It's time for the second round of the ATS1996BTFT. The 2002 National Champion Ohio State Buckeyes, got a bye to the second round and are facing off against 1996 Northwestern, who dominated 2010 Michigan State in the opening game. As always, the game was simulated on a neutral field on Whatifsports.com. For a more detailed explanation of the games, click here.

#9 1996 Northwestern

The Wildcats, led by Darnell Autry on offense and Pat Fitzgerald on defense, had a pretty great year in 1996. They were Co-Big Ten Champs with Ohio State and earned a trip to the Citrus Bowl for their trouble, where they were beaten by a Peyton Manning's Tennessee team. Northwestern won the right to face the #1 seed by absolutely crushing 2010 Michigan State in the first round.

#1 2002 Ohio State

14-0 (8-0); Co-Big Ten Champs; Defeated Miami in Fiesta Bowl BCS National Championship Game

The 2002 Buckeyes beat everyone in their path on their way to the National Championship game. They had a few blowouts, but there were a lot of close games that OSU managed to pull out. Illinois took them to OT, and their wins against Cincinnati, Wisconsin, Penn State, Purdue and Michigan were by less than a TD. In the championship, Ohio State beat a heavily favored Miami squad in double OT.

2002 OSU had a great defense, led by five players who were drafted that year: Mike Doss, Kenny Peterson, Cie Grant, Matt Wilhelm and Donnie Nickey. Chris Gamble led the team with four interceptions, and A.J. Hawk had a great freshman season at the linebacker position.

On offense, RB Maurice Clarett made his only college football season a great one. He racked up over 1200 yards rushing during the season, while averaging 5.6 yards per carry. He was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year. Craig Krenzel was the quarterback of the ball control offense, and his main targets were Michael Jenkins and two-way player Chris Gamble.

Click on to see who won!

Continue reading this post »

It's time for the last first round game in the ATS1996BTFT. In a nice coincidence, Purdue is playing in a game at the end of B1G 2012: Purdue week. Drew Brees' 2000 Boiler team faces off against Kurt Kittner's 2001 Illini squad. As always, the game was simulated on a neutral field on Whatifsports.com. For a more detailed explanation of the games, click here.

#10 2000 Purdue

8-4 (6-2); Lost to Washington in Rose Bowl

The Boilers lost close games at Notre Dame and Penn State, as well as a not close game at Michigan State. After the PSU loss, Purdue ran off wins against eventual co-champs Michigan and Northwestern, as well as a very dramatic home win over Ohio State. The season ended with the Boilers beating an overmatched Indiana team to earn a trip to the Rose Bowl. #4 Washington beat Purdue in a reasonably close game in Pasadena to end Drew Brees' college career.

Drew Brees was the unquestioned leader of the 2000 Purdue team. He won the Maxwell Award and was third-place in the Heisman voting. He had a great OL, as Matt Light, Chukky Okobi and Brandon Gorin were all drafted following the season. Tight End Tim Stratton won the TE award, and WR Vinny Sutherland, John Standeford and Seth Morales all had outstanding years. On defense, Stu Schweigart and Chris Clopton were great DBs, while Landon Johnson, Gilbert Gardner, Akin Ayodele and Matt Mitrione took care of business up front.

#7 2001 Illinois

10-2 (7-1); Lost to LSU in Sugar Bowl

The 2001 Fighting Illini had a dominant regular season. Their only loss was at Michigan, who ended up second in the conference. Ron Turner's squad won road games at Cal, Purdue, and Ohio State. Their most impressive home wins were against Louisville, Wisconsin, Penn State and Northwestern (in the pre-LoL trophy days). Since the Rose Bowl was hosting the National Championship game that year, Illinois had to play in the Sugar Bowl, where they lost to Nick Saban's LSU team.

QB Kurt Kittner had an outstanding season, and, with the help of WR Brandon Lloyd and Walter Young, threw for 2994 yards. David Diehl was the leader of a rock-solid O-line. CB Eugene Wilson had six interceptions and was a second-team All-American. LB Jerry Schumacher led the team in tackles.

Enough with the background, let's click on and see who won!

Continue reading this post »

Hey, remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books from back in the day? They were a lot of fun. Sure, you never read any of the story, and just skipped ahead to the choices and turned to a page. Of course we all kept a hand or a bookmark on the page with the choices so we could choose again. More often than not, you would have to choose again because your first decision resulted in falling down a well or getting eaten by wolves or something.

