The B1G Roast: Job Opening in Indiana

It has been brought to my attention that baseball season is almost upon us. That is almost as exciting as it being nearly 60 degrees in Minnesota... in February! I don’t know what we did to deserve this, but I’m fine with it. Weather like this, and baseball season, makes me want to grill. There are few smells better than when a grill really gets going and brats and burgers are cooking. You knew it was almost spring in Madison when you smelled that first grill cooking.

This summer I want to start smoking a bunch of meat too, and now that I have a backyard with a patio, I think I can install a BBQ pit with no legal repercussions. My neighbors are going to love me. I’ve really reached “peak 31-year-old suburban dad” pretty quickly, huh?

Anyways, maybe we’ll have to fire up (grill joke!) a new column this summer about grilling and drinking and my misadventures with both. Let’s get down to the serious business of Big Ten hoops first. We’ve got advanced stats brought to us by KenPom and jokes brought to us by Twitter dot com and sometimes me.

Illinois Fighting Illini

KenPom rank: AdjEm: 72nd; AdjO: 116th; AdjD: 65th

Previous week’s results: (W) at Iowa 70-66

Biggest strength: Malcolm Hill was the standout for the Illini (again) by scoring 21 points, snagging eight rebounds and dropping four dimes. More importantly, it seems that Chance the Rapper is a fan of Lovie Smith and the Illini. Chance is a winner and supremely talented. Illinois football and basketball are decidedly...not those things. A real “opposites attract” situation if ever I saw one.

Biggest weakness: Illinois has won two of its last three, with the one loss being a home defeat to Penn State (which is weird), and the FIRE JOHN GROCE train has lost a tiny bit of steam.

They should probably still can him, but the Illini are favored to win two of their last four games and if they win a game or two in the Big Ten tournament, they should have a home game in the NIT and as we all know, anything can happen come tourney time! That being said, I fully expect Illinois to end the season on a five-game losing streak and cancel basketball for next season.

This week’s schedule: Tuesday vs. Northwestern; Sunday at Nebraska

Indiana Hoosiers

KenPom rank: AdjEm: 45th; AdjO: 30th; AdjD: 104th

Previous week’s results: (L) at Minnesota 75-74

Biggest strength: Coaches are practicing what they preach. Gotta like that.

James Blackmon had 22 points and Thomas Bryant had 10 rebounds. Otherwise... nothing. There appear to be no viable strengths for this Indiana basketball team. You should check out this post from Kyle Robbins over at Crimson Quarry for a well-thought-out essay on what is wrong with IU hoops. You should also search “Fire Tom Crean” on Twitter for the opposite of “well-thought-out” and then laugh and laugh and laugh.

Biggest weakness: There is something seriously wrong with the Hoosiers. This last possession for the Gophers should have ended with an IU rebound AND victory.

But they gave up the offensive rebound and Akeem Springs followed his own shot to win the game. It sucks that Indiana was beset by so many injuries this year, but this kind of looks like a team that doesn’t particularly care to play basketball all the time. The Hoosiers came out of halftime and were winning by five points with 2:26 left but then just kind of crumbled. I don’t know what’s going on with this team and as Kid Rock once said, only God knows why... Indiana basketball is terrible. I’m pretty sure that was the full lyric.

Remember above? This is the kind of gold you’ll be getting on Twitter dot com.

This week’s schedule: Tuesday at Iowa; Saturday vs. Northwestern

Iowa Hawkeyes

KenPom rank: AdjEm: 78th; AdjO: 56th; AdjD: 136th

Previous week’s results: (L) vs. Illinois 70-66

Biggest strength: Staying on brand.

Peter Jok “Of Seagulls” scored 16 points, moving him into 16th place on the Iowa all-time list, and grabbed 10 boards and dished out four assists. Jordan Bohannon, who also always stays on brand, was 3-of-4 from distance and 0-of-2 from inside the arc. I’m extremely interested to follow his career and hope that he ends up never shooting a two-pointer his entire senior year. For those scoring at home, he is 21-of-68 (30.9 percent) from two and 59-of-158 (37.3% percent) from three so far.

Biggest weakness: I wanted to make fun of Iowa for being a cut-rate Penn State with this whack “whiteout,” but then I read further about it and it was in honor of former Hawkeye Kenny Arnold who has been battling numerous severe maladies.

This was nice. Also, the script Iowa is a nice looking jersey and the Hawkeyes should go back to that. Also also, the Illini are bad. Losing to them at home is bad. Iowa is bad.

This week’s schedule: Tuesday vs. Indiana; Saturday at Maryland

Maryland Terrapins

KenPom rank: AdjEm: 32nd; AdjO: 44th; AdjD: 42nd

Previous week’s results: (W) at Northwestern 74-64; (L) at No. 16 Wisconsin 71-60

Biggest strength: Melo Trimble, the current Big Ten Player of the Week, is certainly a strength.

