Hello and welcome to Midweek Madness! This is The Floor Slap’s weekly CBB article from our CBB expert, Jordan Beckley… Hi, that’s me. Every Thursday, I will be recapping the week that was, the weekend ahead and doing so in a variety of recurring segments and superlatives. So, follow us (@thefloorslap) and have our site bookmarked to make sure you don’t miss a moment of the Madness all season long!
by Jordan Beckley
The Iso
Time to clear out and go 1 on 1 on this week’s Isolated Team.
I was going to write about Wisconsin whether the results were good or bad.
Turns out the results were great. So, Badger fans get ready for me to continue to pump up your hopes!
If you didn’t know, Wisconsin entered this past week (starting last Saturday) with perhaps the hardest three game stretch of any team in CBB. Coach Greg Gard scheduled no.3 Marquette in the Kohl Center on the first Saturday and then all the way at no. 1 Arizona on the following Saturday. The Big Ten decided to schedule a game at the Breslin Center vs Michigan State as the game in between those two.
So, Wisconsin entered a hell week with three competitions against teams who at some point in the season or preseason have been labeled Final Four opponents. It is important to remember the vibes that Badger Basketball entered this week on.
Wisconsin (nearly) opened the season with a game hosting top 10 Tennessee and just didn’t have the guns to fully compete with them losing 70-80. What followed the Vols game was an embarrassing effort at Providence in the Gavitt Games. The Badgers lost 59-72 but really got boatraced in the game and were never close.
Wisconsin rebounded with a fantastic performance in their MTE by dominating a ranked Virginia team in their opener and erasing a deficit on their way to winning the whole thing against SMU in the second. The sentiment around the team had improved but Wisconsin fans knew what was at hand with the week ahead.
Up first was in-state rival Marquette. Now, last season the Badgers also beat a very good Marquette team (the country didn’t know how good they were yet) so the Golden Eagles were looking for revenge. Spoiler, they wouldn’t get it.
Wisconsin’s defense held up against one of the best offenses in the country holding the Tyler Kolek lead Marquette side to 41.8% from the field and 24% from 3. Marquette had averaged 81.4 points a game and never scored below 71 points coming into the Kohl Center. Shaka Smart’s team only left with 64 points. It was also truly the man to man and help defense that did it as it wasn’t turnovers or blocks that skewed the offense.
On the other end, Max Klesmit might have singlehandedly won this game for Wisconsin. He went for 21 points including shooting 5-10 from three. The rest of the Badger team went 0-10 from three. Beyond Klesmit, the Badgers lived at the free throw line with 24 makes to 28 attempts. Marquette had half the attempts going 11-14.
The Badgers won this game from start to finish as Marquette never lead in the contest.
So what? We know the Badgers win games at the Kohl Center! And its a rivalry game of course they showed up!
Not impressed yet? How about I tell you about the Badgers’ dominating win in East Lansing this past Tuesday.
Wisconsin walked into Tom Izzo’s home and stepped on the Spartans’ throats. The Badgers immediately took control of the game (jumping out to a 20-8 lead quickly) and never really let Michigan State have hope. It was St. John’s transfer AJ Storr providing the spark with 12 of his 22 points on perfect shooting in the first 20 minutes. Starting center Steven Crowl also went 3-3 from long range and Wisconsin took a 34-23 lead at the break.
At one point it seemed like Michigan State might come back but after a key offensive rebound AJ Storr made a three to push the lead from 56-50 back up to 9 points. That offensive rebound prevented a stop, milked more clock and ultimately added another whole possession of deficit for Michigan State to overcome. And they wouldn’t.
Offensive rebounding was actually a major part of the formula for Wisconsin in both wins. Double digit boards providing second chances in each game was huge. The same thing happened in the Virginia game too when they had 17 offensive rebounds.
It seems like Wisconsin’s formula is: Defense, Rebounding and hope one guy not named Crowl goes off.
This is a very familiar recipe for the Badgers and one I’m sure other Big Ten opponents aren’t excited about. But guess what? It works.
The Badgers just beat a top 5 team in the country better than Purdue did. Those same Boilermakers just proved how hard it is to win on the road in the Big Ten and lost to Northwestern. Wisconsin just won at one of the three hardest venues in the conference.
