Player of the Week:
Brice Williams, Nebraska Cornhuskers
Back-to-back players of the week for the Nebraska Cornhuskers? We live in crazy times. An absolutely wild week of upsets for all of college basketball where every top-5 team except for UConn fell, the Huskers kicked that off with a defeat of Purdue at home. If you watched this game, you’d probably say Tominaga was (once again) the star for Nebraska, but it was Brice Williams who had an incredibly underrated performance the whole game. I haven’t seen a lot of talk going his way after his near triple-double performance against the number one team in the country. Williams had 9 points, 9 assists, 11 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocks, all while not missing a free throw and only turning the ball over twice. Stats like these, where a player completely stuffs the stat sheet, don’t happen in college hoops that much. Silently dominating a game against one of the best rosters in college basketball very much merits the honor of player of the week; Tominaga was my player of the week last week, so that didn’t hurt Williams’ chances. Nebraska and Williams have officially solidified themselves as one of the best teams in the conference.
Who’s Hot?
Illinois Fighting Illini
Despite all the controversy, the loss of their best player, this roster has proven that they are more than one player. Without TSJ, they’ve gone 3-1 with their only loss coming by 5 points to Purdue on Friday; a game where the Illini hung around and had various leads throughout the game. While I’m sure Illinois isn’t interested in calling it a “good loss,” I’m sure content with it, losing by 5 to the best team in the nation without your best player is damn impressive. They followed up that tightly contested loss with a huge win over Michigan State who’s been much improved from the start of the year. To be frank, Illinois is loaded with deep talent across the board that wasn’t talked about enough at the start of the year. Coleman Hawkins, Ty Rodgers, Marcus Domask, all these guys are super talented two-way scorers and athletes that down the line could plug a hole for an NBA team. Illinois plays Michigan and Maryland in their next two games, two easily winnable games against poor opponents, and they don’t play anyone currently ranked until March 2nd as they try to march on without TSJ.
Wisconsin Badgers
Just a few nights before Nebraska took down Purdue, they traveled to Wisconsin and lost to the Badgers by 16. Then, a few nights later they beat Purdue by the exact same score, 88-72. By the transitive property, does that make Wisconsin the new number one team in the conference? Well, by their conference play they ARE the only undefeated team remaining so… maybe? I think it’s insane how if you go to any statistic website and look at the BIG10, Wisconsin will find themselves in the bottom third of pretty much every single statistic. But if you look deep enough, you’ll find some interesting truths behind the wall of numbers. Wisconsin is bottom 5 in both PPG and FG%. To the naked eye, that’s not good, until you notice that their PACE is the second slowest in the conference, meaning that Wisconsin plays significantly slower than most of their contemporaries, and in turn score less points and get less possessions. The real kicker here is the efficiency that Wisconsin converts on their possessions. Despite being a generally low-scoring team, they’re top-3 in points per possession AND top-7 in PPG differential, a testament to their efficiency and defense. Wisconsin is just a slow, brooding, methodical basketball team that can win literally any game they control the tempo in.
Who’s Not?
Ohio State Buckeyes
OSU is 1-2 in the new year and hasn’t looked as formidable on the offensive end since the calendar flipped over. It’s hard to say what the exact problem is, but they went 0-2 this past week against the mediocre Indiana Hoosiers and the aforementioned Badgers. One of the most disastrous occurrences for Ohio State over the last week has been the play of Bruce Thornton, in his last 2 games (both losses) he’s shot a combined 1/12, including an 0/7 showing against Indiana. In both losses, Ohio State hasn’t had great success scoring. They’ve shot incredibly poorly yet managed to not get blown out, which is somewhat of a testament to Holtmann’s defensive scheme and ability to motivate his players. While the Bucks have been much improved this year, Ohio State often times falters in January, it’s been a theme of their teams in the past few years and I’m sure I speak for many a Buckeye fan when I say that a January collapse of the basketball team AGAIN is the last thing that the fans and students need in a post-Michigan-championship world.
Michigan Wolverines
Speaking of Michigan, boy oh boy does their basketball team suck! It’s been an absolute mess of a season for Michigan in a scenario that feels like they made a deal with some sort of omnipresent deity to trade the basketball team’s success for the football team to finally break through. Juwan Howard has been on and off the sidelines with heart issues, players can’t score the ball, and on top of all of that in the middle of a 4-game losing streak they had to suspend their best player for their next 6 road games due to academic issues. This suspension is very odd for a college star, and while I do commend Michigan for holding even their highest of NIL earners to standards, I can’t help but wonder what it’s like inside of that locker room right now. 6-10, last in the BIG10, one of the worst Power 5 teams in the nation and now your best player isn’t going to class? Yikes. In my opinion, despite his history as a Wolverine, Juwan Howard needs to be let go of after this season to bring fresh faces to the university.
Power Rankings
5. Northwestern Wildcats
Their only ugly loss of the season came to Illinois by 30 just recently, but they have a signature win over Purdue and are poised to finish top 5 in the BIG10 for a second straigh year on the backs of my personal favorite guard in the BIG10, Boo Buie baby!
4. Nebraska Cornhuskers
Keisei Tominaga is so fun to watch it should be a crime. He’s like Steph Curry if Steph took even dumber shots, I absolutely adore this team.
3. Illinois Fighting Illini
Rolling with the punches, Illinois has held tough despite all the drama off the court.
2. Wisconsin Badgers
Solid as a block of steel, slow-paced, well-coached. Reminds me of Duke when Jahlil Okafor was there.
1. Purdue Boilermakers
Still have one of the best resumes in the nation, but unfortunately for them, they won’t play a top-5 team in the nation in the first and second and third round of the big dance.