Big Ten Conference Notebook
Two weeks into the Big Ten season, the conference theme is clear and familiar: it’s difficult to win on the road. Through two weeks, home teams are 15-4, with lowly Northwestern accounting for two of the four home losses. Even the Wildcats are pesky; ask Wisconsin. Protecting the home court is a must for title contention and tournament consideration, and teams have been playing in near desperation to maintain the home court edge. The reason for the desperation is simple: win your nine home games, squeak out a couple road wins, and you’ve got yourself a solid conference record. Slip up at home and it’s over.
As previously mentioned, Wisconsin (17-1, 3-0) fought off Northwestern for a road win Saturday, leaning on star Alando Tucker in the second half to complete the 56-50 come-from-behind win. Tucker’s monster baseline dunk sparked Wisconsin’s turnaround after Northwestern pushed the lead to five midway through the second half. Saturday’s win backed up a big win against Ohio State and kept the Badgers atop the conference standings as the only unbeaten squad. Marcus Landry had a huge week defensively, providing four blocks against Ohio State while taking a turn guarding Greg Oden, and securing the win against Northwestern with two crucial blocks down the stretch. Wisconsin will have a much tougher road test on Saturday when they travel to Champaign to face Illinois.
Indiana (12-4, 3-1) also came from behind to secure a road win, beating Penn State 84-74 Saturday. Roderick Wilmont provided the spark offensively with a career-high 25 points on seven 3-pointers. He also contributed 12 rebounds and continued Indiana’s trend of finding offensive output from different sources. Three different Hoosiers have led the team in scoring in their three Big Ten wins. The win capped a 2-0 week, as Indiana slaughtered Purdue 85-58 Wednesday. Keep an eye on this team, as they look capable of grabbing that open third spot in the conference. They should knock off Iowa at home this week before going to Connecticut for a non-conference tilt.
Three teams are 2-1 in conference play, with Iowa (10-7, 2-1) getting off to the most surprising start. The Hawkeyes played Illinois tough on the road, closing to within one point in the final minute before falling 74-70. They then defended their home court for the eleventh consecutive time against Big Ten opponents, beating Minnesota easily Saturday. Steve Alford continues to rely heavily on senior Adam Haluska and freshman Tyler Smith, as they have combined to score over half of Iowa’s points in conference play. To stay near .500 in conference, someone will have to step up as a third scoring option. Candidates include guards Mike Henderson, Tony Freeman and Justin Johnson, and big man Seth Gorney.
Ohio State (14-3, 2-1) bounced back nicely after the loss to Wisconsin by sneaking past Tennessee at home Saturday. There is still cause for concern, however, as the Buckeyes seem uncomfortable in close games and have trouble maintaining a successful game plan. Greg Oden was dominant in the first half against the Volunteers (16 points, 10 rebounds), but the Buckeyes failed to exploit his advantages in the second half. Oden was on his own to create scoring opportunities for himself. If not for a late 3-pointer by Ron Lewis, OSU would have lost a game they had control of for much of the second half. This team needs to recognize what they have in Oden and pound it inside on every possession.
Another team battling for the third spot is Michigan (14-4, 2-1), a team that continues to follow its annual trend of inconsistency. The Wolverines dropped their only game of the week at Purdue Saturday, looking sluggish in a 67-53 loss. They went without a field goal for a seven-minute stretch in the first half, and were down by an insurmountable fifteen points at the break. Dion Harris led a mini-charge in the second half, cutting the lead to six, but Michigan never got closer than that. Courtney Sims is no Greg Oden, but he certainly deserves more than three shot attempts, his number against Purdue. In fact, the senior center has only ten field goal attempts in three conference games, and he’s made eight of them. The Wolverines need to work the ball inside to free up easier shots for Harris and Lester Abram, and keep Sims involved in the game plan. When Sims gets the ball in the post, teams are forced to either play him straight up or double-team him, which frees up leaper Brent Petway for offensive rebounds and putbacks.