Rather than having to think of something else to write about Purdue football in May, I have decided to make a CYOA.

We'll start after the jump. I hope you are satisfied with your choices, but if you aren't it's your fault because you chose your own path.

Continue reading this post »

The Head Coach--Danny Hope

The Skinny

After Danny Hope played tackle at Eastern Kentucky in the late seventies, he started coaching. He was an excellent offensive line coach at Louisville, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Purdue before a one-year OC stint at Louisville. Hope then moved on to coach the Eastern Kentucky Colonels (1-A) where he compiled a 35-22 record in five seasons.

In an effort to replicate the success that the basketball team had in its transition from Gene Keady to Matt Painter, Hope spent the 2008 year as an associate head coach in Joe Tiller's final season. In Hope's first season the team had a lot of offensive weapons, but lost a lot of close games and ended up with a 5-7 record. Purdue beat #7 Ohio State at home that year, but close losses to Oregon, Northwestern and Michigan State kept them home during bowl season.

The 2010 season was marked by injuries (the ACL kind, of course) and ended with a terrible loss at home to Indiana. Some fans are on the fence as to whether or not Coach Hope gets a pass on this season due to the injuries. The anti-Hopes point to another loss to a MAC team, and the poor performance against an equally bad IU squad. The pro-Hopes, or at least the not-anti-Hopes say that the season-ending injuries in almost all of the skill positions were too much for any coach to overcome.

Last season Purdue was extremely inconsistent. After the Rice loss, which included attempting a game-winning FG with the clock running, rather than spiking the ball in order to stop the clock as well as calling a timeout because the team didn't know what they were going to do on fourth down (they punted after the TO). Rob Henry went into Fall Practice as the consensus #1 QB, but he of course tore his ACL. Hope then went with a two-QB system that almost everyone hated, but it was good enough to win six games and head to Detroit.

When Danny Hope came in at the end of the Joe Tiller Era, Purdue fans were ready for a change. Tiller seemed to lack the fire that he had when he first came to West Lafayette and looked like he was going through the motions. Tiller was never a high energy guy, but Danny Hope brought a great attitude with him to Purdue, if nothing else.

Hope's relentless positivity and energy is either his greatest asset or his most annoying one. When he got in Rich Rod's face to stick up for his player at the end of a game, people liked it. When he refused to say anything bad about the team after one of many terrible losses, they thought he was delusional and happy with mediocrity.

After Purdue beat Illinois last season in the Homecoming game, I saw some of that positive energy first-hand. Hope followed the players into the tunnel after the game, exchanging high fives with fans, thanking them for coming to the game and wishing them a happy homecoming. He is a very likable person, and it is easy to root for him. There is no question about that. The question is whether or not he is a good coach. Most Purdue fans would find him guilty of being a bad coach, but my personal jury is still out.

Continue reading this post »

FIFTH IN A SERIES: PURDUE COCKTAIL PARTY PREVIEW

On last season

The good news is...

Purdue finished with a winning record and their first bowl appearance (and win) since 2007. Home wins over a down Ohio State team and Illinois, who had just started their free-fall, were nice to have. After playing poorly in their four non-con games, Purdue bounced back with a 4-4 mark in Big Ten play. Winning the Bucket back from a hapless IU team, and beating Western Michigan in the Pizza Bowl helped turn a very inconsistent season into a decent one.

The bad news is...

Purdue looked pretty terrible for large chunks of the season. It took a late fourth quarter TD drive to beat Middle Tennessee at home, and the last-second field goal attempt at Rice was blocked, giving Danny Hope a bad non-con loss in each of his three seasons. Home attendance was bad all year, except for the Notre Dame game, where the Boilermaker faithful were treated to an abomination. Despite having kicked off, it only took Notre Dame 3 plays and 24 seconds to get a 7-0 lead. It is the worst Purdue game I have seen in person. The Boilers were also embarrassed at Wisconsin 62-17.

Continue reading this post »

After a long layoff, the All-Time Since 1996 Big Ten Football Tournament is back. In case you don't remember (it has been awhile), this is a tournament pitting the best teams from each school on Whatifsports.com. For a more detailed explanation, click here. We'll be posting these every Saturday until it is finished, as imaginary football games on Saturday are better than none at all.

