Michigan State gets a big win and Bruce Thornton rescues Ohio State in double overtime

I thought Michigan State had a chance to be a home underdog against Illinois on Saturday afternoon. The Illini might be ranked 10th in the AP Poll, but Michigan State is not far behind in terms of talent and it was playing at home. I was ready to jump all over the Spartans if the line was close to zero. It’s hard to fool the books, though. Michigan State was favored by three and a half when I checked in on Saturday morning. I said “screw it” and took Sparty anyway. Tom Izzo’s team was rounding into form and needed this win for its NCAA Tournament resume.

Laying the points didn’t look like a great decision for much of the afternoon, especially when Marcus Domask knocked down a three-point shot to put Illinois ahead 72-64 with less than eight minutes to play. The Spartans owned the rest of the game, though. A.J. Hoggard stepped up with a three of his own in transition and then scored three the old fashioned way with a great head fake on Coleman Hawkins in the paint. The “and one” free throw tied the score at 72-72, but Michigan State wasn’t done. Malik Hall hit a big driving layup plus the foul to put Sparty ahead, and Tyson Walker stole the ball and put in a breakaway layup to help his team pull away and win 88-80. Great teams cover.

It was a rare performance by Michigan State that saw the Big Three of Walker, Hoggard, and Hall all play like a Big Three at the same time. Hoggard and Hall combined for 45 points with Hall going 7-for-9 from the field and Hoggard adding five assists. That meant that Walker didn’t have to break his back carrying the offense. The effort by Sparty was enough to overcome a 28-point, 7-rebound effort from Terrence Shannon Jr. Illinois might have been a little too perimeter-oriented in this one with half of its field goal attempts coming from three-point range. While the Illini shot 11-for-30 from beyond the arc, Michigan State got work done in the paint while going 5-for-8 from downtown. Efficiency!

The only other exciting game on Saturday came from a surprising place: Columbus, Ohio! Maryland had a chance to pick up an impressive road win against an Ohio State squad that is every bubble team’s dream. That’s because the Buckeyes are a lousy team that for some reason has a strong NET rating. Beating them will look good to the nerds on the NCAA Tournament selection committee even though it’s not that hard to do so. Even my Nittany Lions beat Ohio State (although we also lost to them on the road). Sounds like a great opportunity for the Terps, right! That is correct, but Maryland blew it anyway even though Ohio State only led for five minutes during the game that ended up going into double overtime.

It was a duel between shoot-first point guards as Jahmir Young and Bruce Thornton posted nearly identical stat lines. Young scored 26 points points with seven rebounds and four assists while Thornton had 24 points, seven rebounds, and four assists while shooting a better percentage. It was Thornton who was the most clutch performer, as well. He tied the game at 61-61 on a three-point shot with one minute left in regulation and also tied the score at 71-71 with a layup near the end of the first overtime. On both occasions, Maryland had a chance following Thornton’s equalizer to take the lead with free throws, but both times the Terps failed miserably. Donta Scott, who otherwise had a solid game with 19 points on 5-for-9 shooting, missed a pair at the end of the second half and Julian Reese clanked both of his at the end of the first overtime.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Maryland had a chance to send the game to triple overtime after Thornton came up big again and gave the Buckeyes a 77-75 lead, but Scott’s layup attempt was blocked by Zed Key. That led to a breakaway for Ohio State and a thunderous dunk by Roddy Gayle Jr. that put the game away. Brutal, brutal loss for the Terrapins.

Blowouts galore

The rest of the Saturday slate was filled with three blowouts, but at least one of them was somewhat surprising. I thought Wisconsin had a decent chance to end its three-game losing streak at Rutgers, but the beatings will continue for the Badgers as they fell 78-56 thanks to a surprisingly hot shooting day from the Scarlet Knights. They went 10-for-17 from beyond the arc with half the makes coming from Noah Fernandes, who has been very inconsistent this season. On Saturday, he was as consistent as you can possibly be, going 6-for-6 from the field for 17 points off the bench. Wisconsin fell behind 9-0 right from the jump and appeared rattled by the arena formerly known as the RAC. The Badgers had 11 of their 12 turnovers come in the first half and fell behind 37-28 at the break.

The second half didn’t go any better for Wisconsin thanks to Clifford Omoruyi blocking eight shots and grabbing 13 rebounds. That defense helped limit Steven Crowl and Tyler Wahl to seven points each, and we just blogged last week about how Wisconsin needs to get more out of Wahl to snap this skid. While the Badgers are scuffling, the Knights are surging with three straight wins since my Lions crushed them by 15 points. A big reason why is the return of Jeremiah Williams, who missed all of last season with an Achilles injury at Iowa State and 20 games of this season due to a gambling suspension. Rutgers is still glad they called that guy, because he has scored in double figures in all three of his appearances, which have coincided with the winning streak. Against Wisconsin, Williams led Rutgers with 18 points and seven assists.

