Big Ten Basketball: March 3

Sunday's Games

Ohio State Buckeyes 82, Purdue Boilermakers 74

MaximumSam: Well how about that. Jake Diebler goes to 3-0 against Purdue. Perhaps he can just make every game against Purdue next year. Anyways, the Buckeyes' Bubble hope moves to much stronger, and now they finish at Penn State and home against Indiana. What could go wrong?

Kind of...: Three games is a small sample size, but that is still a really weird development. Does Diebler have a mole in the Purdue coaching staff? Is there a Connor Stallions type of things going on? Questions exist!

HoustonBoiler: Hmmm ... as usual, Kind Of... raises a great point to which I will point out that current Purdue assistant coach Terry Johnson came to Purdue after ... checks notes ... 4 years at Ohio State. This checks out.

Michigan State Spartans 77, Indiana Hoosiers 64

MaximumSam: The Hoosiers have lost four straight and their bubble hopes are fading. They welcome in the Gophers next and then visit Ohio State to finish the season. The Buckeyes v. Hoosiers will be an epic test of who can face flop more.

Kind of...: Seems like years ago that Indiana was beating Purdue and then knocking off UCLA on the road.

At Drake, Darian DeVries coached in the NCAA, the CIT, and the CBA. Last year West Virginia turned down an NIT bid, otherwise he might be looking at completing the coaching pentathlon with a Crown bid this year. Given that this year's Crown is down to 8 teams, and who knows what the NIT's future is, this seems like a real missed opportunity.

Rutgers Scarlet Knights 69, Maryland Terrapins 65

MaximumSam: No Used Culver's Cup for the Knights.

Kind of...: Rutgers is you maintainer of order: 5-0 against the bottom four; 0-13 against everybody else in the B1G. Reminds me of a differently Knight:

Tonight's Games

#87 Oregon Ducks (11-18, 4-14) at #6 Illinois Fighting Illini (22-7, 13-5)

9 pm, Peacock

Kind of...: Maybe Oregon is feisty (ask Wisconsin) but this is on the road and feels like an "Illinois averages 1.50 points per possession" woodshed special.

#12 Nebraska Cornhuskers (24-4, 14-4) at #41 UCLA Bruins (19-10, 11-7)

11 pm, FS1

MaximumSam: Take a nap now, I guess? This could be a pretty good game - nice to see it buried in the middle of the night.

Kind of...: Yeah, wow. I mean, good for the fine folks out on the West Coast. But they're probably like: "An 8:00 tip? That seems a bit late." Compelling game, though. That's for sure.

Conference Tournament Games

Sun Belt - Round 1
12 Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns v 13 Georgia State Panthers, 6 ET, ESPN+
11 Old Dominion Monarchs v. 14 Louisiana Monroe Warhawks, 8:30 ET, ESPN+

Patriot League - Round 1
10 Holy Cross Crusaders at 7 Lafayette Leopards, 7 ET, ESPN+
9 Army Black Knights at 8 Bucknell Bison, 7 ET, ESPN+

Kind of...: Look, I'm as big of a fan of Championship Week as anybody, but, well, it takes a couple of days to really get going, you know?

HoustonBoiler: I am sadly in the midst of a work deluge so missing the early round shame games is not the end of the world for me. It will be faster for me to follow the scores/stats.