Purdue overcame a lackluster shooting night from E'Twaun Moore to post a comfortable 83-68 win at Penn State. If you like whistles and free throws, this was your game. Both teams were in the bonus for much of the second half, and Purdue shot 41 free throws on 55 field goal attempts--a season best 74.5 free throw rate. Some of this was late in the game with Penn State trying to catch up, but a lot of it wasn't.

Penn State's 2-3 zone was fairly effective for stretches, especially in the first half when JaJuan Johnson got only two shot attempts that weren't following an offensive rebound--and one of those shots was a three. It looked like a good defensive strategy at times, but Purdue has a zone-buster that is absolutely unconscious right now in Ryne Smith. The junior guard played his role--knocking down standstill threes--to the tune of 20 points on just 5 shots. Smith is now 12 for 18 from three (67 percent) in Big Ten play. That won't continue, but it's clear that Smith's former accuracy issues (29.6 percent coming into the season) are now behind him.

The other unexpected contribution came from Lewis Jackson, who knocked down multiple tough looks on his way to 17 points (6 shots). Jackson's line was bolstered by Penn State's late strategy of hack-a-LewJack (he made 7 of 13 from the foul line), but it was still a good offensive showing from the diminutive junior. Let me just say this right now: when Ryne Smith and Lewis Jackson combine for 37 points on 11 shots, Purdue isn't losing. JaJuan Johnson played a solid second half to finish with 15 points, 15 rebounds, and 5 blocks, and the team scored 1.14 points per possession despite E'Twaun Moore's 2 for 10 night. I continue to be amazed by this Purdue offense--Moore and Johnson are both blowing away their career norms, and guys like Jackson, Smith, and D.J. Byrd are converting the resulting open looks in a way they couldn't last year. The imminent return of John Hart should only help.

When we talk Purdue, of course, we have to talk about defense. The job done by Kelsey Barlow and Lewis Jackson on Talor Battle was superb. Battle rarely got an open look and finished with 18 points on a whopping 22 shots. A surprising outburst from Jermaine Marshall (18 points on 10 shots, mostly thanks to fearless penetration) kept Penn State somewhat close, but the Nittany Lions were still held to 0.93 points per possession, their third lowest output of the season.

So far, Purdue is doing what a contender needs to do--comfortably win games against the lower half, both home and away. According to Pomeroy's odds, there's a 52 percent chance that the Boilers head to Columbus on January 25 without a conference loss.

Another potential contender, Wisconsin, started out their game against Michigan with uncharacteristic sloppiness. The Badgers committed six first half turnovers and, despite solid shooting, went into the break trailing by two. As is usually the case with good teams, Wisconsin turned it around in a big way in the second half, turning it over just twice and scoring like mad. The end result was a 66-50 victory that's even more impressive when considering the 54 possession pace.

Wisconsin scored 1.22 points per possession, a number that only red-hot Purdue has bested against Michigan. On the defensive end, the Badgers' rebounding was incredible. The Wolverines don't get many offensive rebounds normally, but to hold any team to a 7.7 percent offensive rebounding rate (just two caroms) is mighty impressive.

The Badgers again relied on the three to pull up their effective field goal percentage, hitting 9 of 19 (47 percent). Jon Leuer and Jordan Taylor combined for 37 points and 16 rebounds, while Keaton Nankivil scored 13 points on 8 shots. Remember, this was a 54 possession game, so teams in an average-paced game would have had 1.25 times more opportunities to accumulate counting stats. Leuer and Taylor seem to be getting more national recognition lately, but I'm still not sure they get as much as they deserve. They'll need to be on top of their games next Tuesday as the Badgers travel to Michigan State.

Tonight, we get a rematch of a game that needed overtime last season as Northwestern visits Illinois (8pm CT, ESPN2). It sounds silly to say this in early January, but the Wildcats are running out of chances to get top 50 wins on their resume. According to RPIForecast's projections, only six of Northwestern's remaining regular season games are against teams that will finish in the RPI top 50, including tonight. It's looking like the St. John's loss won't be so damaging after all, but Bill Carmody's team needs some quality wins to even get into the Tournament discussion. We'll see if they can finally get one tonight.

- Posted by Mike Portscheller