What happens when a 24-year-old lifelong Purdue fan attends part of the Big Ten men’s basketball tournament for the first time?
I’m glad you asked! This is part analysis, part journal...from someone who attended Friday’s quarterfinals in Indianapolis. And no, I wasn’t sitting in press row, I was in the corner of the upper deck. No hospitality room for me...we waited in line for our M&M’s and Diet Pepsi like every other common fan. So what did I see?
Quarterfinal #1 WISCONSIN 51, MICHIGAN 34
I saw a brilliant defensive performance from Michael Flowers individually and Wisconsin as a whole. Michigan’s total scoring output (34 points) would be decent for a football team, but not so much when playing hoops. Flowers locked down stud freshman Manny Harris and held him to 1-12 shooting. Of course, 1-12 from the floor doesn’t look quite as bad when your team struggles to a 20% showing overall. Harris couldn’t even get a drink of water without Flowers draped all over him, and they both played exactly the same number of minutes (34). Coincidence? Don’t think so.
Random side note: The halftime entertainment was a game of musical chairs featuring three Badger fans and three Wolverine supporters. Each contestant had to run from midcourt to shoot a layup and hustle back to grab one of the remaining chairs. The final Michigan fan was eliminated when he and the Wisconsin guy reached the chair at the exact same second. In a linebacker-worthy collision, they met in mid-air over the chair...and the Michigan fan ended up about four feet away on his back. Best hit of the day by far. On Wisconsin!
Quarterfinal #2 MICHIGAN STATE 67, OHIO STATE 60
You’ve all heard that it’s incredibly hard to beat a team three times in the same year. How about trying to beat the same team twice in five days? The Buckeyes gave a valiant effort (to be honest, they were more competitive than I expected them to be), but ultimately saw their NCAA bubble popped by a resurgent MSU squad in this rematch of Sunday’s regular-season finale. Drew Neitzel (my vote for Most Outstanding Player of the tournament, by the way) finally played like a superstar in Indianapolis this weekend, and it was too much for OSU to handle. Neitzel finished with six triples and 28 points while playing 37 minutes.
Random side note: if Kosta Koufos sticks around Ohio State for a while, he’s going to turn into quite a player. Koufos tossed in 19 points to keep the Bucks close, and MSU didn’t have an answer for him on the block.
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