For the third game in the first round, we have the #6 2002 Iowa Hawkeyes against the #11 2003 Minnesota Golden Gophers. Before we get to the game, here is some background on our teams.

#11 2003 Minnesota

10-3 (5-3); Beat Oregon in Sun Bowl

(Elsa/Getty Images)

Head Coach Glen Mason had a very potent running attack in 2003. The backfield duo of Marion Barber III and Laurence Maroney helped the Gophers average a ridiculous 289 yards/game on the ground. QB Asad Abdul-Khaliq kept opponents honest by throwing for over ten yards per attempt and managing 17 TDs to just 5 INTs. The defense wasn't quite as solid. In two of their three losses on the season, UM managed to lose despite scoring at least 35 points. They also won Paul Bunyan's Axe in 2003, which is their most recent win against Wisconsin.

#6 2002 Iowa

11-2 (8-0); Lost to USC in Orange Bowl

(AP Photo/Quad City Times)

The 2002 Hawkeyes went undefeated in conference play, but didn't even win an outright title. Ohio State was also undefeated that year and the two teams didn't play each other (obviously). After an early season loss to hated-rival Iowa State, Iowa rolled off nine straight wins, including all eight of their conference games. The streak included impressive road wins at Penn State and Michigan. QB Brad Banks won the AP Player of the Year Award, Dallas Clark won the TE Award and Nate Kaeding won the Kicker Trophy. #3 USC easily won their Orange Bowl matchup, but that doesn't take away all that the Hawkeyes accomplished in 2002. Most would agree that this was Ferentz's best team, even if Ricki Stanzi wasn't involved.

Enough with the background, let's click on and see who won!

Continue reading this post »

Since the Big Ten site and d1baseball.com don't update their standings until the next day, I figured them out myself.

Current standings:

Purdue 14-4
Minnesota 9-6
Indiana 9-6
Nebraska 8-7
Mich St 8-7
Illinois 8-7
Penn St 8-7
Ohio St 8-10
Iowa 6-9
Northwestern 5-12
Michigan 4-11

3 games series left for each team:
Purdue – Mich, @ Iowa
Minnesota – Penn St, @ Nebraska, @ Illinois
Indiana – Nebraska, @ Northwestern, Ohio St

Magic Number is 5 for outright title, 4 for a tie

Purdue plays @ UCLA this weekend, so everybody should have the same number of conference games played after that.

It's hard for some people to hate things that are pathetic. The most-hated teams in sports are usually winners: the Yankees and Blue Devils are good examples of this (the Fighting Irish are not a good example of this).

On the other hand, most casual fans don't really gravitate towards teams that consistently put out an embarrassing product. Discounting the Chicago Cubs and their self-hating fans, nobody cares much one way or the other for bad teams.

An excellent case in apathy has been our focus all week: the Indiana Football Hoosiers. If they were good, their fanbase would be just like IU basketball fans: populous and annoying. As we all know, they are very far from good.

Since they are the worst team in the conference, those who would be IU fans find something else to pass their time during football season. Like trying to concoct a brilliant plan to steal anhydrous from the co-op, for example. Perhaps they're watching and re-watching Bob Knight jab his hand into Neil Reid's throat like the Zapruder film in order to figure out exactly how the dastardly Reid managed to run into the hand of "The General", who surely didn't do anything wrong. More likely they are re-watching the Kentucky, Ohio State and Purdue basketball games from this year and burning incense in front of their homemade Cody Zeller idols.

I think I may have gotten a little bit off-track here. This is not about what IU fans do during their spare time. It is also not about a lot of other things, maybe enough to make a list.

Some Indiana football related things that this post is not about:

• The little kid field behind the South End Zone, where kids can run around during the game. It gives fans something to watch other than another lopsided IU loss.
• Those billboards they had up last year all over the state that said, "Win today." - Kevin Wilson.
• The beginning of Antwan Randle-El's senior year when Cam Cameron put him at wide receiver.
• Darius Willis and his night of professional wrestling
• Last year when the punter kicked into his lineman's back against Wisconsin
• Indiana only has a winning record against one Big Ten school: Nebraska
• Even though they were last in the first year of Big Ten Divisions, they are still technically "Leaders"
• Gunner Kiel

Continue reading this post »

As many of you are probably aware, Kentucky beat Kansas on Monday to win the NCAA Championship. Kansas used their tried-and-true strategy of getting behind early and then coming back at the end, which they used to eliminate two Big Ten teams, but it wasn't enough.

