After the tempo free community held a referendum on Michigan State’s offense, Tom Izzo’s team threw a curveball with a flat defensive performance against Penn State.  The Nittany Lions scored 1.08 points per possession en route to a 66-62 win in State College.  Driving Penn State’s offense was a refusal to turn the ball over, as Ed DeChellis’ team coughed it up just 6 times in 61 possessions.  Now, if you’re Tom Izzo, you can live with that part.  Forcing turnovers has never been a big part of Michigan State’s defense under Izzo, and it probably never will be.  But what I’m sure the MSU coach was upset about was the rebounding.  Michigan State generally the Spartans make up for it by outrebounding the opponent.  Not on Saturday though, as Penn State collected 39 percent of their misses.  

Worse yet, the lack of rebounding infected Michigan State’s offense, as they grabbed 34 percent of their misses.  Again, this isn’t a bad number, per se, but it’s just not Spartan-like.  This is one of the two major symptoms of the stalled offense so far this season (the other being two point accuracy).  The last time Michigan State’s offensive rebounding percentage was this low, the Spartans went 8-8 in conference play.  One guy whose play has been weaker than last season in both areas is Delvon Roe, and Saturday’s effort was again subpar for the talented junior (7 points, 1 rebound in 20 minutes).  If Roe can’t start giving Izzo more, he’s going to find himself logging more minutes sitting next to the head coach.

But let’s not take anything away from Penn State, which got fantastic production from its frontcourt.  Jeff Brooks and Andrew Jones combined for 33 points on 21 shots, 16 rebounds, and zero turnovers.  This has been a theme for Brooks all season.  Last year, Brooks succeeded in making two pointers but not much else.  He’s still doing a lot of that, but he’s also making threes, rebounding better, making more free throws, and blocking more shots.  In short, it’s a new knock on a new door on a new office for the senior forward, and he’s easily among the most improved players in the conference.  

Michigan nearly pulled off an even bigger upset but feel short in overtime in a 67-60 loss to Kansas.  The Jayhawks appeared to have this one in hand and at one point had a 15 point lead, but Michigan just hung around and slowly mounted a comeback over the final 10 minutes.  This was a sloppy offensive game on both sides, but I have to admit I’m very impressed with Michigan’s defense, especially the defensive rebounding.  Kansas grabbed under 30 percent of the available offensive rebounds, roughly 10 percent below their season average.  This was especially remarkable considering how much zone Michigan played.  I know the 1-3-1 hasn’t always been celebrated in Ann Arbor, but it was definitely the right move against the Jayhawks.  Kansas came into this game as the best 2-point shooting team in the country, and given the lack of size in Michigan’s frontcourt, it makes sense to minimize the number of interior looks for KU’s offense.  And it worked--over 40 percent of Kansas’ shots came from downtown.  This was true of Michigan as well, but that’s Beilein Ball.  That said, neither team could throw it in the ocean, as they combined for 8-52 from behind the arc.  The fact that Michigan put of lowly offensive numbers against the nation’s best defense is not exceptional, but Michigan holding Kansas to 0.91 points per possession definitely is.  This is especially welcome news given the Wolverines’ streak of permissive defense over the previous four games.  Now Beilein just needs to figure out how to import the non-conference defense to Michigan’s conference games.  Tim Hardaway Jr. led the way with 19 points on 19 shots.

Purdue thoroughly dominated Iowa in a 75-52 win at Mackey Arena.  The Hawkeyes just couldn’t make anything against Purdue’s defense, as the Boilermakers again put a prohibition on attempting three pointers, leaving Iowa to take their chances against JaJuan Johnson in the middle.  The result wasn’t pretty, as Fran McCaffrey’s squad made just 38 percent of their two pointers.  Purdue additionally swatted 9 Iowa shots (4 by Johnson).  Overall Iowa managed just 0.76 points per possession.  We talked earlier about the Duke-like defense being played in West Lafayette this season, and this certainly plays into that.  It’s an ingenious strategy by Matt Painter, who realizes that he has a talented shotblocker in the middle and therefore funnels the opposing offense into said shotblocker’s area.  Really, there’s only two ways to beat this kind of defense: the first is to have some big men who can shoot (and Northwestern did have some success against Purdue, but they couldn’t stop the Boilers at the other end).  The second way is to bring a lot of interior bulk that Johnson can’t patrol by himself (which is how Richmond upended the Boilermakers).  So it goes without saying that Purdue’s matchups against Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Illinois will be especially interesting for these reasons.

