Purdue and Nebraska pull off dramatic wins at home and Penn State wins ugly

It does not get any more exciting than this in the Big Ten! On Wednesday night and again on Thursday night, we watched epic overtime battles play out between teams at the top of the conference and teams that are battling to earn NCAA Tournament bids. On Wednesday, Purdue narrowly avoided being swept by Northwestern thanks to some overtime heroics by the unstoppable Zach Edey. On Thursday, Nebraska engineered a massive comeback to defeat Wisconsin in overtime for the second season in a row. Winning in Lincoln these days is a seemingly impossible task for road teams.

Let’s start with the game in West Lafayette, though. Boo Buie was on a massive heater and it did not look like he was going to let Northwestern leave Mackey Arena without a win. He went 7-for-11 from beyond the arc and is playing like one of the top guards in the country. Buie also handed out eight assists to go with his 25 points and five rebounds. However, Buie was not the only one scorching the nets, as Lance Jones went 5-for-7 from distance and was responsible for answering Buie’s bombs with three huge triples in the final seven minutes. As well as Buie played, he fell one shot short of winning the game for Northwestern, as his buzzer-beating runner fell short, resulting in overtime.

And overtime is where Edey took over. College basketball’s top player scored the first 10 Purdue points of the extra period with Matthew Nicholson and Luke Hunger having already fouled out for Northwestern. The seldomly used forward Blake Preston did not have much of a chance on defense. With 30 or more points in four of his last six games, Edey is overwhelming for most opponents. Between his post game, the pick-and-roll with Braden Smith, and his ridiculous offensive rebound ability, there is just too much of Edey to deal with.

Speaking of Smith, he made a couple of huge plays down the stretch of overtime to keep the Wildcats at bay. First, Smith made a driving layup when Edey got tired of dominating. Then, with Purdue clinging to a three-point lead in the final minute, Smith drove under the basket and drew the entire Northwestern defense to him before kicking the ball out to Fletcher Loyer, who crushed a wide-open three and put the Boilers up 96-90. They hung on to win 105-96 and added to their number one overall resume. Northwestern is still looking like a solid bet for the NCAA Tournament, but a second victory over Purdue could have made the Wildcats close to a lock.

Nebraska is also in good shape for an NCAA Tournament bid, and it just improved its chances considerably by overcoming a 16-point halftime deficit to “upset” Wisconsin in overtime. That’s right, it was technically not an upset since the betting line closed at Nebraska minus half a point. Don’t let those pesky Associated Press rankings fool you, this game was a toss up from the tip-off! Of course, it felt more like an upset when the Huskers fell behind by 19 points in the first half with the Phenomenal AJ Storr scoring at will and Chucky Hepburn scoring on back-to-back breakaway layups. The vibes in Pinnacle Bank Arena didn’t take long to flip in the second half. C.J. Wilcher caught fire, the Badgers committed some uncharacteristic turnovers, and before you knew it, Wilcher was hitting a baseline jumper to tie the score at 52-52 with 8:44 still left on the clock.

Wisconsin wouldn’t wilt so easily, though. Max Klesmit has made a habit of coming up big in the biggest moments, and he came out of nowhere to hit two three-point shots in a row and score 11 points over the course of four minutes. That burst temporarily reestablished Badger supremacy with a seven-point advantage, but meanwhile Rienk Mast was getting going for Nebraska. The big man from Finland revisited the superstar form that he showed against Ohio State and knocked down a pair of clutch three-point shots to ensure that Wisconsin would not escape Lincoln with victory. The second clutch three was a step-back beauty to tie the score at 65-65 with one minute to play. After Storr missed a three-point shot, Brice Williams gave Nebraska the lead with two free throws following an offensive rebound, but Storr sent us to overtime with a driving layup over Mast.

Mast continued to shine in overtime with a pair of hook shots and a slick backdoor pass to set up a three-point play by Juwan Gary, who had missed the last three games due to an injury suffered at Rutgers. Nebraska’s solid play in the extra period gave security plenty of time to prepare for the court storming. As a court-storming gatekeeper, I’m not happy about it happening with the Huskers favored to win, but I’ll allow it because of the big comeback and because it’s a huge victory for the team’s NCAA Tournament chances. Wisconsin has now blown huge leads in Lincoln for two years in a row. Last February, the Badgers lost at Nebraska in overtime despite leading by 17 early in the second half.

Penn State wins a road game

The Huskers may be feeling themselves right now, but here’s something they haven’t done: win a Big Ten game on the road. I can now say that Penn State has accomplished that with a 61-46 win over Rutgers. The game was incredibly ugly and a hilarious contrast to the barnburner between Northwestern and Purdue that was played right before. Ugly is in the eye of the beholder, though, and I say there is no such thing as an ugly road win in this conference! I don’t care if Rutgers turned the ball over 20 times and shot 1-for-17 from beyond the arc. Penn State tried to match the Scarlet Knights with 16 turnovers and 5-for-23 three-point shooting. In the end, Rutgers was just a little more feeble.