So now we move to the first phase of the true offseason. We have already made it through the preliminary phase of coaching changes; now we are ready to see which big time non-seniors will not be returning.

Definitely not returning: Meyers Leonard, Jared Sullinger, Jorge Brian Diaz

Big guys tend to get drafted and Leonard showed some of his potential this year. With the late-season collapse and the coaching change in Champaign, this comes as no surprise. If he continues to improve, he should be able to make and stay on an NBA roster for at least a few years.

Sullinger will be a lottery pick this year, and whatever team gets him will immediately improve their frontcourt. He is not without his weaknesses, and playing in the NBA is a lot different than playing in college, but his combination of size, strength and skill should translate well in the pros. For a good read on what Sullinger meant to Ohio State, check out this article from Luke Zimmerman.

Diaz is leaving early to go to his native Puerto Rico, where he has the chance to make some money playing basketball. Diaz was a solid inside player for the Huskers, but he had injury issues this year. He will be remembered by most Big Ten fans for hitting two clutch free throws to beat Indiana.

Probably not returning: Trey Burke

Jeff Goodman of CBSsports.com reported that Burke will most likely become the second point guard in a row to leave Michigan after their freshman year. It's not quite a done deal yet, but the people who make a living writing about this stuff think that he is gone. Darius Morris may have regretted leaving so early, since he wasn't picked until late in the second round. Burke is not a lock for the first round, but this is supposedly a weak group of point guards, so he should go higher than Morris did.

Probably returning: Trevor Mbakwe

Mbakwe was granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA in March and it is probable at this point that he will use that year. He tore his ACL this season, which probably isn't good for his draft status, but, on the other hand, injuries like that sometimes make players try to get paid as soon as possible.

Unsure: Deshaun Thomas

Thad Matta said that Thomas is still weighing his options as of Wednesday. Thomas showed a lot of improvement this year, in both offense and defense. He has the potential to be a good scorer at any level of play. It's a somewhat crowded draft, but he will definitely get selected if he goes.

Most basketball fans have been giving their attention the past couple of weeks to the tournament, but a lot has been happening off the court. It's time to catch up on some recent events in the conference.

Nebraska hires Tim Miles as Coach

Miles previously coached at Colorado State, where this year he took the Rams to their first NCAA tournament in nine years. He was also named District VIII Coach of the Year by the US Basketball Writers Association. The folks at Corn Nation seem underwhelmed, but are optimistic about Ronald Coleman, an assistant who has deep Chicago ties. It's clear to everyone that the Nebraska program is miles away from competing at the top of the league, so maybe hiring a coach named Miles is a good idea. Check out the following links for more info:

Official Press Release from Nebraska

Husker CornCast: Tim Miles—Bad Hire?: The folks at Corn Nation discuss the hire on their podcast

Tim Miles Biography from Huskers.com

More news bites after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Ohio State beat Syracuse to earn a trip to New Orleans this weekend. It looked like this was inevitable early in the season, after the Buckeyes pasted Duke in November they were #2 in the rankings and looking nearly unbeatable. Even after losing Diebler, Lighty and Buford folks were very bullish on OSU's chances to win the conference and make a run for the National Championship.

As is almost always the case, things didn't quite go as smoothly for OSU as it looked like it would in November. Jared Sullinger had some back pain that caused him to miss a couple of games. One of those games was against Kansas, their Final Four opponent, who handed OSU their first loss.

After that loss, they put won some games that were supposed to, before falling at Indiana. That loss was disappointing, but that was only IU's second-best win on the season, having beaten #1 Kentucky three weeks prior. The Buckeyes were still the favorites to win the conference, and everybody was gunning for them. Brandon Paul had the best offensive game of the Big Ten season, scoring 43 points to mark Bruce Weber's last big win of his Illini career.

Ohio State then handled Michigan and beat Wisconsin in a typical low-scoring affair at the Kohl Center. Purdue came to Columbus ready to play (offense at least), but the Buckeyes matched them score-for-score and pulled it out at the end.

