The scrappy Purdue Boilermakers forced the top-seeded Connecticut Huskies to slow down and play a defensive-oriented game Thursday night in the Sweet 16. In the process, though, they learned a couple things. First of all, you can't spot a team of UConn's caliber an 8-0 lead. Secondly, they don't have a Hasheem Thabeet in the Big Ten.
The 7'3" Tanzanian behemoth stuffed the stat sheet as much as he affected Purdue's game with his presence. Thabeet put together a sparkling 15-point, 15-rebound, 4-block effort, while also putting the handcuffs on Purdue's post-scoring.
The NCAA tournament is just one day away, so FanHouse writers and editors got together to talk over each region. The Midwest Region got the ball rolling, followed by the East. The South looks like it could go to the top seeds, but what about the West? Here is the last installment of our NCAA FanHouse Roundtables.
Chris Burke: Unlike the other three regions, where it's the top seeds' bracket to lose, UConn may not have the same stranglehold over things due to Jerome Dyson's injury. The Huskies have lost two straight and are just 4-3 since Dyson hurt his knee, so they look, to me, like the most vulnerable of all the No. 1 seeds. It doesn't help that, after the first round, they may not have another easy game. The other six teams in the top-half of this bracket can be considered threats, from Washington right on down to Mississippi State and Northern Iowa.
Illinois really needed a bounce-back win after that bad loss in Wisconsin Thursday night. Sunday they got it in the form of a 66-48 trouncing of Purdue. The Illini stifled the Boilers' offensive attack, holding them to just 32-percent shooting, including a dismal 2-of-15 from behind the arc.
Of course, Purdue also missed the presence of their best player, Robbie Hummel. This is a bad sign for them moving forward, because they do not play well without the sophomore swingman. Purdue is 16-3 with Hummel in the lineup and 1-3 without him this season.
The disappointing 2009 Big Ten campaign for the Wisconsin Badgers continues, as they dropped their fifth straight game Tuesday night. This time, Purdue was the culprit. The Badgers now fall to 12-8 overall, and a terrible -- by Badgers' standards under Bo Ryan -- 3-5 mark in conference play.
Most disturbing to Wisconsin has to be the fact that they've lost two of these games at home. Followers of the Big Ten will remember that, heading into this season, you just don't go into the Kohl Center and win. It's now happened in two consecutive games.
This was supposed to the be the year Purdue made the leap into the elite of college basketball. They still can, after all, there is still some college football to be played. It's way early to be counting teams out. The Purdue Boilermakers, however, have some things that need to be ironed out if they want more than a nice little Sweet 16 squad.
In their past two games, Purdue has played top-flight competition.
In their past two games, Purdue has been exposed for their two major flaws.
Now, before all the Purdue fans start flipping out and calling me out for being an IU grad -- which I am, so it's not news to me -- please realize the relative terms I'm using here. Purdue is a very solid basketball team. They handled a quality opponent in Boston College without much headache.
I'm merely pointing out that if Purdue wants to jump into the echelon with college basketball's elite that they need to do something about two aspects of their game.
On Saturday afternoon the Purdue Boilermakers blew up in the second half of their game against Illinois to overcome a 8-point halftime deficit, and beat the Illini 74-67 at Mackey Arena. Purdue exploded for 47 points in the second half, a large number of which came thanks to the sharpshooting of Keaton Grant.
Grant scored 14 of his 22 points in the final 20 minutes, which included a big three-pointer late that put the final nail in Illinois' coffin. What got Keaton so fired up for the second half? Apparently a member of the Illini was talking some trash going into the locker rooms at halftime.
"One of the Illinois players said something that really got us going," Grant said. "It had the same effect that it had last year when the same player said something at halftime."
"It was like, 'We're being disrespected at our home court.' An away team should not come into the home team's court and disrespect us.
"We were very disrespected by what he said. He said it as we were going into our locker room. Credit him for waking us up. It was all good. We just want to thank him."
