Bracketology Updates, College Basketball Schedule for Big Ten, January 17th

Recaps

Purdue Boilermakers 87, Indiana Hoosiers 66

BoilerUp89: Purdue played a pretty perfect first half to take a 22 point lead into the half. Indiana came out firing on all cylinders for the first five minutes after the break to cut the lead to just 9. The Boilermakers held steady from there and slowly pushed the lead back up towards 20. The result is the largest Purdue victory in Bloomington since 1934’s 47-13 win.

Zach Edey had a 33 point, 14 rebound night to pass Jajuan Johnson and tie Carsen Edwards on the Purdue all-time scoring list. Fletcher Loyer and Lance Jones had most of the rest of Purdue’s points as Braden Smith had an off shooting night (2 of 14 from the floor) but Smith found a way to still contribute with 9 assists and 6 rebounds. For the Hoosiers, foul trouble limited minutes for Mgbako and Ware in the first half. Them sitting greatly contributed to Purdue building a huge lead as Ware’s defense was needed to slow down Edey a little bit and Mgbako’s offense was needed by a Hoosiers squad that struggled to score outside of Trey Galloway’s 17 points.

Penn State Nittany Lions 87, Wisconsin Badgers 83

BoilerUp89: Penn State pulls off the upset by shooting 40% from three (much better than their season average of 29.9% coming into the night). The real story is that the Nittany Lions turned the ball over just 5 times. Taking care of the basketball is a great way to keep yourself in the game.

Kanye Clary, Ace Baldwin Jr., and Nick Kern Jr. combined for 62 points and while Wisconsin’s offense plays a faster pace this season, their defense wasn’t prepared for Penn State to rush up the court and attack before they were set.

Previews

#48 Nebraska Cornhuskers (13-4, 3-3) at #98 Rutgers Scarlet Knights (9-7, 1-4) (-2.5), 6 pm, BTN

BoilerUp89: Dear Fred Hoiberg, win a conference road game or two if you want to go dancing. With all due respect to the house of horrors that is the RAC, this is probably the easiest opportunity remaining.

#91 Maryland Terrapins (11-6, 3-3) at #52 Northwestern Wildcats (12-4, 3-2) (-3.5), 8 pm, BTN

BoilerUp89: Maryland is coming off a big road victory over Illinois and will look to keep momentum rolling against Northwestern. The Terrapins have a very good interior defense, but that probably plays into a Wildcats offense that is shooting 37% from three.

MNW: No no, I think Maryland should spend all their time making sure they shut down Matt Nicholson and Luc Hungér instead—make that your top priority, Turtlebros.

I am legitimately curious to see how the ‘Cats deal with Julian Reese inside, because they have the size to stop him and will throw double-teams at him from odd angles—can the Terps’ big man distribute effectively from the post?

Otherwise, like BoilerUp noted, if the ‘Cats have their stroke from deep, they can exploit a…