He scored a career-high 32 points against NU. This graph accurately describes the disparity of Melo Trimbles in that game.

Biggest weakness: Melo Trimble oddly couldn’t make free throws against the Badgers. Terp fans aren’t mad; this is actually funny to them.

Couldn’t buy a rebound against Wisconsin. Participated in a pre and post-game show for the Red Panda in Evanston but BTN ruined everything.

Trimble wasn’t the only Terp to garner weekly honors. Damonte Dodd is a “What? How? Stat Line of the Week” nominee, playing 14 minutes, scoring zero points on 0-of-1 shooting, two rebounds, two turnovers, a block and four fouls. I guess you can’t score if you’re always fouling. Michal Cekovsky fractured his ankle against the Badgers and will miss the rest of the year. That sucks, and hopefully he is able to bounce back next year.

This week’s schedule: Wednesday vs. Minnesota; Saturday vs. Iowa

Michigan Wolverines

KenPom rank: AdjEm: 27th; AdjO: 11th; AdjD: 105th

Previous week’s results: (W) vs. No 16 Wisconsin 64-58; (L) at Minnesota 83-78, OT

Biggest strength: In what was a nightmare come to life, Moe Wagner had a great game against the Badgers. He scored 21 points and was making shots from all over the court. He also played well against Minnesota and someone needs to stop him or else the entire world is in trouble! Seeing Ethan Happ match up with Wagner for, hopefully, the next two years will be a treat for Big Ten hoops fans.

As you can see, Wagner having a good game has led other Michigan players to start channeling characters from their favorite media. I don’t watch Game of Thrones (yeah, yeah, I know... I’ll get around to it eventually) so I don’t know if the Night King is a bad guy or not, but if he’s anything like Nightman from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia... I’m glad the Badgers left Ann Arbor with their souls in tact. Wisconsin was missing Bronson “Dayman” Koenig for the game, so it makes sense that it lost.

Biggest weakness: I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this before, but Big Ten officiating is #bad.

Losing to Minnesota at The Barn isn’t that weird, but it does stunt a little of the momentum the Wolverines had gained after beating Wisconsin. Michigan looks like it should make the tournament this year, which was kind of up in the air earlier when it sat at 2-4 in conference after losing to the Badgers.

This week’s schedule: Wednesday at Rutgers; Saturday vs. No. 11 Purdue

Michigan State Spartans

KenPom rank: AdjEm: 54th; AdjO: 91st; AdjD: 39th

Previous week’s results: (W) vs. Ohio State 74-66; (L) at No. 11 Purdue 80-63

Biggest strength: Getting after Dan Dakich.

The Izzone was mad because Dakich said something about how most kids at MSU couldn’t get into Michigan and honestly... he’s probably right. Michigan is a hard school to get into and Michigan State is the “easier” of the two academically. I’ve told this story before, but a bunch of friends and I went to East Lansing for a Badgers/Spartans basketball game years ago because a passing acquaintance we knew from Madison, who is from Michigan, was in med school there. We were out at the bar on Saturday night and there was a whole mess of good-looking girls there and we asked him if it was always like that. He responded with, “Yeah, all the pretty dumb girls in Michigan come to State because they can’t get into Michigan and they wouldn’t be caught dead at a directional Michigan.” Now, is this broad, offensive generalization true? That’s for the courts in the comment section to decide. Just an anecdotal story from a guy who knows nothing about the state of Michigan and even less about women.

Biggest weakness: We are making great strides in the advanced-stats industry.

I also have a controversial statement to make about Dan Dakich: I think he is a knowledgable dude who has insightful things to say but he packages it in a Skip Bayless Lite way that is intended to “embrace debate” and piss you off. I guess that’s just his #brand now. I try to only let important things make me upset, like how bad the officiating is in this conference.

Rough week for season-ending injuries in the Big Ten. Hopefully Eron Harris has a full recovery.

This week’s schedule: Thursday vs. Nebraska; Sunday vs. No. 16 Wisconsin

Minnesota Golden Gophers

KenPom rank: AdjEm: 39th; AdjO: 106th; AdjD: 14th

Previous week’s results: (W) vs. Indiana 75-74; (W) vs. Michigan 83-78, OT

Biggest strength: Further proof that every team in this conference should finish with the same record: Minnesota has now won five games in a row after losing five games in a row and has played in five overtime games in conference.

Make that 5-0 since the reported meeting. Jordan Murphy had 16 points and 15 boards vs. Michigan and four other players scored in double-figures.

