Valentine and Hammons were both members of the All-Big Ten First Team, joined by Indiana’s Yogi Ferrell, Wisconsin’s Nigel Hayes and Iowa’s Jarrod Uthoff. Minus a disappointing loss to Penn State in early February, Tom Crean’s squad has looked magnificent, picking up wins over Purdue, Iowa, and Maryland to close out the year and grab the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten tournament.
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Bryant, Stone, Happ, Minnesota’s Jordan Murphy and Purdue’s Caleb Swanigan were named to the Big Ten All-Freshman Team. The second-ranked Spartans and Big Ten regular-season runner-ups wound up with the No. 2 seed. That’s been my thinking since the Buckeyes lost to Michigan State on Saturday. In an interview with the Detroit Free Press, senior guard Denzel Valentine guaranteed that his team would win the national title, at least sort of.
And if they lose? They enter the tournament playing about as well as any team in the country and should have their rabid fan base backing them in the friendly confines of Bankers Life Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis. Maryland is on a collision course to face Michigan State in the semifinals of the conference tournament.
Maryland: The Terps are 2-4 in their last six games, but they have enough talent to compete with any team in the league if they come together.
After a really interesting weekend, the Big Ten standings haven’t changed – but it has made things more interesting. Since joining the conference, the Terrapins have won all four conference titles.
This year’s tournament also has some potentially very exciting matchups.
Game 3 – Northwestern vs. Michigan, 11 a.m. Penn State split with Wisconsin and the Gophers also split with Michigan State. Ohio State 8. MI 9. While McIntosh has averaged 7.5 assists over the last four games, he’s only scored in double figures once. And they especially struggle with those areas when they play Ohio State, a team that’s always a threat to score. In 11 of those 18 seasons, the top seed went to the final.
G is for Gard, as in Greg Gard, Wisconsin’s newly minted full-time head coach. That’s a remarkable turnaround, and now, the Badgers are a team that nobody wants to play in March again.
Big Ten title game- The Big Ten is always one of the top conferences when it comes to basketball. This looks like a wide-open Big Ten tourney. Hammons’ numbers are even more impressive when you consider the limited minutes that he played compared to many starting-caliber players in the Big Ten.
Ohio State (19-12, 11-7) opens Big Ten Tournament play on Thursday night against Penn State (16-15, 7-11) in Indianapolis. Sunday’s contest featured a Wolverine comeback, as MI erased a 5-1 deficit to tie the game. Still one of the game’s great clutch players, Trimble has ice in his veins with the game on the line.
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“It’s a tremendous honor just for me to be mentioned with all the greats that have won this award before me, both here at Michigan State and across the Big Ten”. IU graduate transfer Max Bielfeldt was named the Big Ten’s Sixth Man of the Year.
