Current Standings (As Of Feb. 17)

The Big Ten continues to be remarkably compressed—two games in the loss column separate the #3 and #12 teams in the conference. There are still 11 teams projected to make the NCAA Tournament according to the Bracket Matrix; a 12th (Minnesota) is on the wrong side of the bubble but still very much in play.

Speaking of the tourney, the conference is up to three locks after being at one a couple weeks ago. The Athletic's Eamonn Brennan has since moved Penn State and Iowa into the lock category. That's particularly good news for the Hawkeyes, who have tailed off while dealing with mounting injuries of late. At the moment, only three of the top 12 teams—Purdue, Indiana, and Minnesota—are in serious danger of missing the tourney. The Boilermakers could do themselves a huge favor by knocking off Wisconsin at the Kohl Center tonight.

Notable Games This Week

Tonight: Illinois at Penn State (6:30, FS1), Purdue at Wisconsin (7, ESPN)
Wednesday: Michigan at Rutgers (7, BTN), Indiana at Minnesota (9, BTN)
Thursday: Ohio State at Iowa (7, ESPN)
Saturday: Michigan at Purdue (2, ESPN)
Sunday: Penn State at Indiana (noon, FS1), Rutgers at Wisconsin (1, BTN), Maryland at Ohio State (4, CBS)

[Hit THE JUMP for stock up/down and a look at the women's standings.]

Stock Up

i told y'all the midrange game wasn't dead [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Anthony Cowan. Maryland has won all three of their games since the last Big Ten Reset post. Cowan has been the KenPom MVP in all three, highlighted by his late-game, post-floor-slap outburst to get the Terps past Michigan State on Saturday. In that stretch, he's averaging 19 points and six assists while making 8-of-18 three-point attempts.

Jalen Smith may be Maryland's top draft prospect and most talented player. When it's winning time, though, there's little question Cowan is the heart and soul of the team. A lot of late-game situations come down to which players can win in one-on-one situations; Cowan ranks in the 95th percentile as a scorer on isolations at 1.17 points per possession, per Synergy. "Give him the ball and get out of the way" is a legitimately excellent offense.

Penn State.

Climbin’ to No. 9! Tied for the highest @AP_Top25 poll ranking in history with 1995-96 & 1953-54 teams! ??⚪ #ClimbWithUs pic.twitter.com/QI37snxbKt

— Penn State Men’s Basketball (@PennStateMBB) February 17, 2020

The #2 team in the country in the month of February, Penn State has won eight straight games, four of them on the road. Lamar Stevens has been a killer, averaging 24 points and 5.5 boards over the last four games; he's been a midrange sniper and teams might have to start respecting his three-point shot now that he's at 35% in Big Ten games. They've weathered the absence of guard Myreon Jones, who's missed the last three games due to illness in the midst of a breakout sophomore season.

When you look at Penn State's statistical profile, nothing really jumps out as being particularly great. At the same time, free-throw shooting is the team's only serious weak point, and that's allowed the whole to add up to more than the sum of its parts. While this team isn't spectacular, they're remarkably consistent.

Michigan. The #1 team in the month of February? Yes, that's Michigan, even though they were missing Isaiah Livers for two of their five games. The pieces are falling into place: Franz Wagner just picked up Big Ten freshman of the week, Eli Brooks snapped his shooting slump, David DeJulius is turning into a reliable distributor, it's a shock when Austin Davis misses a shot, and Brandon Johns—the guy who didn't want to shoot in the first MSU game—has the #1 ORating and three-point percentage (18-for-38, 47%) in the conference.

It'd take a collapse for Michigan to fall out of the tourney field; they're moving in the opposite direction even though Jon Teske has been a wreck on offense. If Big Sleep comes around, nobody is going to want to face this team in March.

Ohio State. The #7 team in February, OSU has done an impressive job weathering the absence of DJ Carton, losing only at the Kohl Center since he stepped away from the team to address his mental health. I'm not sure if their run is sustainable—their component stats in that stretch aren't impressive—but the Buckeyes easily could've nosedived without their top perimeter threat. This week will be a major test; they go to Iowa before hosting Maryland.

Stock Perpetually Weird As Hell

purdue, please explain yourselves [via KenPom]

Purdue. Look at those results. Look at the scoring margins. Try to explain this. No, seriously, I'm asking.

I've maintained that the Boilermakers have a lower ceiling than most Big Ten teams because they can't play their two best players, Matt Haarms and Trevion Williams, at the same time without getting cooked on defense, so they don't even try to have them share the floor. That's the right call but it's limiting; they can go defense-first with Haarms or offense-first with Williams. They don't have the shooting they usually do, which helps explain the wild swings.

I want to put them in the next section but that 36-point thrashing of Iowa is hard to get out of my mind.