Facing an uncomfortable 0-2 conference start, Michigan State (15-4, 2-2) went 2-0 on the week to vault itself back into the middle of the pack. The Spartans crushed Northwestern Tuesday 66-45, as nine players played more than ten minutes in the easy win. Injuries to Raymar Morgan and Maurice Joseph have opened up opportunities for players like Isaiah Dahlman and Marquise Gray to gain substantial experience, and Gray has especially flourished. The Spartans came back Sunday to defeat Illinois 63-57 after getting completely outplayed in the first half. They rallied behind a raucous Izzone and Drew Neitzel to even their conference record. Tom Izzo still has to be concerned with his team’s composure, however, as the Spartans committed 17 turnovers and were just 1-9 from behind the arc.
Purdue (13-5, 2-2) joins Michigan State as the other 2-2 team, and is possibly the most puzzling team in the Big Ten thus far. This week, the Boilers failed to show up against Indiana in an 85-58 throttling, but came back to crush Michigan by 14. The key, once again, is a commitment to getting the ball inside. In the loss to the Hoosiers, star big man Carl Landry managed only six field goal attempts, far too few for a player who draws as many fouls as Landry does. That fault was remedied Saturday, when Landry got fourteen shots up and converted them for 22 points. This is a broken record: get it inside.
Penn State (10-6, 1-2), a team this writer picked to contend, is not playing like a potential contender. Geary Claxton and company lost a game they need to win Saturday, squandering a lead and letting Indiana run through them to the finish line. Any team that can’t protect its home court won’t contend. The Nittany Lions have some work to do to get back into contention, and the key will be defense. The offensive pieces are there, with the formidable front line of Claxton and Jamelle Cornley and the consistent deep shooting of Danny Morrissey. In conference play, PSU is second in scoring offense, and are leading the league in field goal percentage and 3-point percentage, but it doesn’t matter when you’re last in scoring defense. Any chance this team has of contending for a tournament bid rests on the defensive end.
Minnesota (7-10, 1-2) is in trouble. The Gophers looked less than sluggish against Iowa Saturday in their only Big Ten contest of the week, and the news gets worse. They will be without starting center and emotional leader Spencer Tollackson for at least two more weeks after he broke his hand in the loss to Wisconsin last week. Finding a replacement in the middle has proven to be harder than even the most pessimistic Gopher fans expected. Freshman Bryce Webster started in his place Saturday, but still looks lost on the court. Jonathon Williams is a defensive presence, but provides nothing more than a few solid screens on offense. Without Tollackson anchoring the middle, leading scorers Lawrence McKenzie and Dan Coleman will be even more hard-pressed to carry the team. The bigger picture: without a reliable big man or two, you stand no chance in the Big Ten.
The most disappointing team is unquestionably Illinois (13-6, 1-3), a team that finds itself in a very unfamiliar tenth place in the league. It’s a good thing most of Illinois was watching the Bears game Sunday, because the Illini blew a game they controlled for the entire first half. The team needs leadership, and the two most likely preseason candidates, Brian Randle and Jamar Smith, still don’t seem comfortable stepping up. Like Penn State, Illinois has plenty of capable scorers, but can’t find any continuity offensively, and can’t make up for that defensively. Randle did play well in the Illini’s first conference win, a 74-70 squeaker against Iowa, but struggled to find his game against a better Michigan State team. He needs to be the leader, and until he embraces that role, Illinois will be on the outside looking in.
Once again, we save the final words for Northwestern (10-7, 0-4). Expectations were high in Evanston after a fast non-conference start, but the rest of the Big Ten isn’t buying it. The Cats fought valiantly against a much more talented Wisconsin squad, but couldn’t stave off the inevitable Badger push and lost 56-50. To his credit, Bill Carmody controlled the tempo of the game, limiting Wisconsin to its lowest scoring output of the season. And that’s the only way Northwestern will win again. Prior to Saturday’s close game, the Wildcats had lost the previous three by nearly twenty points per game. Next Saturday’s game at Minnesota could be the next chance for a win, and may go a long way to determining who ends up in the Big Ten basement this year.
