Purdue upset by Ohio State and Penn State loses Kanye Clary

I almost feel bad for Purdue fans even though they have a tremendous basketball team that will probably make the Final Four. No matter what the Boilers do in the regular season, there is nothing they can do to change their reputation as a team that collapses in the big moment. The only way to do that is to win in the NCAA Tournament. Whenever Purdue slips up this season, the doubters and haters (Indiana fans) come out of the woodwork to say “this is what will happen in March.”

I have said since November when Purdue won the Maui Invitational that this team reminds me of the 2019 Virginia team that bounced back and won the national championship after losing to a 16 seed the year before. Maybe Purdue will fulfill that prophecy, or maybe it will hilariously disappoint its rabid fans once again. On Sunday in Columbus, Matt Painter’s team gave us a preview of March or a blip on the radar, depending on your perspective. Despite shooting 20-for-20 from the free throw line and dominating the offensive glass like they always do, the Boilers lost 73-69 to an Ohio State team that was playing its first game since head coach Chris Holtmann was fired.

It didn’t help that Purdue turned the ball over 14 times, most notably when Zed Key poked the ball away from Zach Edey with less than a minute to play and the Boilers needing two points to tie the score. Purdue ended up fouling Jamison Battle, who helped put the game away at the charity stripe.

Just moments before, Purdue rallied to overcome a seven-point deficit and tied the game 65-65 on Lance Jones’ clutch three-point jumper, but Battle answered with a 15-foot jumper to ensure that Ohio State would not fall behind. The Buckeyes were boosted by Battle’s 19 points on 6-for-8 shooting as well as 26 points from a bench effort led by Key and Dale Bonner. Purdue, meanwhile, got its usual great effort from Edey (22 points, 7-for-11 shooting, 13 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocks) but only four points from the bench. I still have no clue how Ethan Morton gets more than 10 minutes a game on team as talented as Purdue.

Ohio State interim head coach Jake Diebler made a great impression and he’ll have a case to keep the job full time with a few more wins down the stretch. I will feel very smart for talking about the potential of Ohio State’s young core if the team can upset Minnesota or Michigan State on the road.

Indiana blew a chance to join the bubble

Speaking of upsets, only one other Big Ten underdog won outright over the weekend. That was Northwestern defeating Indiana, but we can probably have a long argument over whether or not the Wildcats should have been considered the underdog in Bloomington. While they have been way more successful than Indiana this year and are projected to make the NCAA Tournament, Northwestern hasn’t impressed on the road. That’s why I saw this game as a great opportunity for Indiana to get a quality win and get into the bubble conversation. I should have known that the Hoosiers would waste it since they have shown so little heart and fight this season.

Indiana found a way to lose 76-72 while shooting 16 percent better than Northwestern (51 percent to 35 percent). It’s just another facepalm moment for Hoosiers fans who have suffered through a brutal campaign filled with disappointment after disappointment. Indiana lost the turnover battle 11-3 and the offensive rebounding battle 14-6 to the more disciplined and tougher Wildcats. Indiana shouldn’t be getting crushed on the glass like that in any game that Kel’el Ware plays 36 minutes in, but to Ware’s credit he collected 16 boards (four on offense) to go with his 22 points and four blocks. I guess no other Hoosiers wanted to rebound, so Nick Martinelli and Matthew Nicholson combined to create 10 second chances for Northwestern and they each had a double-double in this game.

The big star of the game for Northwestern, however, was Ryan Langborg. With Brooks Barnhizer and Boo Buie struggling for most of the game until Buie finally got going with eight straight points to put Indiana away, Langborg scored 26 points with six assists and zero turnovers while playing all 40 minutes. That’s the kind of effort the Wildcats need from the Princeton transfer down the stretch with Ty Berry missing the rest of the season due to injury.

Iowa makes its case for March Madness

While Indiana squandered its opportunity, the leading candidate for a seventh Big Ten team in the NCAA Tournament is now Iowa. The Hawkeyes picked up two huge wins over the last four days when they beat Wisconsin 88-86 in overtime on Saturday and followed that up with a big 78-71 road upset over Michigan State on Tuesday night. Just a week ago, Iowa had zero Quad 1 wins on its resume and now it has two. I’m still catching up with what a Quad 1 win is because I was just starting to figure out RPI when they got rid of that, but going from zero to two sounds like a big deal.

Even more impressive than Iowa’s recent results is that Fran McCaffery’s team got contributions from different players. In the home game against Wisconsin, it was all about Owen Freeman, Tony Perkins, and Josh Dix. Freeman was a force down low with 20 points scored on just six field goal attempts as well as 12 rebounds, six assists, and four blocks. It was the most complete game of the season for the likely Freshman of the Year in the Big Ten. Meanwhile, Dix was unstoppable from the mid-range with 17 points on 8-for-11 shooting while Perkins came up clutch down the stretch with 16 of his 18 points coming in the second half and overtime. He tied the score 78-78 with a driving left-handed layup at the end of regulation and then won it with one second left in overtime on another drive where he powered through a steal attempt by Chucky Hepburn.

The script was very different in East Lansing with Freeman only playing eight minutes due to foul trouble. Ben Krikke took over as the go-to guy down low and provided 18 points with 14 rebounds. Payton Sandfort only connected on two of his seven three-point attempts, but he did a great job getting to the basket and pacing Iowa’s transition offense with 22 points and six rebounds. During Iowa’s huge run at the end of the first half, Sandfort stole the ball and hit Patrick McCaffery for a breakaway dunk. The coach’s son would score 14 points off the bench and Iowa overcame a strong three-point shooting night by Michigan State with 51 percent overall shooting.

Iowa has a chance to pull off a third straight Quad 1 win when it visits Illinois on Saturday, and that promises to be another high-scoring affair played at a fast pace. A big game to watch this weekend!