Iowa was obviously a big underdog on the road here, but the defensive effort was definitely lacking.  Virtually no ball pressure was applied by Iowa for much of the game, and as a result Purdue was able to get the ball pretty much wherever they wanted on offense.  McCaffrey needs to get more effort from his team in their next game against Northwestern, as the Wildcats’ offense figures to be at least as tough a test.

Ohio State beat Minnesota 67-64 in a rather gruesome game to watch in Columbus.  Neither team shot particularly well--OSU posted a 46.4 effective field goal percentage, while Minnesota was at 44.4.  The primary offensive engine for both teams came at the free throw line, where the Gophers were especially effective (24 for 27, against just 45 field goal attempts).  But the Buckeyes had fewer turnovers and more offensive boards, which led to more shots (56 field goal attempts compared to 45 for Minnesota).  David Lighty led Ohio State with 19 points on 13 shots, while Trevor Mbakwe got the better of Jared Sullinger with 16 points on just 5 shots, to go with 12 boards and 4 blocks.  

Mbakwe is clearly the engine that drives Minnesota, and that’s both the good news and the bad news.  The good news is that Mbakwe is really good--he outperformed Jared Sullinger in a heads-up matchup on Sullinger’s home floor, and some think the freshman is set to pick up some fancy hardware this season.  The bad news, however, is that Mbakwe is often in foul trouble, averaging over 5 per game.  Indeed, the extent of Mbakwe’s foul trouble figures to play a big part in Minnesota’s at-large chances.  But give credit to the Gophers--they’ve been in a rut and the news of Devoe Joseph’s departure couldn’t have come at a worse time.  So losing to the conference heavyweight on the road in a one possession game is something of an achievement.  Of course, achievements don’t show up in the standings.  (And no, Tubby, you’re not “a terrible coach.”).

For Ohio State, for most of the second half it was business as usual, as they led by 8-10 points for the majority of it.  But apparently the Buckeyes had some misinformation, believing the game to be over 3 minutes prior to the final buzzer.  At just over three minutes to play, OSU had the ball and a 9 point lead.  And yet, with 30 seconds to play, the Gophers were down 3 with a chance to tie on the game’s final possession.  Curiously, Minnesota missed two two-pointers before attempting a 3 (that would have been a great time to have Joseph available) that was blocked by William Buford, so the Buckeyes escaped.  I only mention this because the exact same thing happened in Ohio State’s last game against Iowa.  The good news is that the next three games for OSU come against teams likely to finish in the bottom half of the conference, so they have time to try and figure this out.  

In the last game of the weekend, Indiana couldn’t contain Northwestern in a 93-81 loss.  The Hoosiers employed a “Hack-a-Shaq” strategy, but against all of Northwestern.  The result was 38 free throw attempts for the Wildcats, which they converted at a 71 percent clip.  But the fouling wasn’t completely one-sided, as the Hoosiers attempted 25 free throws of their own.  Ultimately, the game really came down to Northwestern’s superior shooting.  Bill Carmody’s team made 50 percent of its frequent three point attempts, which raised the effective field goal percentage to 57.9.  The Wildcats also didn’t turn it over, rebounded 40 percent of the available offensive boards, and as mentioned, got to the free throw line early and often.  Add it all up, and it was a great display of offense (1.35 points per possession), something we’ve become used to with Northwestern over the past couple of seasons.  Unfortunately, we’ve also gotten used to lousy defense from the Wildcats, which was also on display last night (1.17 points per possession for Indiana’s offense).  Last year, Indiana posted its best offensive performance against Northwestern, with a 1.18 point per possession outburst.  There’s a good chance that history repeats itself this season.  But there was one big positive--John Shurna lit up the Hoosiers for 24 points on just 9 shots.  Looks like that ankle is just fine.

As for Indiana, this was a discouraging loss that clearly weighed on the players.  With about 9 minutes remaining in the second half and Northwestern up by 19, Derek Elston intentionally tripped a Northwestern player cutting across the lane.  What’s more is that the player really wasn’t a threat to score on the play--Elston might have just been taking out some frustration.  It was an ugly played that certainly warranted the technical foul that was called.  The conference slate has not been kind to Indiana thus far, but it’s still too early for this team to check out.  A winning season is probably out of the question now (they’d have to go .500 from here on out, and over half of the games remaining come against the likes of Michigan State, Purdue, Wisconsin, and Illinois), but there’s still hope for a postseason tournament of some kind.  Let’s hope that Tom Crean uses Elston’s actions as a teaching opportunity for his team, and the Indiana faithful see a better effort against Michigan next weekend.  

Another slate of quality games this week, headlined by Wisconsin’s visit to the Breslin Center on Tuesday.  This isn’t necessarily a must-win for the Spartans, but it’s very close to it (in terms of winning a third consecutive Big Ten title).