Big Ten Basketball January 21 Recaps, Previews, and Open Thread

Last Night's Games

The Ohio State Buckeyes 82, Minnesota Golden Gophers 74 OT

BoilerUp89: If either team made their free throws this wouldn't have gotten to overtime. The benches combined to score 6 points.

Kind of...: Minnesota hit 80% from the line, they just poorly timed one of their misses. But that's not my main point.

I've done this riff before, but, at least years ago, you couldn't go more than 10 feet at an athletic competition without seeing some high school-looking try-hard wearing a shirt that said "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog," or "Hard work beats talent when talent don't work hard" (and yes, I'm pretty sure it was "don't"). It was like Successories for HS athletes. Anyway, being the asshole logician that I am, in my head I was constantly wondering, "but what about when talent does work hard?"

Bottom line: in a lot of ways, the Gophers deserved to win last night. But Ohio State has better players who made enough plays when they had to do so to come away with a less-than-inspiring win. Minnesota is probably closer to getting the most out of its roster. But Ohio State has better players.

Michigan Wolverines 86, Indiana Hoosiers 72

Kind of...: Michigan is done looking like '72 UCLA, evidently. Still, this was not a remotely close game. In honor of the Aussie Open, this was the equivalent of Sinner or Alcaraz breaking twice early in the first set and then coasting something like 6-2, 6-4, 6-4.

Hoosiers next head to Rutgers. I'm not guaranteeing a Rutgers win, but Indiana is really leaking oil.

Iowa Hawkeyes 68, Rutgers Scarlet Knights 62

Kind of...: Had a feeling this one could get a little messy for Iowa. Rutgers is making strides toward, well, competent would be too strong. How about "not awful." Rutgers was in this all night. But with Stirtz unable to buy a three (though making plenty of plays otherwise), Tate Sage (does he work at a head shop???) buried four from distance, a couple of which allowed Iowa to open up a multiple possession lead the last few minutes.

Folgueiras has been pretty bad on offense the last several games. Iowa is making "different hero every night" roulette work for now. But it's still the case that @Indiana is one of their two best wins. Their closing stretch is brutal so they really need to avoid any of the upcoming land mines: vs. USC, @Oregon, @Washington, vs. Northwestern, @Maryland.

Michigan State Spartans 68, Oregon Ducks 52

Kind of...: Can't fault Oregon's efforts, but the Ducks are just a MASH unit. A 20-loss season seems to be possible. Woof.

UCLA Bruins 69, Purdue 67

BoilerUp89: Donovan Dent was the better point guard in this one as he put on a masterclass with 23 points and 13 assists - plus three blocks! The story of the game was shooting. UCLA went 45% from three and Purdue shot just 26% from behind the arc. The 2 of 10 from the field from Fletcher Loyer combined with Oscar Cluff's worst game as a Boilermaker (just 6 points and only 4 rebounds against an incredibly undersized UCLA front court) doomed the Boilermakers.

Kind of...: Smith, despite DRIVING A CYBERTRUCK, has been a tremendous PG. I've made the comparison before, but he's basically Steve Nash. Don't talk about defense, just enjoy the combination of pass first instincts with the ability to score a bunch of points without disrupting the offense. But some nights it doesn't all come together. Off nights happen. Especially on the road. I've thrown out some observations before. The bottom line is the shots fell for UCLA last night, and they didn't for Purdue. (Well, both teams hit 60% of their 2's...).

MaximumSam: After the last two days, the Boilerbots are close to activating Skynet.

HoustonBoiler: Kind Of... and BoilerUp89 made a great points about shots falling and one difference was definitely 3-point shooting. I believe Purdue is shooting near 40% from 3 for the season so this (26%) was an off night. Those happen. However, I will also point to turnovers. Purdue had 8 for the game, which is not bad, though they turned the ball over twice in the final 1:09, when Purdue led by 3 points. Those two turnovers denied Purdue shots to pad their lead and resulted in 5 points for UCLA and the win. I will continue to harp about turnovers for the remainder of the season. In this game, it was not the total but the timing of the turnovers that really hurt Purdue.

A Boilerbot uprising through activation of Skynet seems like an appropriate response to the past two days.

Tonight's Games

#118 Maryland Terrapins (8-10, 1-6) at #5 Illinois Fighting Illini (15-3, 6-1)

7 ET, BTN

BoilerUp89 as thumpasaurus: Maryland will win. Illinois always loses to Maryland.

BoilerUp89 as himself: If you haven't heard, Boswell broke his hand during practice yesterday. Terrible news for the Illini. He is expected to be back before the end of the season, but definitely hurts their conference title hopes.

Kind of...: Not great for the Illini, but they have a ton of talent and are better equipped to handle this than almost anybody in the conference.

I realize that Maryland regularly beats Illinois. Things are always going a certain way. Until they aren't. Indiana won the national title in football. Pretty sure past performance isn't necessarily a predictor and all that. With or without Boswell, a home loss would be a really bad thing for Illinois's seeding hopes.

HoustonBoiler: Illinois is the better team, but we will have to see the impact of Boswell's injury. Definitely sucks for Illinois, but I believe they're still the better team without Boswell.

#55 Washington Huskies (10-8, 2-5) at #15 Nebraska Cornhuskers (18-0, 7-0)

9 ET, BTN

Kind of...: This game shouldn't be close. If I watch at all, I plan on really paying attention to the Mast/Steinbach matchup. Especially to see if it looks like they're trading Euro-themed insults. Will Steinbach mock the Netherlands' ability to come up small in major tournaments? Will Mast "go there" and throw the destruction of Rotterdam in Steinbach's face? (Probably not, I acknowledge.) If they've been in American too long, it'll probably be "We're undefeated, you suck." "Yeah, but I'm going in the first round and you'll be back in Europe."

Whatever, you're alone in first place Nebraska. The world is yours.

HoustonBoiler: First, Indiana wins a natty in football. In this school year of unprecedented wins by sports teams who historically have not been good, can Nebrasketball keep their combines rolling all the way to Indianapolis?

#61 Northwestern Wildcats (8-10, 0-7) at #51 USC Trojans (14-4, 3-4)

11 ET, BTN

BoilerUp89: I think Arenas might make his college debut for the Trojans in this one after suffering a meniscus tear before the season.

Kind of...: @BoilerUp89 knew your first thought was going to be "Why would I bother watching this game?" and he was ready for you. That's a man who does his own scouting! [11:00 time in my time zone? Still likely not watching.]

HoustonBoiler: Definitely will be sleeping.

Non-B1G Games of Interest

#39 San Diego State Aztecs at #64 Grand Canyon Antelopes, 11 ET, FS1

Kind of...: Memphis/Tulsa could go one of fifteen different ways. Murray State/Drake is on CBS Sports if you want to see the past and present of the MVC.