B5Q Blogopean Union: Badgers basketball splits their B1G/ACC Challenge games

Good morning! This is going to be a daily(ish) post that discusses the goings on of the rest of the Big Ten Conference, and the country as needed. Much like the European Union, the Big Ten is a loosely confederated group of entities that sometimes have the same goals (like free movement of people between countries or not winning national titles in football or basketball) and sometimes accept new members that they later regret (Estonia or Nebraska).

We hope that you will use this post to comment on things happening around the conference and also as a sort of daily open thread to discuss breaking news or argue about Spotted Cow (which we NO LONGER DO).

• Please, sports networks...people want to watch women’s sports. Put them on TV and the viewers will come. It is a pretty untapped market of people that is expanding rapidly and the numbers seem to bear that out.

• 2022 men’s basketball commit Connor Essegian is now his high school’s all-time leading scorer. Congrats to him!

• Please study this if you’re going to the women’s hockey series this weekend. It would be embarrassing for you if you showed up in the wrong color for your section.

• Joe Pavelski has truly had a magnificent, Hall of Fame worthy, career in the NHL. The Pride of Plover just can’t stop scoring!

• Former Wisconsin quarterback Daniel Wright will continue his athletic career at Houston...playing baseball! Pretty cool to be good enough at two sports that you can play them both at the collegiate level.

• The women’s basketball team lost their B1G/ACC Challenge matchup against Virginia Tech on Wednesday night. While it is kinda loser energy to note that Va. Tech is “receiving votes” in this tweet, the point stands that Wisconsin played a much better team fairly evenly.

• This is a cool picture, that’s all.

This is a funny one.

Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

• Man, the transfer portal really worked out for Kenneth Walker III, aka the Big Ten RB of the Year, and MSU.
• The Nebraska/NC State men’s hoops game was, to put it mildly, a wild affair.
• Inside NU has their second women’s hoops Power Rankings out and you’ll have to scroll all the way to the end to find Wisconsin.
• You may remember 2022 4-star QB Devin Brown as a player that, at one point, was thought to be a pretty solid Wisconsin lean. Well, he ended up picking Southern Cal...but then decommitted...and now he’s picked Ohio State. Sigh.
• Michigan’s men’s basketball kinda...stinks this year? That’s unexpected.
• Top-ten Maryland women’s hoops has lost a number of key contributors to injury early in the season, and they need to regroup to snap their losing streak.
• Jerry Kill, the former Minnesota head football coach, is now the head coach at New Mexico State. The Gophers and Aggies open the season against each other in Minneapolis next year and Kill is sure he’ll be booed. It sounds like he probably deserves to be.

Men’s basketball scores from Wednesday

Nebraska 100 - NC State 104 4OT
Louisville 64 - No. 22 Michigan State 73
Virginia Tech 62 - Maryland 58
No. 24 Michigan 51 - North Carolina 72
Miami (Fla.) 63 - Penn State 58

Big Ten 8 - ACC 6, yay Big Ten!

Women’s basketball scores from Wednesday

Rutgers 50 - Pitt 58
Nebraska 86 - Wake Forest 60
Georgia Tech 52 - Purdue 53
No. 18 Ohio State 91 - Syracuse 97
UNC 82 - Minnesota 76

Big Ten 2 - ACC 4