I’m sad this video ended when it did. I kinda wanted to see if Richard Pitino ended up coaching the rest of the game in his underwear. Serious question: what would happen if he did that? Are there dress codes for college basketball coaches? Bob Huggins wears a velour jump suit to most games and all the coaches wear Hawaiian shirts during the Maui Invitational. What’s to stop Pitino from coaching the next game in boxers, socks and a jaunty top hat? The damn Puritans, probably.

Biggest weakness: Nate Mason only scored 30 points against the Hoosiers and Murphy only grabbed 15 rebounds. You really need to step on a bad team’s throat, Minnesota. Can’t let them hang around like that.

Greg Gard is Mr. Steal Yo Girl.

This week’s schedule: Wednesday at Maryland; Saturday vs. Penn State

Nebraska Cornhuskers

KenPom rank: AdjEm: 79th; AdjO: 135th; AdjD: 57th

Previous week’s results: (W) vs. Penn State 82-66; (W) at Ohio State 58-57

Biggest strength: Usually not something you hear during a Nebraska basketball game:

The Huskers legitimately blew out Penn State. Glynn Watson and Jack McVeigh had 15 points apiece while Tai Webster and Jordy Tshimanga each added 12. They also somehow beat Ohio State after having a 1.9 percent chance to win with 32 seconds left.

Biggest weakness: Take a look at this picture:

Does Nebraska basketball think it is important enough to have “the” in front of its name? Also, does it say something below “Basketball?” Because otherwise, the sign makes no sense grammatically as well as the historical basketball sense that certainly makes no sense.

The Huskers brought us TWO winners of the “What? How? Stat Line of the Week” in the game against the Buckeyes. Evan Taylor played 23 minutes, scored zero points on 0-for-5 shooting, had two rebounds, two assists, two turnovers and two fouls. Tshimanga played 18 minutes, recorded zero points on 0-for-2 shooting (and 0-for-2 from the line), had four rebounds (!!), one turnover, one block and two fouls. Combined in over a game’s worth of action, these two scored zero points and had six rebounds. I’m pretty sure I have the flu now. Thanks, Nebraska.

This week’s schedule: Thursday at Michigan State; Sunday vs. Illinois

Northwestern Wildcats

KenPom rank: AdjEm: 34th; AdjO: 51st; AdjD: 34th

Previous week’s results: (L) vs. Maryland 74-64; (W) vs. Rutgers 69-65

Biggest strength: I’m just excited that Alexis from The Bachelor is now in the student section for Northwestern. Her true calling is to just appear places, dressed as a shark, and be weird.

I once went to a Phillies/Giants game in San Francisco and it was Bark at the Park night. The Phillies lost and it was still my favorite game ever. There should be a section at every sporting event for people to bring their dogs. /drafts letter to Minnesota’s senators

Biggest weakness: The Wildcats had trouble with Maryland at home and Bryant McIntosh had an “off” night, which are two things that have a definite correlation. McIntosh had a good game against Rutgers (I know Rutgers is, well, Rutgers... but still!) and the Wildcats were able to escape with a win. If McIntosh and Vic Law are “on” during the same game, NU could make some noise in March. Also, Scottie Lindsey needs to be fully healthy too. Writing this column every week has basically convinced me that I’m going to pick Northwestern in the Final Four. 2017 is weirder than 2016 tbqh.

This week’s schedule: Wednesday at Minnesota

Ohio State Buckeyes

KenPom rank: AdjEm: 65th; AdjO: 71st; AdjD: 75th

Previous week’s results: (L) at Michigan State 74-66; (L) vs. Nebraska 58-57

Biggest strength: This is even more offensive than aOsu’s basketball season.

Marc Loving had 22 points against MSU and Jae’Sean Tate, who is the best, had 14, 10 and three against Nebraska. Otherwise, it was a week of piping hot baby diapers for aOsu basketball.

Biggest weakness:

The Buckeyes are really quite bad this year and probably won’t even finish the season above .500. Let’s talk some more about Big Ten officiating! It’s still awful and everyone complains about it. The Badgers’ game against Maryland was a masterpiece in how to ruin the flow of a game and make it all about the refs. What happened in Big Ten refs’ childhoods that made them so needy later in life? I’m going to try my best to not complain about the officiating once during the Buckeyes/Badgers game on Thursday. Let’s all be better!

/just in case a blood vessel pops in my neck during that game, I’m going to have an ambulance parked in my driveway

This week’s schedule: Thursday vs. No. 16 Wisconsin

Penn State Nittany Lions

KenPom rank: AdjEm: 80th; AdjO: 154th; AdjD: 44th

Previous week’s results: (L) at Nebraska 82-66

Biggest strength: Forget the tragedy that is Nittany Lions basketball for a moment and let’s discuss Wayne Shaw. Who is Wayne Shaw, you ask? He is the reserve goalie for Sutton United.

