Good morning! Some really great basketball games last night with potentially huge implications for the Big Ten conference championship race.
First of all, my assessment of “Michigan State should roll” at Rutgers was dead wrong…a testament to the difficulty of winning on the road in the Big Ten, no matter who you play. It took every bit of 40 minutes for Sparty to pull even with the Scarlet Knights before MSU could kick it into gear and clinch a road win in overtime.
Michigan defended home court in a high-level basketball game to hand Nebrasketball its first loss of the season. It’s never great to see the Wolverines win one, but this is probably the best-case scenario for the Illini, getting the Huskers a 1 in the loss column. With games against both teams in the upcoming weeks, Illinois feels a bit more in the driver’s seat.
And for the second year in a row, Purdue has a three-game conference losing streak. Last year in February they lost three consecutive games to Michigan, Wisconsin, and Michigan State. Last night’s loss to Indiana makes a trifecta of L’s for the Boilers this year as well. This is surprisingly not uncommon for Matt Painter teams, which makes it even more impressive to point out that Brad Underwood has never lost three games in a row in his time in Champaign…even including the dark years of 2018-2019 when the Illini were 12-21.
All credit to Jeremy Werner and Mike LaTulip for this discussion on the remaining Big Ten schedules but it was intriguing so I wanted to share here.
Illinois
Key remaining games: @ Nebraska, @ Michigan State
Only two games left against the other top-5 teams
Already beat Purdue on the road
Michigan comes to Champaign (home game)
Overall: Relatively favorable compared to others
Nebraska
In the driver’s seat from a scheduling standpoint
Only one road game left against top-5 teams: @ Michigan
Home games: vs. Illinois, vs. Purdue, already beat Michigan State at home
Mike thinks Nebraska has the most favorable schedule of the contenders
Could potentially go 17-3 if they take care of business
Michigan
Toughest remaining schedule among contenders
Road games: @ Illinois, @ Michigan State, @ Purdue
Only gets Nebraska at home
Three of four games against top-5 teams are on the road
Critical week ahead: @ Nebraska (Tuesday), @ Michigan State
Purdue
@ Nebraska (still remaining)
Home: vs. Michigan State, vs. Michigan
Must-win game @ Indiana early in the week to stay in race
Also has @ Maryland, Oregon at home
More home games against top teams than road games
Michigan State
Still @ Michigan, @ Purdue remaining
Already played Nebraska (lost at home)
Gets Rutgers at home this week
Could be 10-1 if they sweep the week
Bottom Line: Mike predicts 16-4 will win the Big Ten title, though 17-3 is possible for teams like Nebraska or Illinois. Nebraska has the clearest path with only one road game left against top competition.
ILLINI IN THE PROS
The Eastern Hemisphere - European and Asian Leagues
Kofi Cockburn, Hiroshima Dragonflies
Kofi continues his tour of dominance in Japan, where they have learned what Big Ten opponents already knew … you cannot stop him, you can only hope to contain him. Cockburn dropped 22 points and grabbed 9 rebounds in a win over
