Tonight we have:
- Wisconsin -3.5 at Minnesota at 7pm on BTN
- Ohio State +3.5 at Nebraska at 7pm on Peacock
- Michigan ×17.5 at Purdue at 9pm on Peacock
Importance:
Wisconsin sits alone atop the B1G standings but their last trip away from the friendly confines of the Kohl Center resulted in a loss to lowly Penn State. This is a road game against a not terrible rival that has a better team than the Nittany Lions. I *THINK* that the Badgers will win but the result shouldn't just be assumed.
The Gophers are 3-4 and we project them to finish 8-12/17-14 so games like this one are the type of thing that could get them to the right side of the bubble come March.
Nebraska is 4-4 and looks like a Tournament team but they don't have a lot of margin for error so this is an important game for the Cornhuskers. If they lose a couple games they should win they could find themselves needing a couple wins in Minneapolis in a couple months.
Ohio State is 3-4 and has looked flat awful for the last six weeks. The question for the Buckeyes is if they can put that behind them and start performing up to their talent rather than down to their coaching. We project them to finish 7-13/17-14 so they need three or four unexpected wins to get to the right side of the bubble. Tonight would be a great time to start accumulating those.
Purdue is in a bit of a weird situation. They are #2 nationally but (at least for now) they are also #2 in their own league. They had a fantastic OOC campaign highlighted by a brilliant run in Maui where they took down three top-11 teams (Gonzaga, Tennessee, Marquette) in three days along with neutral site wins over Alabama and (then) #1 Arizona.
In conference they have looked considerably more mortal. I'm not saying that 6-2 is bad, it isn't. I'm just pointing out that after their very high preseason ranking and their brilliant OOC, it would have been reasonable to expect them to be 8-0 right now rather than having not one but two losses to unranked teams.
The real test for the Boilermakers comes in Madison in a week and a half but if they don't win the three relatively easy games between now and then, a win in Madison won't be enough to catapult them into #1 in the league.
Michigan is a complete mess. Since beating the Emus of Ypsilanti in mid-December they are 1-6 with the only win being a fairly close home win over an Ohio State squad that hasn't won a road game since January 1 . . . of last year. Since then the Fighting Juwans have lost home games (McNeese, Minnesota, Illinois), neutral site games (Florida, Penn State), and a road game (Maryland).
Traveling to West Lafayette is definitively NOT the Rx for a team that desperately needs a get-right game but it doesn't get much easier after this. Their next game is against a group of Hawkeyes who will smell blood and come looking for revenge followed by a short trip to the State Capital to face their bitter rivals.
The Wolverines' skid could easily extend to 1-9.