He is 46 years old and weighs 280 pounds. He also may have illegally placed a bet on himself eating a pie during the game! (UPDATE: He has resigned from the team!) He might be my new favorite athlete. Sutton United is a non-league English side and they lost 2-0 to Arsenal on Monday in the fifth round of the FA Cup, which is a tournament involving every team in the dang country. I hope someday my tiny high school beats Alabama in an amateur football tournament, which is just what this country needs.

Biggest weakness: Tony Carr had 15 points and seven boards, but no one cares about that when there are smuggled horse genitals in the news!

There were also three liters of yak’s milk. I don’t know what crazy scheme the two women that were detained coming from Mongolia were hatching... but I want to be included in the next one.

This week’s schedule: Tuesday vs. No. 11 Purdue; Saturday at Minnesota

Purdue Boilermakers

KenPom rank: AdjEm: 11th; AdjO: 16th; AdjD: 15th

Previous week’s results: (W) vs. Rutgers; (W) vs. Michigan State

Biggest strength: Purdue is pretty good, we all know that, so let’s go back to ripping on Indiana!

I think Indiana’s line is hilarious and thought the Purdue section would be the best place to throw some more shade at the Hoosiers.

Biggest weakness: When you have as many games with 20 and 20 as you do games without a double-double... you are, uh, having a pretty good season.

If you would like an in-depth breakdown of the Biggie/Happ POtY debate, this wonderful post gives you literally every piece of information you’d need. I mean, there aren’t any breakdowns of Summer House or Tom Crean GIFs, but it’s still pretty good. Also, what if we started calling Happ “2Happ?” Like 2Pac... since he has a rivalry with Biggie and also he can only make two-pointers? OOOOOOOH! Or Happaveli!

This week’s schedule: Tuesday at Penn State; Saturday at Michigan

Rutgers Scarlet Knights

KenPom rank: AdjEm: 127th; AdjO: 238th; AdjD: 60th

Previous week’s results: (L) at No. 11 Purdue 74-55; (L) at Northwestern 69-65

Biggest strength: This week on Summer House, it was Lindsey’s 30th birthday party and she was sad because earlier in the week she had broken up with Everrett.

In a shock to absolutely no one, Everrett showed up to the party, they made up and were dating again in the span of about seven minutes. The previews for next week’s episode show her angrily getting up from the dinner table and screaming at him, “I’m going to go sleep in a bed, with a man!” This is because Stephen, who is the best, was told by Everrett that the one night he (Everrett) didn’t sleep at the house he was actually with four women in some other house. It’s the basis for any long lasting relationship, really: lie to your significant other about where you slept and how many people were sleeping with you.

Biggest weakness: In our other relationship storyline that is going off the rails, Lauren, one of the twins, gets mad at Carl, who brings two girls to the house without asking anyone first. Carl, obviously, ends up banging one of the girls, so Lauren spends both nights of the weekend at some dude’s place... which everyone in the house, lovingly, calls “away games.”

Earlier in the episode, Carl mentions that Lauren is the type of girl he could see himself committing to, so why wouldn’t he sleep with a girl that, uh, isn’t her?

Kyle gets really drunk and hooks up with the other girl that Carl brought and Cristina calls the two girls “hookers” and then gets called out for it. She is just the worst. This show, on the other hand, is the best.

This week’s schedule: Wednesday at Minnesota

Wisconsin Badgers

KenPom rank: AdjEm: 16th; AdjO: 37th; AdjD: 7th

Previous week’s results: (L) at Michigan 64-58; (W) vs. Maryland 71-60

Biggest strength: Made some halftime adjustments against Maryland that really seemed to work. Nigel Hayes played aggressively against the Terps and Brevin Pritzl had a MONSTER DUNK and a great hustle play to save possession.

Is there anything Big Ten basketball fans get more excited for than when a player dives out of bounds to save the ball? Maybe farming. But that’s it! Happ had back-to-back twenty-point games and played really, really good defense and also passed well out of the double-team against Maryland. Khalil Iverson had a nice game against Michigan and was the only player, besides Happ, who seemed to show up in Ann Arbor.

Biggest weakness: Vitto Brown had one point in 35 minutes of action last week. One. Point. /starts chanting “THREE-GUARD LINEUP” wildly in my living room

D’Mitrik Trice looked like he was trying to do too much in his first career start at Michigan. He should not be shooting the ball 15 times in a game, like, ever. He did have a 2:1 assist:turnover ratio, though, and added two steals. He’s going to be a good one, but it’s a tough draw to get your first start on the road at Michigan, which desperately needed the win.

Nigel ruined a #nice score with this dunk. DO IT FOR THE MEMES, MAN!

This week’s schedule: Thursday at Ohio State; Sunday at Michigan State

Kaminsky is such a weird dude. I love it.