~2017-18 Big Ten Basketball Thread~

[medinabuckeye1]

Bwar,
You fleshed it out a lot more than I did, but I agree.  They need to stay where they are until proven otherwise and it is going to be a while because, as you pointed out, they are projected to lose three of their next four.  Even if they go 0-4 they'll still be even (one positive upset, one negative upset) so I don't see a downward change for UW anytime soon.  

[mcwterps1]

After the football game vs Iowa where Wiley was shouldered in the head, he was diagnosed with a concussion, and will not play vs Ohio State. 

This makes 285 different issues Dion has had at Maryland where he couldn't play a game. 

[ELA]

MSU is straight up broken

[jhetfield99]

Just flipped to BTN.  How in the hell is Rutger playing even with MSU?  MSU will win since it went to OT, but not expected.

[ELA]

Just flipped to BTN.  How in the hell is Rutger playing even with MSU?  MSU will win since it went to OT, but not expected.

No they won't.  This is like 2016 all over again, where they looked invincible through December, got to #1.  Lost a road game at Iowa and figured road losses happen.  Then lost at home to Nebraska, lost at Wisconsin and got bombed at home by Iowa, and they turned it back around at won 10 of 11 plus the conference tourney, but they lost the Big Ten title in those two weeks.  They are in a serious offensive funk, and I assume they'll figure it out, but they are really, really bad right now.  Jackson has hit some sort of wall, he looks so lost on both ends right now.

[mcwterps1]

They hit God Mode against Maryland. 

They aren't 30 points better than Maryland, they just couldn't miss a damn thing. 

It's like they get up for Maryland. Just like another school farther South. 

[ELA]

Michigan should have their way with us on Saturday, considering Jackson doesn't even look close to being able to exploit what should be the biggest mismatch.

[ELA]

They hit GOD Mode against Maryland.

They aren't 30 points better than Maryland, they just couldn't miss a damn thing.

It's like they get up for Maryland. Just like another school farther South.

That's how they had played basically every game since the Duke game.  These last two have been the change.
There are two opponents they get up for no matter what.  The one in Madison and the one they play on Saturday

[PortlandSpartan]

I remember a week ago when I thought MSU was clearly the best team in the nation. Halcyon days. 

[ELA]

I remember a week ago when I thought MSU was clearly the best team in the nation. Halcyon days.

Those were good days.  Now they don't have a single player I trust offensively.

Honestly the only reason they won is because the refs called it tight, and MSU was deeper and subbed liberally to spread the fouls out, and Rutgers couldn't, so they had 4 guys foul out in OT.

[MichiFan87]

Purdue played a great game, and Michigan had finally taken the lead in the final minutes so it never should've come down to those questionable-at-best calls at the end.

Regardless, not sure what's going wrong with MSU. I figured they'd win convincingly so I didn't see the game, but I'm still not feeling confident about Saturday. Michigan isn't a good true road team (3-8 last year, 4-6 the year before)..... That said, other than the return game to West Lafayette, Michigan should probably be favored otherwise (@UMD, @PSU, and @NEB being the toughest games, otherwise with OSU being the toughest home game left).

[medinabuckeye1]

• Rutgers at Michigan State:  I would not want to be Rutgers this week.  I see this as the basketball equivalent of MSU v tOSU in football.  Remember what happened to the next team that played Ohio State after their blowout loss in Iowa City?  Yeah, I think the same thing is going to happen to the next team to play Michigan State after their blowout loss in Columbus.  

^^This is what I expected from the game last night so I was shocked to see that MSU needed OT to get it done and then to read here (thank you ELA) that RU lost four guys to fouls in the OT.  I'm perplexed and have some questions for the MSU fans who actually watched the game:

• Was this simply a case of (nearly) "letting Ohio State beat them twice" or something else?
• Should I be dialing back tOSU expectations?  I never thought Ohio State was THAT great, but I did think that the Buckeyes had managed to beat the best team in the country, and do it fairly soundly.  Now I'm looking at that MSU team and seeing a team that needs OT to beat Rutgers at home and . . . Well it obviously isn't the same thing.  

[medinabuckeye1]

The worldwide leader updated their braketology and we now have five teams in:

• 1 seed Michigan State
• 2 seed Purdue
• 8 seed Michigan
• 9 seed Ohio State
• 10 seed Maryland

Maryland is listed as one of the "last four byes" and Minnesota is one of the "next four out".  Meanwhile the Buckeyes and Wolverines at 8/9 seeds do not have a lot of margin for error which leads me back to a point I made upthread that we could get to the BTT with a larger than usual number of bubble teams.  

[grillrat]

I think the Rutgers game last night was a classic example of the "trap game".  @OSU before and Michigan at home next, MSU came home after a defeat and thought to themselves, "Well, we can at least take it easy for this game and get rested up for Michigan this weekend."  Rutgers is a surprisingly good rebounding team (5th in the nation) and outrebounded MSU for some extra possessions.  As far as I can tell, it wasn't really that Rutgers shot that well, but they also were very physical and went through almost every foul they could possibly give.