Recap of Big Ten Basketball action from 1/21

Two Big Ten games went down yesterday that affected the conference standings. First, Michigan State's unbeaten conference streak was ended by the Northwestern Wildcats in a game that went down to the wire (Read my live-blog of the second half). Immediately following that game, a struggling Iowa Hawkeye team broke a three-game conference skid with an overtime victory over the Wisconsin Badgers (game preview, full game live-blog).

As far as the MSU-NU game goes, it was a well-deserved win for the Wildcats over a Spartan team ranked #7 in the AP and 12-point favorite. Northwestern made 9 3-pointers and had 9 steals, whereas the Spartans only had 5 threes and 4 steals. Michigan State also committed 11 more turnovers than Northwestern, but that was probably balanced out by a 16-rebound advantage and 5-point advantage from the free throw line.

You have to give the Wildcats credit for playing hard up to the final buzzer, taking the lead right at the start of the second half and a lot of those threes and steals came towards the end of the game when the Spartans were trying hard to mount a comeback. The importance of this win is that it brought the Spartans (5-1) a little bit closer to the rest of the pack in the Big Ten conference standings, particularly Minnesota and Illinois who are hot on their tail with 4-2 conference records.

That would've been especially important for a Wisconsin Badger team which coming off of two losses could have put themselves in equally good position to challenge the Spartans.

The Badgers went into Iowa with a 3-2 conference record thanks to a 2-game losing streak. A win for the Badgers would've moved them up from tied for 3rd in the Big Ten to tied for 2nd, but the overtime loss drops them to 6th. This was a game that the Badgers definitely needed to win and could've won, but mental errors cost them the game. On the final stat sheet, Iowa held an advantage of 35-10 in free throw attempts, and two Badgers (Leuer and Krabbenhoft) fouled out. For a game that goes to overtime and ends with a 4-point differential in the final score, you have to look at those fouls and think there was something mentally off with this team (or some home cooking).

Iowa with a 2-4 conference record remains near the bottom of the Big Ten standings, but was happy to play spoiler to the Badgers' hopes, and as noted in my preview of this matchup, take the lead 27-26 in the all-time series.

It won't get easier for the Badgers either, up next they face Illinois (16-3, 4-2) on Jan 21, then Purdue (14-4, 3-2) on Jan 27, who they've already lost to once this season 65-52. That was at Purdue, however, so the Badgers will seek their revenge on their home court at the Kohl Center.

Leaders from Wednesday:

NU@MSU
Kevin Coble (NU): 31 pts (10-16 FG, 8-9 FT, 3-8 3PT), 4 Reb, 1 Ast, 4 Stl, 0 Fouls in 38 Min
Goran Suton (MSU): 15 pts (3-6 FG, 9-11 FT, 0-1 3PT), 14 Reb, 2 Ast, 1 Stl, 0 Fouls in 29 Min

UW@IOWA
David Palmer (Iowa): 21 pts (8-12 FG, 3-5 FT, 2-4 3PT), 7 Reb, 1 Stl in 33 Min
Joe Krabbenhoft (UW): 11 pts (5-6 FG, 1-1 FT), 7 Reb, 1 Ast, 0 TO in 33 Min