It's happened understandably under the radar, but Northwestern has put together a couple nice wins so far in the NIT. First, in a rare postseason home game, the Wildcats used some surprising tactics--namely, offensive rebounding and solid defense--to outlast Wisconsin Milwaukee by a 70-61 score. Despite a big size advantage, Northwestern shot just 42 percent on twos, but they compensated by retrieving 45 percent of their misses and making a third of their numerous three point attempts. The result was a solid 1.15 points per possession.

At the other end, the Panthers shot well but couldn't hold onto the ball. Their 26 percent turnover rate was the fifth highest forced by Northwestern all season, and it kept Milwaukee from getting above a point per trip. 

John Shurna

It's not like they were in a great position anyway, but any lingering Minnesota hopes for an at-large bid were dashed last night in a 68-57 loss at Northwestern. The Gophers defended well in the first half, as they forced turnovers on 22 percent of Northwestern's possessions and limited the Wildcats to 20 percent shooting from three. That staunch defense was enough to provide Minnesota a six point lead at the break, and the Gophers were able to push that advantage up to double digits a couple times early in the second half.

After two Trevor Mbakwe free throws, Minnesota held a nine point lead with just over 12 minutes remaining. From there, Northwestern would go on a 15-2 run spanning just eight possessions to surge into a lead they would never relinquish. Alex Marcotullio was

Michigan has really thrown a wrench into the at-large picture in the Big Ten.  Just a week ago, I thought Minnesota was in relatively good shape.  Sure, the Gophers were sitting at 6-8 in conference play, but with 3 of the 4 remaining games at home--none of which against Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin, or Illinois--as well as a road game at Northwestern, 9 or 10 wins certainly seemed possible.  Well, two home losses later, now it looks like Minnesota has work to do in the Big Ten Tournament.  The latest loss came at the hands of a surging Michigan team, who prevailed 70-63 thanks to some hot outside shooting.  The Wolverines made 12 of 28 three pointers, and when Michigan makes their threes, they’re very difficult to stop.  Of course, if Michigan is making

Forgive the terrible pun, but Penn State sliced up the Northwestern defense last night in a 66-52 road win. We like to get into a lot of different numbers here, but this game can be summed up with this chart of Penn State shots:

Northwestern got killed by giving up dunks and layups, plain and simple. Driven by those easy shots, Penn State made 69 percent of their twos, which compensated for a slightly high turnover rate and some poor perimeter shooting. Sure, the Wildcat defense could have been worse--they did hold Penn State to a lower efficiency than Wisconsin just did--but there were still too many breakdowns.

The normally efficient Northwestern

Well, it looks like we have a real title race, after Purdue knocked off Ohio State 76-63 in West Lafayette.  Defensively, the Boilermakers pressured OSU into committing a turnover on over a quarter of their possessions and an effective field goal percentage of 42.6, each the second-worst marks posted by the Buckeyes this season.  The resulting 0.93 points per possession was likewise the second-worst mark for Thad Matta’s team on the year.  Offensively, Matt Painter just made sure E’Twaun Moore ate his Wheaties.  The senior guard lit up the Buckeyes for a career-high 38 points (that’s half the team’s total, mind you), on just 18 shots.  Moore scored his points all over the place--21 were on threes, 12 on twos, and another 5 at the free throw

With a win at Penn State, Minnesota could have made it a better than 50/50 shot that they'd reach 10 conference wins, putting themselves in a comfortable position to clinch an at-large bid. Instead, the Gopher defense couldn't slow down the Nittany Lions down the stretch and lost by a 66-63 margin.

Save for a brief 10-point Penn State lead, this one was tight all the way, with the Nittany Lions using a perimeter-oriented offensive approach to perfection. Penn State took an incredible 61 percent of their shots from beyond the arc, and they made those ample threes at a 39 percent clip. The Lions have been turnover-averse all year, but keeping the action out on the perimeter helped them to their second-lowest turnover rate of the season (8.7 percent). Penn State didn't do much on

The game of the year did not disappoint, as Wisconsin overcame a 15-point second half deficit to defeat Ohio State 71-67 in a 57 possession game.  I have to admit--this is my favorite matchup in the Big Ten.  For one, these two teams have been the class of the Big Ten (by an efficiency margin standpoint) since 2006.  Second, Bo Ryan and Thad Matta have as two divergent styles as you’ll see, both in terms of Xs and Os and Jimmies and Joes.  Ohio State tends to shoot lights-out en route to a powerful offense (5th in the nation in effective field goal percentage), while Wisconsin all but eliminates turnovers altogether (lowest turnover percentage in the country this year).  Matta also builds his teams with blue-chip recruits (the annual over/under on McDonald’s

In a battle of teams clinging to slim NCAA Tournament hopes, it was Michigan that prevailed with a 75-66 win over Northwestern. The Wolverines surprisingly had control most of the way (they were favored by just 3 points), leading by 15 at the break, and Northwestern had made no dent in that lead with just five minutes left in the game. From that point, the Wildcats needed less than three minutes to reel off 14 unanswered points to cut the lead to one. It seems they used all their bullets in that one spurt, as Northwestern would not score again and Michigan pulled away for the victory.

The surprising thing was the way Michigan's defense stifled Northwestern for most of the game. The late flurry brought the Wildcats up to a final 1.05 efficiency, but they were struggling at or below