College Basketball: Big Ten Weekend Preview

Minnesota (15-8, 5-6) @ Wisconsin (20-4, 10-2), 2 p.m. ET, BTN

Wisconsin is coming off an exhausting victory over Indiana on Wednesday night. The Badgers trailed Indiana 66-65 after two Gordon free throws with 17 seconds left.  Brian Butch banked in a three-pointer with five seconds left to avoid losing back to back games in the Big Ten. Wisconsin has won four of five and is in second place in the Big Ten. 

Tubby Smith has to be scratching his head after the Gophers got hammered at home by Illinois, 84-60. Minnesota will have to do something spectacular to make the NCAA tournament. 

Wisconsin held Minnesota to 47 points in their first meeting, a 63-47 victory. Wisconsin leads the Big Ten in scoring defense (55.3 ppg) and will improve on this statistic on Saturday against Minnesota. Bo Ryan is 104-7 at the Kohl Center in seven seasons and  one of those seven losses came last Saturday night against Purdue. Wisconsin is not going to lose two straight at home. Expect a snoozer to start the day.

Purdue (20-5, 11-1) @ Northwestern (7-15, 0-11), 4 p.m. ET, BTN

Purdue avenged its only loss in the Big Ten with a 60-54 victory over Michigan State on Tuesday night. Purdue lost at Michigan State on Jan. 8^th, 78-75. Robbie Hummel, freshman superstar, was sick and did not play in the first meeting. Hummel contributed 24 points in the second meeting of the year and Purdue survived a furious comeback. Purdue led at the half 34-18, however, Michigan State made some runs and actually had the deficit trimmed to one point on three occasions.

Northwestern is still searching for their first conference win after losing at home to Ohio State, 65-47. Northwestern has shown some life in the last couple of games. At Michigan State they only trailed by three with 10 minutes left in the game. Against Ohio State on Wednesday night it was a tie ball game with eight minutes left in the game. 

Purdue is one of the hottest teams in the country and there is no reason to believe they are going to cool off at Evanston on Saturday. Purdue will handle Northwestern and finally get some respect in the polls on Sunday night. 

Illinois (11-14, 3-9) @ Penn State (11-12, 3-8), 7 p.m. ET, BTN

After Illinois lost three straight to Michigan State, Purdue and Indiana they went on the road and hammered Minnesota, 84-60. Meacham had 19 points on 5-5 shooting behind the arc against Minnesota. 

After shocking Michigan State last Saturday night, Penn State has dropped two games on the road at Purdue and Michigan. The Nittany Lions have lost seven of eight games since the injury to Claxton, Penn State’s leading scorer.

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