Then came the worst stretch of the season. The Buckeyes lost their perfect home record, as the Spartans beat them 58-48. Another low-scoring effort led to a loss at Michigan, and the loss at home to Wisconsin was the low point of the season.

On the final game of the regular season, Sullinger and company went into East Lansing and came out with a win and a share of the conference title. Things were looking good headed into the BTT, and OSU rolled Purdue and Michigan to face MSU again in the finals. MSU won the rubber match and the BTT, and earned themselves the one-seed.

On Selection Sunday, Ohio State was awarded a two-seed in Syracuse's region. Shortly after the selections, Syracuse announced that Fab Melo was ineligible to play in the tournament. Many prognosticators then labeled the Orange the weakest one-seed, and they almost lost to UNC-Asheville in their first game. That seemed to wake them up, though and Syracuse was waiting for OSU in the Regional Finals on Saturday.

Ohio State's biggest scare in the tournament came against the Fighting Cincinnati Bearcats, who staged an impressive comeback in the second half of the Sweet Sixteen game after getting behind early. The Buckeyes answered with an impressive run to finish it out and win by a comfortable margin.

As you could read in almost any recap of the game, there were a lot of fouls called in the Syracuse game. Sullinger got two in the first five minutes and Matta benched him for the rest of the half. Teflon Jim Boeheim complained about the officiating in this game, even though he dismissed such concerns about questionable calls in the UNC-A game. Ohio State attacked the zone rather than being content shooting jump shots, and they were rewarded with a lot of free throws. They also hit most of them in the closing minutes, as Syracuse was fouling to try to stay in the game.

So that's a short version of how Ohio State made it to the National Semifinals. It will be interesting to see if their story ends on Saturday, or if they can celebrate one last championship to end the season.

Four teams from the conference won their first two games in the tournament and are now in the Sweet Sixteen. Three of them play on Thursday and there is one game on Friday. Here is the schedule:

Thursday:

7:15 4 Wisconsin vs 1 Syracuse - Boston, MA

7:47 1 Michigan St. vs 4 Louisville - Phoenix, AZ

9:45 6 Cincinnati vs 2 Ohio St. - Boston, MA

Friday:

9:45 1 Kentucky vs 4 Indiana - Atlanta, GA

We'll try to answer a few quick questions after the break.

Continue reading this post »

I first heard about Lewis Jackson when I was listening to the Matt Painter radio show on my way home from work. Jackson had just signed his letter of intent, and Painter was free to talk about him for the first time that I had heard. Painter saw something special in Jackson, and was very enthusiastic about him. Coaches aren't really going to be negative about a recruit they just signed, but it seemed genuine to me. I heard a mention that this kid from Decatur, Illinois who stood well under six foot, could dunk. That seemed amazing to me, that a high school kid that short could dunk.

When Jackson started playing his freshman year, it wasn't quite what I expected. I guess the dunking comment stuck with me, and this kid didn't look like he was going to dunk anytime soon. I still liked what he brought to the table though: a true point who could handle the ball and was faster than anyone else on the court. And his on-ball defense was great: right up in the offense player's space, with his chest bumping into him on occasion.

Then the Wisconsin game happened. A few minutes into the game, Jackson was hit with a screen that he didn't see coming by Joe Krabbenhoft. It wasn't just a screen, though. The Badger big man clearly threw a forearm shiver into Jackson during the screen. Jackson went down hard and hit his head on the court. He went to the bench and was clearly dazed. They kept showing him sitting on the bench and it was clear to me that he had a concussion of some sort.

I don't know why the Purdue coaches and trainers didn't recognize this; Jackson definitely shouldn't have been allowed to play anymore that night. Jackson did get back in the game, and, although it was a terrible decision to put him back into the game, I gained a lot of respect for Lewis Jackson on that night.

Continue reading this post »

After Saturday's action, the Big Ten has three teams in the Sweet Sixteen. Ohio State managed to pull away from Gonzaga in the final minutes for a 73-66 victory, Wisconsin won a close one against Vanderbilt and Indiana pulled off a dramatic comeback in the final minute to get past VCU.

The Hoosiers will face Kentucky in a highly anticipated rematch. The Buckeyes will take on the winner of the Cincinnati - Florida St. game. The Badgers get #1 seed Syracuse, who suffered a first-game scare against UNC-Asheville.

Click on for some more analysis from Saturday's games.