Stock Down

what a shame [Campredon]

Michigan State. Losers of four of their last five, the Spartans have played like the country's #44 team in February. While Xavier Tillman's overall numbers have been okay, he hasn't been able to provide a consistent offensive threat. That's led to a tough stretch for Cassius Winston, who's 7-for-22 on twos with 13 assists and 11 turnovers over his last three games. Aaron Henry hasn't been effective when taking on higher usage and Rocket Watts remains a work-in-progress, so there's nobody to take the pressure off Winston.

The Spartans are better than they've shown this month, but they have to be concerned by how much the team relies on two players to carry them.

Indiana. The Hoosiers are the #89 team in February with the nation's #213(!!!) defense this month. If not for the difference in size and athleticism, Michigan's games against Northwestern and Indiana would've been close to indistinguishable, and this year's NW squad is one of the worst Big Ten teams I can remember. All the hallmarks of Archie Miller's disappointing tenure are present: stagnant offense, poor shooting, way too many turnovers, awful guard play, lack of development, lazy defense, and little to scare you outside of whatever athletic gifts these players had when they came to campus.

Other than that, it's going great.

Iowa's health. The Hawkeyes had already suffered significant blows before Big Ten play resumed when Patrick McCaffrey took a redshirt to take care of his health after fighting off cancer, Jack Nunge tore his ACL, and Jordan Bohannon had to give up trying to play so soon after hip surgery. Then last week against Indiana, sharpshooting freshman CJ Fredrick went down with a nasty-looking ankle injury. The only update since is Fran McCaffrey saying in the immediate aftermath that the injury "wasn't a good one," and Fredrick missed Iowa's narrow escape at Minnesota on Sunday.

If Fredrick misses extended time, Iowa is stuck playing some underperforming guards. Freshman Joe Toussaint has been benched at times for his poor shooting and turnovers, while senior grad transfer Bacari Evelyn is in the midst of posting his second straight full-season ORating below 85. They can run some offense through wing Connor McCaffrey but he's more of a role player, while Luka Garza and Joe Wieskamp are both very much shoot-first guys. Iowa needs an elite offense to be good; this month they've ranked 47th on offense with the #217 defense and have been fortunate to put together a 3-2 record.

Ayo Dosunmu, Kofi Cockburn, and Giorgi Bezhanishvili. Illinois has dropped four straight games this month as their top three options have all underperformed, plus Dosunmu was fortunate to escape a serious knee injury on the final possession of the MSU loss and missed the loss at Rutgers. Dosunmu has an ORating of 93 this month; Cockburn is at 86 while shooting 38% from the field; Giorgi B. is at a woeful 65 with a turnover rate higher than his field goal percentage. They've managed to be good this year despite not shooting well; this month has taken that to an extreme that offensive rebounding and defense can't overcome.

New Tiers: Must... Disrespekt...

This is how I had the Big Ten tiered in the preseason:

Tier I: Michigan State
Tier II: Maryland, Ohio State
Tier III: Purdue, Michigan
Tier IV: Illinois, Wisconsin
Tier V: Penn State, Iowa
Tier VI: Indiana, Minnesota, Rutgers
Tier VII: Nebraska, Northwestern

This is where I had them on December 5th:

Tier I: Ohio State, Michigan State, Maryland, Michigan
Tier II: Purdue
Tier III: Penn State, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana
Tier IV: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Rutgers
Tier V: Northwestern, Nebraska

Here's my update from all of two weeks ago:

Tier I: Michigan State
Tier II: Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Rutgers
Tier III: Penn State, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Purdue
Tier IV: Michigan*, Indiana, Minnesota
Tier V: Nebraska, Northwestern

God help me, let's do it again. Once again, it's significantly reshuffled:

Tier I: Maryland, Penn State
Tier II: Michigan, Michigan State, Rutgers
Tier III: Ohio State, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Purdue
Tier IV: Minnesota, Indiana
Tier V: Nebraska, Northwestern

The Women's Standings

*from College Sports Madness, which had the most recent update when I put this together

Notable Games This Week

Wednesday: Illinois at Michigan (7 pm, BTN+), Nebraska at Ohio State (7), Rutgers at Northwestern (8)
Thursday: Michigan State at Purdue (7, BTN)
Saturday: Ohio State at Rutgers (2, BTN), Indiana at Minnesota (6)
Sunday: Michigan at Michigan State (5, BTN)

WBB Outlook

Michigan needs a second wind to kick in soon [David Wilcomes]

As we discussed on this week's podcast, the Wolverines had a tough week, losing a nailbiter at Crisler against a very good Northwestern team despite Naz Hillmon missing most of the game after suffering an apparent right shoulder injury in the first half, then getting blown out at Rutgers with Hillmon not looking 100% on Sunday.

College Sports Madness has Michigan as a nine-seed, while today's update on ESPN dropped them from an eight-seed to a ten-seed. This week provides a good chance to turn it back around. On Wednesday, Michigan hosts Illinois, whose only win away from home in conference play came against last-place Penn State. Then the Wolverines travel to East Lansing on Sunday to face a Michigan State squad they beat by 20 in Crisler to open the new year. This is a get-right week for the team's tournament seeding and Hillmon's shoulder.