Big Ten hoops are back and Illinois does not miss Terrence Shannon Jr. yet

I have loved following Big Ten Basketball ever since I was a freshman at Penn State and I realized that while my Nittany Lions were incompetent, there were some other fun teams in the conference. In later years, Penn State would be one of those fun teams, and that was very cool for a bit. In 2024, it looks like that will not be the case, but there is still plenty of excitement in the Big Ten. I guess I’ll try to turn it into content.

There have been five games played since conference play started back up on January 2. Here’s what happened.

Purdue 67, Maryland 53

The Terps tried to fool us with a five-game winning streak in December which included an overtime victory over my Nittany Lions that we practically gave away with our pathetic lack of rebounding as well as an actual quality road win over UCLA. However, it turns out that the Terps still can’t shoot and they still stink. Maybe that is a little harsh since Maryland was playing the best team in the country, but I expected a little more fight from Kevin Willard’s team. Instead, Purdue jumped out to a 16-4 lead and stayed on top throughout the game, while Maryland got very little from anyone not named Jahmir Young. The super senior scored a ridiculous 26 of Maryland’s 53 points, and he shot 12-for-23 while the rest of the team was just 9-for-40. No wonder Young had zero assists on the night. He had almost no help, including a goose egg from Julian Reese, who averages 13.3 points per game! And Purdue is a team you need help against.

The Boilers were not even that good on offense, although they did shoot 9-for-20 from beyond the arc. Zach Edey had his typical game with 23 points and 12 rebounds on 8-for-13 shooting, while Braden Smith pitched in with 14 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists. It was an easy win for Purdue, who can now focus on the Friday night showdown with Illinois coming up.

Wisconsin 83, Iowa 72

We should have known that Wisconsin would cover the five-point spread when the team held a moment of silence for Herb Kohl before the game. He was the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks and a U.S. senator, but more importantly in this case, he was the man who the Kohl Center was named after. It was only fitting that Wisconsin’s home-court advantage would be on full display the week after Kohl passed away. The game was tied 32-32 at halftime, but the Badgers pulled away in the final 20 minutes thanks to the 26 free throws they attempted in the second half. Iowa got called for a ton of fouls, and that resulted in its best player Ben Krikke being limited to 20 minutes while Wisconsin’s Tyler Wahl scored 11 of his team-high 19 points from the charity stripe.

Tony Perkins (25 points) and freshman sensation Owen Freeman (14 points, 13 rebounds, 3 blocks) stood out for Iowa, but it was not enough to keep up with Wisconsin’s second half surge. The Badgers are now 2-0 in Big Ten play, while the Hawkeyes fell to 0-3 and they are in desperate need of a win at home against Rutgers on Saturday.

Illinois 96, Northwestern 66

Illinois has now played two games since Terrence Shannon Jr. was charged with rape in Kansas and suspended by the university. In those two games, the Illini have scored a total of 200 points. The first game was against Fairleigh Dickinson, but this one against a Northwestern team that has already beaten Purdue is impressive. We knew that someone would have to step up with Shannon Jr. out indefinitely, and Marcus Domask showed that his superstar performance against Florida Atlantic last month was not a fluke. He scored 32 points on 11-for-15 shooting with six assists. Unlike Shannon Jr., Domask is not someone who will blow you away with his athleticism, but he’s a great technician who can score from anywhere on the floor. Plus, he’s got experience out the wazoo since he was a double-figure scorer in all four of his years at Southern Illinois.

Domask wasn’t the only transfer to step up against Northwestern, though. Justin Harmon scored 20 off the bench and went 4-for-5 from beyond the arc despite averaging just 6.4 points per game this season. Harmon has come along slowly for Illinois, but he was a major scorer for Utah Valley and he clearly knows how to put the ball in the hoop if given room to operate. For Northwestern, this was a big setback defensively. Chris Collins’ team allowed just 46 points each in back-to-back wins over DePaul and Arizona State in December, but Illinois is a different animal. I like what Collins said after the game: “We can’t take this game and flush it, forget about it. We have to understand why we couldn’t guard them and fix the problems.”

It’s easy as a fan to say you want to burn the game tape and forget about it, but the coach needs to figure out what went wrong and fix it if Northwestern is going to return to the NCAA Tournament. The Cats’ win over Purdue will help that cause, but they also have a shocking loss to Chicago State as a stain on their resume, so there is work to be done.

Ohio State 76, Rutgers 72

We had to wait until Wednesday to get our first highly competitive Big Ten game of the new year. Rutgers fell behind by 13 at halftime thanks to Jamison Battle’s hot shooting. He hit five three-point shots in the first half and scored 17 of his 22 points before the break. However, the Scarlet Knights fought back in the second half and trailed by just a point with 3:20 to play. If not for a rare bucket by Evan Mahaffey and a huge three-point shot by Roddy Gayle Jr., Rutgers might have pulled off the sorely-needed upset. It would have been the second straight Big Ten collapse for the Buckeyes, as they lost to my Nittany Lions back on December 9 despite leading by 18 in the second half. Instead, Ohio State is looking like a good bet to redeem itself after a 5-15 conference slate in 2023. A lot of that is thanks to Bruce Thornton, who is one of the most underrated guards in the Big Ten. He scored 24 points against Rutgers with 7 assists.

The Knights, meanwhile, got some solid guard play from Derek Simpson (23 points, 8 rebounds) and Noah Fernandes (17 points), but offense continues to be a struggle for them. Rutgers shot just 6-for-24 from three-point range and had 7 assists on 27 made baskets. There is no pure point guard on the roster, and that is going to make scoring an uphill battle.

Nebraska 86, Indiana 70

In the biggest surprise of the early Big Ten slate, Nebraska not only upset Indiana, but it boat raced the Hoosiers and led comfortably throughout the second half. I expected the Indiana offense to get a boost from the return of Xavier Johnson to the backcourt, but he might have come back too soon from his foot injury. Johnson played only 14 minutes and finished with zero points, 4 turnovers, and 3 assists. Big man Kel’el Ware was a beast for Indiana with 20 points on 9-for-12 shooting to go with 10 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 2 steals, but it was not enough to keep up with Nebraska’s Japanese shooting star Keisei Tominaga. Tominaga Time was in full effect with a game-high 28 points on 4-for-10 three-point shooting. Twice in the second half Indiana appeared on the verge of narrowing the deficit to single digits only for Tominaga to nail a triple right in its face. The Hoosiers were also demoralized by 19 turnovers.

I didn’t take Nebraska very seriously when it was plowing through tomato cans in November, and I took it even less seriously when it followed up that 7-0 start with losses to Creighton and Minnesota. However, the Cornhuskers have since defeated Michigan State, Kansas State, and Indiana to put themselves on pace for the NCAA Tournament. Their new frontcourt duo of Rienk Mast and Josiah Allick give them the grit to balance out the scoring prowess of Tominaga and Brice Williams. Fred Hoiberg just might have stumbled onto something with his latest transfer portal crop.

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