Hey everyone, how are yall doing on this glorious early March day? Every knows why this is so exciting right?!? If not I’ll fill you in….IT’S MARCH MADNESS SEASON BABY!!!!!! As well as the last regular season week of the Big Ten, and with the regular season champion already crowned in Purdue, the rest of the teams are fighting for seeding for the B1G tournament. This week was another crazy week with awesome endings so let’s get to some recaps!
Games of the Week
Tuesday, February 28th
Once again, there weren’t any games played on Monday so we jumped right to Tuesday and we had a thriller right off the bat! This game featured the Nittany Lions of Penn State at home hosting the Ohio State Buckeyes. This game saw a really intense first half that had the Buckeyes up four at 40-36 at the buzzer, then when the second half started, that’s when the real fun started! I’m gonna jump right to the fun part, in the dying seconds of the game, Ohio State inbounded the ball with about nine seconds left. Jae’Sean Tate took a pass at midcourt, spun past Penn State defenders in the lane and kissed the ball off the glass for the game-winner. It canceled a deep 3-pointer from Penn State’s Tony Carr that gave the Nittany Lions a 70-69 lead with nine seconds to play. Tate’s layup proved to be the game-winner and gave Ohio State the 71-70 victory while Tate finished with 12 points while Marc Loving added 14 points and Trevor Thompson chipped in 11 for Ohio State who won on the road for just the fourth time this season. You can see the awesome drive and finish by Tate down below:
Wednesday, March 1st
Oh boy, if you guys thought the ending to the game yesterday was good, wait to you see the recap of this one! And if you know anything about it, you should know which game I am talking about. In this game, we saw the Northwestern Wildcats at home looking to bolster their NCAA resume with another win hosting the Michigan Wolverines. This game was fantastic all the way down to the final buzzer, literally. The first half was back and forth full of offense and defense and at the halftime buzzer NW was up by two at 30-28. Then the se
Thursday, March 2nd
Once again, we had another thriller of a matchup on Thursday night and this one featured the Iowa Hawkeyes on the road to face #22 ranked Wisconsin Badgers. Iowa was up big at halftime over the reeling Badgers at 32-25 and looked to take advantage as the second half started. Wisconsin didn’t let that happen and got right back into the game and the real excitement came with about nine seconds left in the game. After Wisconsin’s Ethan Happ missed two free throws that could have sealed the game and a win, Iowa’s Peter Jok missed a jumper in the lane with 15 seconds left. But Cordell Pemsl corralled the offensive rebound and passed it to Bohannon who hit the 3 from the left wing, stunning the crowd at the Kohl Center. The Hawkeyes can thank Jordan Bohannon as his 3 finished a frantic comeback from a nine-point deficit with 4:15 left, and the Hawkeyes brushed past mistake-prone No. 22 Wisconsin for a 59-57 victory Thursday night. The Hawkeyes have now won three straight, including two on the road against ranked opponents. The Badgers lost their third straight game, going scoreless for the final 3:12. Iowa forced turnovers on consecutive Wisconsin inbounds passes in that stretch, converting each mistake into baskets to set up Bohannon’s game-winner. Iowa was led by Nick Baer with 14 points off the bench with 5 boards while Wisconsin was led by Bronson Koenig with 19 points but it wasn’t enough. You can see the clutch three down below:
Saturday, March 4th
Once again, and believe me I am not getting tired of saying this, but we had another fantastic game and ending to the game! This game saw Michigan State travel to take on Maryland as both teams fighting for seeding in the standings. I’m not going to waste any time talking about before the second half because the real fun started after the second half! Let’s skip right to five seconds left in the game and the score knotted at 60 points a piece. Maryland inbounded the ball under their own basket. After the Spartans committed a turnover under their own basket with 6 seconds to go, Terrapins freshman Justin Jackson received the pass from Melo Trimble and immediately tossed it back to the team’s leader, who dribbled up the left side of the court. Trimble stopped short well beyond the arc, took aim and hit nothing but net sending the whole arena into a frenzy. Trimble drilled that tiebreaking 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left, and Maryland clinched a second-place tie in the Big Ten and a double-bye in the conference tournament by outlasting Michigan State 63-60 on Saturday. Trimble scored 16 on 6-of-15 shooting and Justin Jackson added 15 points for Maryland which will enter the Big Ten Tournament as the third seed. Michigan State would have earned a double-bye with a victory but instead, the Spartans will start play as a fifth seed. Nick Ward had 22 points and 16 rebounds for Michigan State (18-13, 10-8). But his turnover in the final seconds served as a prelude to Trimble’s game-winning shot. Here is Trimble’s game winner:
Sunday, March 5th
The last great matchup of the week and regular B1G regular season matchup highlighted Northwestern at home hosting the #16 ranked Purdue Boilermakers. This game wasn’t as fantastic as the past couple games I wrote about but it was still a pretty intense game. The first half ended with the game tied at 37 points from both teams with neither of them being able to game the upper hand. But the second half Purdue took control and Northwestern couldn’t catch up thanks to Vincent Edwards and Caleb Swanigan. Boilermakers’ Edwards scored 16 of his 25 points in the second half and Caleb Swanigan added 20 points and 14 rebounds to help No. 16 Purdue hold off Northwestern 69-65. Purdue clinched the outright regular-season conference title earlier in the week but had to hold on in the final seconds to fend off Northwestern in front of a raucous sellout crowd. The Wildcats didn’t go away eay thanks to Bryant McIntosh who had 25 points and six assists for Northwestern but couldn’t pull off the upset. With this loss, the Wildcats have lost six of their last nine games. Going into the Big Ten Tourney both teams will look to make deep runs.
Clutch Shot of the Week
The reason why I picked this shot as my clutch shot of the week is because this is really simple, it’s fricken sweet!!!! Wildcat big man, Nathan Taphorn absolutely launched a 90-foot pass down to the other side of the court to fellow teammate Dererk Pardon right under the hoop. Pardon jumped up to grab the pass and immediately put the ball up and in off the glass as the buzzer rang through the arena! The layup gave NW the 67-65 win on the buzzer beater shot and the fans went crazy and the fans stormed the court! See the play for yourself!
Player of the Week
For this week’s player of the week, I went with Nate Mason from Minnesota who had two pretty good games this week. In their first game against Nebraska, Mason dropped 25 points on 9-13 shooting, 1-2 from three-point range, 6-6 from the FT line, 4 assists, 2 rebounds, and 2 steals in an 88-73 win. And in their last game against Wisconsin, he recorded 17 points on 8-20 shooting, 1-5 from deep, four rebounds and three steals in a heatbreaking 66-49 loss. So even though he lost the last game, he still put up great numbers and deserved this award for the week.
Games to Keep you Eyes On
This week the B1G tournament start, so in my opinion, all the games should be watched. But here is the bracket for you guys to see the matchups