Continue reading this post »

Yesterday we took a spin around the web to see what people are thinking about their teams as we head into the first round of the tournament. Today we're going to look at the teams that are playing on Friday. Here is the Big Ten's Friday schedule:

7:20 PM 4 Michigan vs 13 Ohio - Nashville

7:27 PM 7 St. Mary's vs 10 Purdue - Omaha

9:20 PM 1 Michigan St. vs 16 LIU-Brooklyn - Columbus

Continue reading this post »

The NCAA Tournament gets underway for the Big Ten on Thursday with three games:

3:15 Wisconsin vs Montana - Albuquerque, NM

9:45 Indiana vs New Mexico St. - Portland, OR

9:50 Ohio St. vs Loyola (Md.) - Pittsburgh, PA

As a preview, we're going to check out what some team-specific sites are saying about their draws, their first round opponents, and what lies ahead.

Continue reading this post »

StegerWithSwagg and Seer both had 17 points after Michigan State's win in the Big Ten Tournament Final. SWS ended up in first place due his guess of 130 points as the tiebreaker. The total score of the game was 132. Since SWS is a writer on the site, he is not eligible to win the prize. So Seer wins the gift certificate to the BTN store.

The rest of the results are after the jump, or you can click here to see the spreadsheet.

Thanks to everyone who picked.

Continue reading this post »

Selection Sunday is one of the biggest sports days of the year. It's kind of an odd day, as the most important part of it isn't a sporting event, isn't just people on TV talking about upcoming games. It's fun to make predictions about things that happen on Selection Sunday, so some of our writers made some predictions.

Prediction #1: BTT Winner

apy5000: Michigan State
Although the Buckeyes are playing as well as they have all season, Michigan State is built to defend Jared Sullinger. The Spartans have size at forward with Draymond Green, Derrick Nix and Adreian Payne. On the other side of the ball, Ohio State does not have a man who can guard Green one-on-one.

babaoreally: Ohio State
I like what I've seen from the Buckeyes in the BTT so far. Evan Ravenel has played well lately, and I think he will help balance out Michigan State's size inside. They're both pretty good teams that seem to be peaking in the right month.

OBrienSchofieldismyHero: Ohio State
OSU wins a close one 57-56. The Spartans get a chance at the victory, only for William Buford to crush their hopes and dreams.

StegerWithSwagg: Michigan State
Michigan State and Ohio State both dominated their opponents in the semis, but Draymond Green struggled for the Spartans. He rarely has two poor games in a row, so I expect him to lead the charge for the Sparty victory.

BT Hoops: Michigan State
Both teams come in sizzling from the semifinals, but I think the defensive presence of the Spartans inside will be enough to stop Jared Sullinger and earn the Spartans their first Big Ten Tournament Championship since 2000.

David P Funk: Ohio State
The loss of Branden weakens the rebounding advantage that MSU has coming in. Also, OSU has been playing very well in the tournament.

More predictions after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

I'm writing down my thoughts as I watch this game. Feel free to use this as an open thread to discuss the game.

Second Half

0:00 Ohio State wins in a rout. Hopefully the OSU-MSU final tomorrow is more competitive.

From @MattMcCoyWTVN: William Buford will be the first player in BTT history to play in the final all four years of his career. OSU won the last two and lost in the finals three years ago to Purdue.

2:52 Subs in for both teams. They have given up. So I will give up as well.

4:20 Aaron Craft's mouthpiece on the ear thing is pretty disgusting.

4:20 Pac-12 Final up next! Watch teams that are worse than you will see in a mid-level conference!

6:00 This game is over. The announcers are barely talking about the game, and I can't blame them. Unless there is a fight or something, I don't think there will be too many more updates.

Continue reading this post »

Second Half

0:00 That's it. MSU advances to the BTT Finals for the first time since 2000(!). They have been in Finals twice, winning in both 1999 and 2000.

4:21 Steve Kerr says that Larry Bird has done a good job with the Pacers the past couple of years. I don't think anybody will ever say that about Kerr's GM tenure with the Suns.

5:00 I'm not a fan of these alternate camera angles during a game. Please just give us the standard up high sideline view. Mix it up during replays if you want, but not during live play.

As OBrienSchofieldismyHero pointed out on twitter, I don't think Ryan Evans should be chucking up a bunch of threes. He is 19% for the year.