Maryland is falling out of the at-large race

It looked like Maryland had the upper hand on Iowa to secure an NCAA Tournament bid when it came from behind to defeat the Hawkeyes last week, but since then the two programs’ fortunes have reversed. The Terps also had two chances at Quad 1 wins on Saturday and Tuesday, but they dropped both of them to Illinois and Wisconsin. Maryland’s hopes at an at-large bid are now dismal.

It’s not the Terps didn’t put up a fight. They were playing with heavy hearts against Illinois on Saturday following the death of legendary Maryland head coach Lefty Driesell, and while Kevin Willard’s bunch hung with the superior Illini throughout the second half, Illinois never surrendered the lead. Jahmir Young came awfully close, though, with around three minutes to play. Maryland was down by one and Coleman Hawkins tried to save his own rebound under the basket and blindly chuck the ball out to midcourt. Young was there to corral the wild pass, but his fast-break layup was thwarted by Marcus Domask’s defense. Justin Harmon picked the ball up and found Hawkins wide open on the other end of the court, where he dunked the ball and was fouled. Instead of Maryland taking a one-point lead, the Illini lead expanded to two possessions. That’s quite the swing in a game that was tight throughout, and the Terps didn’t get a better chance to pull even in the 85-80 defeat.

It was a tough loss for Maryland, not just because it needed the game, but because the Terps are usually in great shape when they get solid production from Young, Julian Reese, and Donta Scott in the same game. All three guys did their thing on Saturday, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Illinois’ deep offense led by the amazing Terrence Shannon Jr. who scored 27 points and went 14-for-16 at the free throw line.

Illinois as a team went 32-for-36 at the stripe, and Maryland ran into a similar problem when it traveled to Madison for Tuesday’s tilt with the Badgers. Wisconsin closed the first half with a 37-29 lead thanks to a three-point shot by Chucky Hepburn and led by two or more possessions for most of the second half. Once again, the Terps could not keep their opponent off the free throw line, and Wisconsin shot 28-for-31 from there with Max Klesmit, Tyler Wahl, and John Blackwell doing most of the damage. The foul shot barrage made it impossible for Maryland to make a solid dent in Wisconsin’s second half advantage, even with Young, Reese, and Scott combining for 50 points. Tyler Wahl and his 18 points on 6-for-9 shooting held keep the Terps at bay before Klesmit put them away with a three-point shot in the final minute. Badgers won 74-70, but I’m still not convinced they have pulled out of their February slump. I need to see them win their next two at Indiana and vs. Illinois at home before I can say they are ready for March.

The Penn State disaster

I’m trying to cover the entire Big Ten, but I’m also a huge Penn State fan, so I don’t even know if Kanye Clary being removed from the Nittany Lion program is news that resonates beyond me. He was just a sophomore and Penn State’s best player. He was a foundational piece that Mike Rhoades could have built a program around. Now he is gone and we don’t know why. Yes, you can always find a patch in the transfer portal, but Clary was shaping up to be the type of player that you don’t just find a patch for. The good news is that Ace Baldwin Jr. is doing a good job as the floor general, and he might come back as a graduate student for one more season. The bad news is that Baldwin has not shot the ball well during Penn State’s three-game losing streak and the most recent game at Nebraska was not close for the second half.

There’s not much to say about Nebraska from the 68-49 result. The Huskers took care of business at home like they always do and Keisei Tominaga hit a disgusting step-back three over Puff Johnson while leading Nebraska with 17 points. I guess it’s encouraging for Nebraska that it won handily while only shooting 4-for-21 from beyond the arc, but Penn State’s offense was so putrid that Zach Hicks led the team in scoring despite going 1-for-7 on his own three-point shots. I will be interested to see if Nebraska can finally win a conference road game tonight against the no-heart Hoosiers. Indiana is favored by one and a half as of this writing!

Penn State has Illinois at home and instead of the cavernous Bryce Jordan Center, the game will be played at Rec Hall, which will feel like an old-school basketball gym. The environment should give the Lions a better home-court advantage, but that probably still won’t be enough to make up for a big talent gap. The Illini are favored by seven and a half.

Best of the rest

Minnesota beat Rutgers 81-70 on Sunday, which ended a four-game winning streak for the Scarlet Knights. If Rutgers had come out on top, I might have to start considering them as a very dark horse to make a run on the bubble, but the Gophers helped me kick that can down the road with a fantastic offensive performance against one of the best defenses in the country. You just don’t see many teams shoot 51 percent against Rutgers, even in their own buildings. Minnesota turned the ball over 15 times, which helped Rutgers keep the game close in the first half, but the second half was all Gophers.

The Knights got 19 points each from Derek Simpson and Clifford Omoruyi, but Pharrel Payne had his best game of the season for Minnesota. Even with the Gophers shooting so well, Payne still found seven offensive rebounds and 11 total while scoring 21 points on 8-for-12 shooting with zero turnovers. If he can play like this more often, the frontcourt combo of Payne and Dawson Garcia will be a very tough one to deal with. Elijah Hawkins did a great job at point guard as well. He scored 16 points with six rebounds and seven assists. Minnesota as a team had 20 assists on 25 made baskets. Make Ben Johnson the Coach of the Year.

Finally, Michigan State handled Michigan 73-63 on Saturday night in Ann Arbor. The Spartans were dealing with a major upset scare, but the Wolverines failed to score for the final seven minutes while turning the ball over five times in a span of six possessions. That spurt of futility helped Michigan State close the game on a 10-0 and cover the spread in a game that looked like a disaster midway through the second half. With Sparty going on to lose at home against Iowa, we can now say this game said more about Michigan than Michigan State, and it said that Michigan is a tire fire.

0
0

0 Comments