Grant wouldn't say who the player was, but by the process of elimination, I've figured it out. Grant said it was a starter, but it wasn't either Shaun Pruitt or Brian Randle. He also said the same player did it last year, so it couldn't have been freshman Demetri McCamey. So it was either Trent Meachem or Calvin Brock, and I feel pretty safe in saying that it wasn't Meachem.
If only Brock and the Illini would work as hard at hitting their free throws and not making stupid turnovers late in games as they do at talking trash. Maybe then they wouldn't be 1-5 in conference play this season.
The Big Ten Diaries recaps the previous night's action in Big Ten Basketball, but of course, you're probably smart enough to figure that out on your own.
As Charles Rich already told you, the Spartans set a school-record of fewest points in the shot clock era by scoring only 36 points against the Iowa Hawkeyes on Saturday. On the plus side, at least they were consistent, scoring only 18 points in each half.
Also, let's be fair here. Yes the Spartans played absolutely horribly on Saturday, but it's not like Iowa played that much better. In fact, the Spartans out-shot the Hawkeyes by making 30.8% of their shots. The Hawkeyes could only manage to make 27.5% of their field goal attempts.
Looking at the numbers you can find a hundred reasons why the Spartans lost this game besides their inability to score. They had 18 turnovers, committed 25 personal fouls, and made only 3 of their 12 three-point attempts, but what really killed them was the free throw line. Those 25 personal fouls sent the Hawkeyes to the line 29 times, where as the Spartans only took 4 free throws in the game.
Minnesota's 10-2 start to this season is a nice story for the program and new head coach Tubby Smith, but we've reached the conference schedule, and it's goodbye creampuffs, hello Spartans. Minnesota just doesn't have the overall talent right now to compete with the Spartans, though much to their credit, they didn't just let the Spartans walk out of the Breslin Center with an easy victory.
Unfortunately the Gophers just had no answer for Raymar Morgan who led the Spartans with a career high 31 points and also decided to chip in with 10 boards as well. Morgan's performance even earned him some high praise from his head coach, Tom Izzo.
"I told some people that Raymar had a chance to be one of the best forwards ever to play here," Michigan State coach Izzo said of the versatile 6-foot-8 sophomore. "I know I've been tough on Raymar. We expect an awful lot from him. He reminds me of Morris (Peterson, the 2000 conference MVP)."
The Spartans also got a strong effort from freshman Kalin Lucas, who came off the bench to score 17 points. The biggest play Lucas made though was a steal that led to two free throws after Minnesota fought back from a 13-point deficit to make the score 58-57 Spartans.
The scrappy Purdue Boilermakers forced the top-seeded Connecticut Huskies to slow down and play a defensive-oriented game Thursday night in the Sweet 16. In the process, though, they learned a couple things. First of all, you can't spot a team of UConn's caliber an 8-0 lead. Secondly, they don't have a Hasheem Thabeet in the Big Ten. 
The NCAA tournament is just one day away, so FanHouse writers and editors got together to talk over each region. The 
Illinois really needed a bounce-back win after that bad loss in Wisconsin Thursday night. Sunday they got it in the form of a 66-48 trouncing of Purdue. The Illini stifled the Boilers' offensive attack, holding them to just 32-percent shooting, including a dismal 2-of-15 from behind the arc. 
The disappointing 2009 Big Ten campaign for the Wisconsin Badgers continues, as they dropped their fifth straight game Tuesday night. This time, Purdue was the culprit. The Badgers now fall to 12-8 overall, and a terrible -- by Badgers' standards under 
This was supposed to the be the year Purdue made the leap into the elite of college basketball. They still can, after all, there is still some college football to be played. It's way early to be counting teams out. The Purdue Boilermakers, however, have some things that need to be ironed out if they want more than a nice little Sweet 16 squad. 
On Saturday afternoon the Purdue Boilermakers blew up in the second half of their game against Illinois to overcome a 8-point halftime deficit, and beat the Illini 74-67 at Mackey Arena. Purdue exploded for 47 points in the second half, a large number of which came thanks to the sharpshooting of 