The other two blowouts weren’t of the upset variety. Purdue and Nebraska both destroyed their feeble opponents by the score of 79-59, and both games weren’t really that close. Purdue beat Indiana so badly that Zach Edey fired off a three-point shot in the second half, and it went in off the backboard for his first career three-point field goal. The Hoosiers got a boost before the game when Kel’el Ware was healthy enough to play, and his dunk made the score 20-18 Purdue midway through the first half, but the Boilers went to break on a 15-1 run and exploded out of halftime with 10 more consecutive points to end the competitive portion of the contest. It was the first time since 1993-94 that Purdue has defeated Indiana twice in a season by 20 or more points. As ugly that is for Indiana, it can reenter the NCAA Tournament discussion if it wins its next two games against Northwestern and Nebraska. Both games are at Assembly Hall, and both opponents have struggled mightily on the road this season.

I supposed that brings us to Nebraska’s win over Michigan. The Huskers ended any sort of confidence boost the Wolverines might have gotten from their upset of Wisconsin and continued home dominance in Pinnacle Bank Arena. Nebraska went up by double digits in the first seven minutes and led by 30 within 15 minutes. It was never close. Keisei Tominaga led everyone with 19 points and shot 8-for-14 from the field while Michigan as a team shot 32 percent. Olivier Nkamhoua had just three points on 1-for-10 shooting.

Not so fun Sunday

Sunday proved me right when it came to not entertaining any NCAA Tournament talk for Penn State. We lost 68-63 at Northwestern despite holding the Wildcats to 32 percent shooting. Remember, that’s what Michigan shot when it lost to Nebraska by a million. The rebounding monster reared its ugly head again for the Nittany Lions. Northwestern grabbed 13 of its missed compared to just three offensive boards for Penn State. Ty Berry was out of action for the Wildcats, but Kanye Clary is still clearly bothered by whatever injury he has because he went 0-for-3 with 0 points in just 14 minutes off the bench. Ace Baldwin Jr. continued to carry the load at point guard, but his shooting cooled off. He went 4-for-13 from the field and did not make a three until it was too late for the Lions to come back.

The silver lining for Penn State was Nick Kern Jr.’s great performance. He has shown the ability to get to the rim all season, but he really flashed it on Sunday with 18 points on 7-for-9 shooting to go with seven rebounds and three assists. With four minutes to play, Baldwin stole the ball and set up Kern with a breakaway layup to bring Penn State to within a point at 54-53, but Northwestern got its act together following a timeout. First, Ryan Langborg got wide open for a three-point shot that turned a one-score game into a two-score game. Then, Baldwin through the ball away. The Wildcats got it back and Matthew Nicholson got a free path for a dunk when Qudus Wahab was too aggressive defending what he thought was a hand-off to Boo Buie.

Even the best teams have trouble in Welsh-Ryan Arena this season, but it is still a stinging loss for Penn State because the game was close late and you have to take advantage of a rare poor shooting game from Buie and company.

At least Penn State’s loss was not as bad as Minnesota’s loss at Iowa later in the afternoon. The Gophers went up 62-42 on a Mike Mitchell Jr. three-point shot with 16 minutes left, but then Dawson Garcia left the game due to injury and everything fell apart for the road team. Garcia was having a ridiculous game with 18 points on 7-for-8 shooting, seven rebounds, three assists, and two blocks. That is beyond dominant in just 25 minutes of game, but a 20-point lead is a 20-point lead and Minnesota still blew it. Payton Sandfort and Patrick McCaffery were the two biggest factors in Iowa’s wild comeback with Sandfort giving the Hawkeyes a 78-77 lead on a driving layup with four and a half minutes left. He followed that up with a three-point shot to cap a 16-0 Iowa run and the Gophers did not recover. Iowa won 90-85 with Minnesota only covering the 7.5-point spread because Mitchell hit a “meaningless” three-point shot in the final seconds. I don’t even know if that’s a bad beat for Iowa backers or a narrowly-avoided bad beat for Minnesota backers. Going from being up 20 in the second half to not covering a three-possession spread would be upsetting to say the least.

The week of ball

The Big Ten is back in action on Tuesday night with Michigan visiting Illinois and Ohio State heading to Wisconsin. The Illini are expected to hammer Michigan while the Badgers are still looking to break that losing streak. Ohio State is as good a team as there is for that to happen, but Wisconsin has had trouble with attacking guards like Kanye Clary and Dug McDaniel, and Bruce Thornton is a similar type of player. On the other hand, three of the four Wisconsin losses in this streak have come on the road, with only Purdue defeating the Badgers in Madison. Wisconsin has to take care of business tonight.

Wednesday features Michigan State at Penn State and Iowa at Maryland. The Lions have been tough at home, but it feels like Sparty is gearing up for March, so I think Tom Izzo’s team wins a close one. Iowa and Maryland are two teams that are running out of chances to make a run at the NCAA Tournament, and whoever loses this one will be heartbroken. I will go with Maryland’s defense and home court over Iowa’s offense.

On Thursday Northwestern looks to prove itself on the road against Rutgers and if the Knights win, we might have to pay some serious attention to them. On the other hand, their non-conference resume is almost as weak as Penn State’s, so I will probably have to pump the brakes on them as well. Keep watching Jeremiah Williams because he is a major factor in Rutgers’ turnaround. In the other Thursday game, Minnesota should get destroyed by Purdue, especially if Dawson Garcia is ruled out. If it gets out of hand, I will look for Edey to try another three and prop up his NBA Draft stock.

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