81-65, moved the Wildcats to 6-0, its best start in seventeen years.  With three more cupcakes between now and their Big Ten opener against Purdue on New Year’s Eve, the Wildcats are in good position to start 9-0.  This record will not help the RPI all that much because of the weak schedule, but more importantly, it may help the confidence of a team (and fanbase) who is still looking for its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance.
• Well, It Is Called the Badger State.  With Wisconsin’s well-balanced win tonight over Green Bay, Bo Ryan’s team took the crown as the top team in the Badger State for the 2010-11 season.  In consecutive games over the last six days, Wisconsin beat Milwaukee, Marquette and GB, the first time since the 2006-07 season that the Badgers have turned the in-state hat trick.

…and Misses.

• Literally, 0-18. Not many teams will be without two of its best players and shoot 0-18 from three and still win, but San Diego State is one of those teams.  Guard DJ Gay brought in a 48% stroke from distance this season, and left with a 42% one after an 0-7 outing.  Just one of those nights, but SDSU was lucky to get this win.

Tweet of the Night.  With the news that Rick Pitino will take over the coaching reins for the Puerto Rican national team, the jokes kept coming.  Here’s the best:

***** – quit your job and divorce your wife if that’s what it takes to watch this game live
**** – best watched live, but if you must, tivo and watch it tonight as soon as you get home
*** – set your tivo but make sure you watch it later
** – set your tivo but we’ll forgive you if it stays in the queue until 2013
* – don’t waste bandwidth (yours or the tivo’s) of any kind on this game

Brian Otskey is an RTC contributor.

Tonight begins a week of almost nothing of significance in the college basketball world. Many schools have finals this week resulting in the annual light schedule for this week.  All rankings from RTC and all times eastern.

Florida Atlantic @ Siena – 7:30 pm on Time Warner Cable Sports (*)

Siena enters the game at 2-6 coming off three straight losses. The Saints were expected to contend at the top of the MAAC but they’ve looked ordinary so far. It would be foolish to write them off however as they have quality talent for a mid-major league, talent that’s experienced for the most part. Surprisingly, Siena is 0-4 at home under the direction of first year head coach Mitch Buonaguro. He does have two star players though as Ryan Rossiter and Clarence Jackson are back for their senior seasons in upstate New York. Rossiter has been outstanding, averaging 20/13. Those 13 rebounds are good enough for second in the country behind Kenneth Faried of Morehead State. A key matchup in this game will be Rossiter against FAU’s Kore White who had 18/8 in a win at Mississippi State and was 5-8 from the floor in a victory over South Florida. At 6’8/245, White possesses the height and strength to bang with the 6’9/235 Rossiter. The Owls are 5-4 against D1 competition and have won three straight, including the wins against MSU and USF. They’re led by former St. John’s head coach Mike Jarvis who is trying to work his way back up the coaching ladder. Florida Atlantic takes good care of the ball, ranked eighth in offensive turnover percentage. They should win the turnover battle against a Siena team that averages 16 turnovers a game. Siena may be shorthanded as Owen Wignot missed their last game against Fairfield with a head injury. Wignot has been a valuable weapon, hitting 13 of his 21 three point attempts this season. Jarvis has a shooter of his own in leading scorer Gregg Gantt, averaging 15 PPG and 40% from three. The senior duo of Rossiter and Jackson should do most of the scoring for Siena and Rossiter should especially look to take advantage inside. FAU gives up 51% shooting from inside the arc on average but White should be able to contain him somewhat, at least you’d think so. This should be a pretty good game between two decent mid-major teams, despite Siena’s record.

Green Bay @ Wisconsin – 8 pm on Big Ten Network (*)

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