7:28 Jordan Taylor, please don't complain about a foul call after you swing your arm into Green's face.

7:46 MSU back in control, back up 14.

9:25 Appling buries a three at the end of the shot clock. UW no longer has the momentum.

10:30 Northwestern has never made the tourney? That's the first I've heard of that.

11:56 Second time in the game we have had an MSU timeout followed by an MSU basket and a foul, followed by a TV timeout.

Continue reading this post »

You probably know what happened in the BTT first round. The only upset was 10 Minnesota beating 7 Northwestern in heartbreaking fashion for the Wildcats. Purdue and Indiana took care of business against the conference doormats and Iowa might have just put the finishing touches on Bruce Weber's Illinois career. Here are some reactions from around the internet.

Iowa 64, Illinois 61

Iowa Reaction: It's time to dance!

Illinois Reaction: Talking about what's next for Illinois and Bruce Weber (HINT: Bruce Weber will not be the coach next year).

Indiana 75, Penn State 58

Indiana Reaction: IU's first BTT win is hard to celebrate after Verdell Jones III's knee injury.

Penn State Reaction: Some analysis about how Indiana stopped Tim Frazier.

Minnesota 75, Northwestern 68 OT

Minnesota Reaction: Hopeful for the future with Andre Hollins leading the way.

Northwestern Reaction: FML.

Purdue 79, Nebraska 61

Purdue Reaction: Happy with the offensive production out of the young guys.

Nebraska Reaction: Not too many people seemed surprised. That might have been the end of the Doc Sadler regime.

(UPDATE: Contest is closed for new entries. Good luck to everyone who participated.)

It's time for the second annual BTT prediction contest. It's easy to enter and a nice warmup for the brackets you'll be filling out next week. I haven't decided on a prize yet, but, rest assured, there may or may not be one. (UPDATE: Winner gets a $25 gift certificate to the BTN store. If a writer wins, prize goes to highest scoring reader.)

Anyway, it's a simple process. Pick the winners of each of the games in the comments. Pick the total score of the championship game for a tiebreaker. Points awarded start at one for the first round and increase by one in each subsequent round.

Here are the games:

G1: 8 Iowa vs 9 Illinois

G2: 5 Indiana vs 12 Penn State

G3: 7 Northwestern vs 10 Minnesota

G4: 6 Purdue vs 11 Nebraska

G5: 1 Michigan State vs G1 Winner

G6: 4 Wisconsin vs G2 Winner

G7: 2 Michigan vs G3 Winner

G8: 3 Ohio State vs G4 Winner

G9: G5 Winner vs G6 Winner

G10: G7 Winner vs G8 Winner

Champ: G9 Winner vs G10 Winner

My picks as well as the rest of our writers' picks are after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

This is an updated version of the same post that I wrote last year. I changed it to reverse chronological order and added a section for last year.

When the first Big Ten Tournament took place in 1998, it left the Pac-10 and the Ivy League as the only conferences that still gave the automatic bid to the regular season champs. Since then the Pac-10 has caved and now the Ivies stand alone.

With the fifteenth edition of the tournament set to tip off this Thursday in Indianapolis, let's get caught up with a review of the tourney's history.

Continue reading this post »

Michigan State had a two game lead in the conference standings coming into this week, but a loss at Indiana and today's home loss against Ohio State opened up the door for a shared conference championship. After a season in which they underachieved and finished with a .500 conference record, the Spartans came back with a solid performance in conference play this year. Their seven game winning streak, with wins against Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio State in February gave them a share of the conference crown before the final week of games were even played.

Despite losing Darius Morris, their best player from a year ago, Michigan improved their record by four games this year. With today's win at Penn State the Wolverines snagged a share of the conference crown. A big reason for their great season has been freshman sensation Trey Burke, who has made UM fans forget about Darius Morris. John Beilein is probably the favorite for coach of the year in the conference.

Ohio State, the prohibitive favorite to win the conference this year, came back in East Lansing after being down fifteen in the first half. William Buford hit the game winner to end his Big Ten regular season career in style. Ohio State played most of the season with a target on their backs, as they were the defending champions and the odds-on favorites this year. It would have been considered a disappointment if the Buckeyes didn't win the conference championship this season, and they avoided that by earning a share with their performance on Sunday.