Murderers' Row Continues In The Big Ten This Week

The Big East has by far been the best conference from top to bottom in college basketball for years, especially since 2005 when Cincinnati, DePaul, Louisville, Marquette, and South Florida all joined the conference from Conference-USA, which significantly improved the league as a whole. The Big East has dominated in terms of number of bids to the tournament as well, while other conferences, such as the Big Ten, have struggled in recent years to get a lot of teams into the big dance.

The last time the Big Ten received more bids to the tourney than any other conference was back in 2001. In the last four NCAA tournaments, the Big Ten has had 24 bids into the tourney, while the Big East has sent 34 teams to the big dance. Since 1990, just one NCAA champion has come from the Big Ten, which was Michigan St. in 2000. This is an extremely low number considering the ACC has had 8 champions, the SEC has had 5 champions, and the Big East has had 4 champions since 1990.

However, the tides have turned this season, as the Big Ten is far and away the best conference in all of college basketball. 5 Big Ten teams are ranked inside the top 25, which is more than any other conference and it looks like at least 8 Big Ten teams (Ohio St, Michigan St., Wisconsin, Michigan, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota) will make the tourney.

This week continues the excitement of the highly competitive league, as there are a great slate of games.

On Tuesday, #9 Michigan St. (17-4, 6-2) travels to play Illinois (15-6, 4-4) in Champagne at Assembly Hall. Sparty, who have won 17 of their last 19 games after starting out 0-2 with two early losses to North Carolina and Duke, will attempt to knock off the Illini in a hostile atmosphere. Illinois has already knocked off Big Ten favorite Ohio St. at home this year but they have lost three tight games in a row by a combined 11 points including an overtime lose to Minnesota in their last outing.

The following day, the Spartans arch rival, #22 Michigan (18-6, 6-3), is playing host to #17 Indiana (17-5, 5-5). Like Illinois, Michigan has been very difficult to beat at home, as they have wins over Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan St. at the Crisler Center. However, Michigan has struggled of late due largely to the fact that they are settling for so many three point shots. The Wolverines took 25 threes against Ohio St. in their 64-49 loss on Sunday and 28 threes in their 66-64 road loss to Arkansas last week. Although Indiana has extremely impressive home wins over Kentucky, Ohio St., and Michigan in Bloomington, they have severely struggled the road in Big Ten play. The Hoosiers are 1-4 away from Assembly Hall including 0-3 against ranked opponents. Indiana, led by freshman forward Cody Zeller, who had a career high 26 points in the Hoosiers 103-89 victory over Iowa on Sunday, will have a chance to get a big road win on Wednesday when they travel to take on the Wolverines.

Ohio St. (19-3, 7-2) may be the most complete team in college basketball. The Buckeyes have arguably the best defensive point guard in the country with Aaron Craft, the best big man in the country with Jared Sullinger, who is averaging 17.1 points and 9.1 rebounds per game, and one of the best seniors in the country with William Buford. All three of these stars will be looking for revenge on Saturday when the #3 Buckeyes travel to Madison to play #25 Wisconsin (17-5, 6-3), who knocked off Ohio St. last season at home when the Buckeyes were undefeated at 24-0. Preseason 1st team All-American point guard Jordan Taylor, who has struggled this year shooting the ball, will try to have a repeat performance of his game last year when he had 27 points, which led to the Badgers huge upset. Taylor has played much better since Big Ten play began, as he is averaging over 16 points in Wisconsin's 9 league games.

The great week of Big Ten basketball concludes with two great in-state rivalry games on Saturday and Sunday.

#17 Indiana continues their difficult week on the road, as they take on Purdue (15-7, 5-4). Purude has been on the short end of several close games this season. They fell to Xavier on the road by 3, to Butler on a neutral court by 2, as well as two Big Ten home losses by 5 points to Wisconsin and 2 points to Michigan. The Boilermakers are led by forward Robbie Hummel, who is one of the most versatile players in the country.

On Sunday, #22 Michigan and #11 Michigan St. rekindle their growingly intense rivalry when the Wolverines travel to East Lansing to take on Sparty. Fuel has been added to this in-state rivalry since Michigan has greatly improved as a program under the leadership of John Beilein and since Tom Izzo said, "Do i respect Michigan? Tremendously. Do I like 'em? Not one bit." Michigan beat Michigan St. in Ann Arbor in a great game earlier this year by 1 point after both Keith Appling and Draymond Green missed shots for the Spartans in the final 11 seconds of the game.

To illustrate how difficult the Big Ten has been this year, just look at the stretches of games some teams in the conference have had to play or are going to have to play. Penn St. is currently in a 6 game stretch where they have had to play Illinois at home, #17 Indiana and #3 Ohio St. on the road, #25 Wisconsin at home, before returning on the road to play Iowa and #9 Michigan St. Iowa had a four game stretch where they had to play #3 Ohio St. at home, #9 Michigan St. in East Lansing, #22 Michigan at home, before going on the road again to play Purdue in West Lafayette.