Before the game I said that Penn State didn’t need to force so many turnovers since Rutgers is so bad at shooting. As long as the Lions rebounded the ball, they would be okay. Well, they impressed me by forcing turnovers AND rebounding the ball. They held Clifford Omoruyi to eight points and one offensive rebound, and he’s someone I thought would kill us. Instead, the best players on the floor were Penn State’s guard duo of Ace Baldwin Jr. and D’Marco Dunn. Baldwin did his usual thing with 15 points, seven assists, and five steals, while Dunn did a great job filling in for the injured Kanye Clary with 14 points on 6-for-10 shooting with seven rebounds. Also, shout out to Qudus Wahab who grinded away for nine points and 11 rebounds to best Omoruyi in both categories. Penn State Basketball is not pretty, but the team showed a lot of grit in defeating a team that is usually the most gritty one on the floor.

Chalk wins in trio of Tuesday games

I thought I was asking for trouble when I bet all three favorites to cover on Tuesday’s Big Ten slate. It turned out I was just asking for money since Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan State all took care of business. Sometimes chalk is the answer. Let’s start with Indiana’s big win over Iowa that it needed to stay alive in the bubble chase. The Hoosiers overcame an early injury to Mailk Reneau and took a 17-point lead in the first half, only to see it evaporate by the time we were midway through the second half. Payton Sandfort had been slumping in January, but he turned in his second straight 26-point outing while going 5-for-12 from beyond the arc to fuel Iowa’s comeback. Tony Perkins also helped a ton with his fourth straight 20-point game. He scored 22 on 9-for-18 shooting and has been Iowa’s MVP as of late.

With Reneau out, Indiana needed Kel’el Ware to have a big game to hang on, and he was enormous both literally and figuratively. Ware had missed the last two games due to injury, and he was limping around in this one, but he still scored 23 points with 10 rebounds and three blocks while shooting 8-for-10 from the field. Ware doesn’t get the attention of Edey since Edey is on a better team in the same state, but Ware has a chance to make a massive impact on the Hoosiers and their NCAA Tournament hopes. He’s a force to be reckoned with on both sides of the ball, as Iowa big men Owen Freeman and Ben Krikke combined for just six points.

Even with Ware’s dominant play, Indiana might not pull out the win if not for benchwarmer and townie Anthony Leal coming off the pine and knocking down three shots from beyond the arc. Leal is a Bloomington native and former Mr. Indiana Basketball, so this was a storybook performance from him. Before this 13-point outburst, Leal played very sparingly and had a career high of nine points that he set as a freshman. In addition to the Reneau injury, Xavier Johnson hurt himself attempting a dunk in the final minutes, so there should be more minutes for Leal in the near future.

In the other two Tuesday games, Illinois won comfortably in Columbus and Michigan State used a strong second half to blow out Michigan in East Lansing. There is no such thing as an easy road win in the Big Ten, but Ohio State stinks right now, so taking the Illini and laying just two and a half was an easy decision. Brad Underwood’s team made it pay off by holding onto a multiple-possession lead for the entire second half. Terrence Shannon Jr. looks like he is rounding into form with 23 points and 3-for-7 three-point shooting. Roddy Gayle Jr. and Jamison Battle shot the ball well enough to keep Illinois from pulling away, but the Illini held Bruce Thornton to just seven points on 3-for-11 shooting.

During this stretch where the Buckeyes have lost seven of eight games, their biggest weaknesses have been defending the three-point line and forcing turnovers. In almost every game they are allowing opponents to shoot 40 percent or more from beyond the arc while getting fewer than 10 takeaways. That puts a lot of pressure on the offense, and it hasn’t been good enough to keep pace. Sure enough, Illinois shot 41 percent from three-point range and only turned the ball over six times in the win over Ohio State.

I’ll give the Buckeyes a little credit. On Friday night against Iowa, I bet against them again and they held the Hawkeyes to 3-for-10 shooting from distance and forced nine turnovers. That was good enough for Ohio State to cover the 5.5-point spread, but it still allowed Iowa to shoot 55-percent from the field, and the result was a 79-77 Iowa win. The end of this game was painful to watch with Fran McCaffery taking fouling up three to the extreme by doing so starting with 13 seconds left and executing the strategy three times in a row. I can’t blame McCaffery too much since the plan worked out, but that game was one of the biggest advocates for the Elam Ending I’ve ever seen.

Weekend hoops

None of the big ranked vs. ranked games on Saturday are between Big Ten teams, but Maryland vs. Michigan State should be interesting. The Terps have improved, but they don’t have an NCAA Tournament resume yet. A win in East Lansing would go a long way towards getting into the field. The Spartans have been dominant at home in the new year and they just beat Maryland on the road two weeks ago. I like Michigan State minus the six and a half.

There is no line for Purdue vs. Wisconsin yet, but the Sunday clash of Big Ten titans will be must-see television. Zach Edey has looked unstoppable lately, but Purdue has been vulnerable on the road. Wisconsin has shown that with AJ Storr and Max Klesmit in the backcourt, it doesn’t need to rely on its big men for scoring. That’s important when going up against Edey. I’m leaning Wisconsin, especially if I don’t have to lay a point.

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