Top Seeds Going Down in the Third Round of the NCAA Tournament

In the last two NCAA tournaments there were only four double digit seeds to reach the sweet sixteen. This year alone there are four double digit seeds in the sweet sixteen including three in the southwest region. When 11th seeded VCU plays 10th seeded Florida St. in the regional semifinals on Thursday, it will be the first time ever that an eleven seed will be playing a ten seed in the tournament. Thus far, there has been a one seed eliminated, a two seed eliminated, and two three seeds eliminated. In not one of the four regions did all of the top four seeds advance to the sweet sixteen.

After Pittsburgh feel to Butler by one point, all the buzz surrounding the game was the bizarre finish that resulted in the first top seed being bounced from the tourney. Even Jim Calhoun couldn't believe the ending to the wacky game. After his teams’ third round win over Cincinnati he commented on the game by saying, "I watched the end of the Pitt game and I haven't ever seen anything like that in 39 years of coaching, both plays." Shelvin Mack had his best game of the season scoring 30 points on 7 of 12 shooting from behind the arc. However, his great game looked to be ruined when he committed an inexplicable foul on Gilbert Brown near midcourt with 1.4 seconds remaining in the game with his team up by one point. Brown also was having a great game with 24 points on 8 of 11 shooting from the field. On the season he was a 79 percent shooter from the line and was 3 for 3 in the game from the strike. Brown made the first free throw but then missed the second one. The game appeared to be going into overtime until the ref blew a whistle for a foul on Nasir Robinson of Pittsburgh. Matt Howard described the play when he said, "I felt his arm come across mine, so I just threw the ball to the rim." With 0.8 seconds left in the game Matt Howard of Butler went to the line and made one of two free throws to secure the upset for Butler. After the game, the focus was obviously on the crazy finish. Robinson said, "I take the blame, man. I take the blame for the loss... I've been playing basketball my whole life and I know I shouldn't have done that. It was a stupid play." The win sets up a Butler-Wisconsin sweet sixteen matchup.

With 5:54 remaining in the first half, VCU guard Brandon Rozzell made a layup to put the Rams up on the Purdue Boilermakers 25 to 24. From that point on in the game, Purdue never took back the lead. All Big-Ten performer E'Twaun Moore struggled from the field only making 5 of his 15 shots and only scoring 10 points. However, the real problem for the Boilermakers was on the defensive end. They couldn't stop the Rams allowing them to shot nearly 57 percent from the field. The 94 points that VCU scored was the most points allowed all season by the Boilermakers. Purdue had difficulty guarding the quick backcourt of the Rams. Joey Rodriguez dished out 11 assists and Bradford Burgess had 23 points and only missed one of the four threes he attempted. The selection committed was ridiculed for their decision to take VCU into the tournament as one of the final four teams. After three wins in the tourney, point guard Joey Rodriguez said, "I'd say to the committee, Thank you for believing in us... Hopefully they'd say something back to us, like, Thank you for proving us right." VCU guard Brandon Rozell said, "I think the committee is sitting back smiling now." VCU will get to continue its magical run in the tourney when they meet 10th seeded Florida St. in the sweet sixteen.

In their only meeting during the season, Marquette beat Syracuse at home by 6 points. Marquette was able to penetrate, so they could get inside of Syracuse's two-three zone and not have to knock down a ton of threes to knock off the Orange. They got the ball behind Syracuse's zone to Jae Crowder, who scored his second highest point total all season with 25. In their third round matchup in the tourney, Marquette used the same formula to knock off the Orange 66 to 62. They only shot 11 threes but were able to get inside of Syracuse's zone. Marquette shot 23 free throws in the game. Jae Crowder alone shot one more free throw than the whole Syracuse team, who took 15 threes and only made five. Marquette was able to get behind the zone and get the ball to Crowder who had 16 points. When they needed a three pointer, Darius Johnson-Odom wasn't afraid to fire. He hit a huge three pointer with 27 seconds left in the game to give Marquette a three point lead. Syracuse had 18 turnovers in the game including a huge one by Dion Waiters with 52 seconds remaining when the game was tied at 59 to give the ball back to the Golden Eagles. Marquette moves on to face the North Carolina Tar Heels in Newark in the regional semifinals.


Nobody has ever denied Florida State's ability to defend and stifle teams when they are on defense. However, their problems during the season has been their inability to score especially since their leading scoring Chris Singleton went out with an injury and has been playing limited minutes in his return during the tourney. Their second leading scoring isn't even averaging 10 points a game. The Seminoles got a balanced attack from their starting five with each of them scoring at least 8 points in the third round game against the Fighting Irish. As always, their defense was spectacular. Notre Dame only scored 23 points in the first half and 57 in the whole game. The Seminoles frustrated the Big East player of the year Ben Hansbrough the entire night. He only made 4 of the 10 threes he attempted during the game. Derwin Kitchen, who had 10 points and six rebounds said, "If we can stay consistent on the offensive end, I like our chances. We've just been so up and down and inconsistent on the offensive end, it allowed us to stumble at times and lose a few games. If we can stay consistent and execute on the offensive end, I like our chances because we play so well on the defensive end." For the Seminole fans, they hope their team will continue to be consistent on the offensive end when they play the 11th seeded VCU Rams in the regional semifinals.