With a pretty soft middle of the Big Ten this year, I actually think that Wisconsin could win the Big Ten again. Everybody will be gunning for Purdue, meanwhile everyone will hate to play Wisconsin. I can easily see them scrapping together 14 wins and sharing a title.
On the negative side, I also see a version where the Badgers don’t consistently have huge performances from one of their starters and they don’t muster enough offense to win much more than 10 games.
Now, let’s not get lost in the setting of expectations after the success of this week. The important thing to know — even if Wisconsin loses by 30 to Arizona on Saturday– is that the Badgers are capable of the play that they just had from Virginia on.
A 9 win Big Ten team brought everyone back, but we didn’t know for sure if that would mean they would be good.
Well, Tyler Wahl has settled into his role, same with Chucky Hepburn (who isn’t playing hero ball as much), freshman John Blackwell is a wildcard, AJ Storr and Klesmit bring scoring potential and most importantly Steven Crowl might be the 2nd best center in the Big Ten.
After surviving a Hell Week happily, Wisconsin has firmly put themselves in that top group of the conference with Illinois and Purdue.
The Big 3
3 things I noticed in the world of CBB. Could be a big win, a big performance, a trend in the sport, a coach who made a dumb face on camera, really anything I want to talk about.
1. Boo Buie’s 2023 Calendar Year
December is the month of Year-In-Review content, so let’s do one you haven’t seen before: What a 2023 for Boo Buie!
2023 started off with Northwestern losing at home by double digits to Ohio State to fall to 10-3 (1-1 in conference). The general college basketball world didn’t know who Boo Buie was, Coach Chris Collins was still coaching for his job and the Wildcats weren’t on anybody’s bubble radar for the NCAA tournament.
A lot has happened the past 11 months. Since then, Boo Buie hit a game winning floater against Indiana — one of two victories against the Hoosiers–, Northwestern had it’s highest finish in the Big Ten in almost a century, Boo Buie became a 2nd Team All Big Ten selection, Coach Collins’ job is very safe, Northwestern made the tournament and won their 2nd ever tourney game, oh and after Friday night’s performance have knocked off no. 1 ranked Purdue twice in Welsh-Ryan Arena.
Basically, 2023 has been the year of Boo Buie.
Working on a theory that Boo Buie is wearing Like Mike sneakers against teams from Indiana. Northwestern went 4-0 against IU and Purdue in 2023 and Boo Buie averaged 26 ppg in those games highlighted by his 31 point performance on Friday night.
So, Congrats Mr. Buie and excited to see what 2024 has in store for you!
2. Poor Free Throw Shooting
One big thing I have noticed in the first month of Big Ten teams playing ball is the amount of bad free throw shooters.
Here is a full list of starters or players who have min. 10 FTA and are shooting below 60%. Bolded names are players that should be hacked to oblivion if they have a good look:
- Trey Kaufmann Renn – 50%
- Felix Okpara – 50%
- Dain Dainja – 26.7%
- Ty Rodgers – 50%
- Quincy Guerrier – 46.2%
- Trey Galloway – 56%
- Blake Preston – 28.6%
- Sam Hoiberg – 50%
- Coen Carr – 50%
- Tarris Reed – 36%
- Cliff Omoruyi – 57.7%
- Antwone Woolfolk – 39.1%
- Jamichael Davis – 36.8%
- Deshawn Harris Smith – 50%
That’s 14 real rotation players across 10 teams that are BAD free throw shooters. Notice that Rutgers and Illinois have three each on their team. That could make closing games very hard for the Illini and Scarlet Knights.
3. Dylan Harper finally commits to Rutgers
Well, Rutgers fans! It finally happened!
Yesterday, no. 2 recruit (he was no. 1 forever until Cooper Flagg reclassified) Dylan Harper committed to Steve Pikiell and Rutgers.
Months of crystal balls, rumor mills, message boards, cryptic social media shenanigans lead to… Adrian Wojnarowski ruining the young man’s special moment by tweeting his commitment just before Dylan could do it.
Woj is the worst. Still, Rutgers locked down the no. 3 recruiting class in the country with Harper and fellow 5-star and no. 3 recruit Ace Bailey. These two are easily the highest rated recruits to ever go to Piscataway.
So Rutgers fans, celebrate and get excited for the most anticipated season of Rutgers basketball ever and wait what they played a game at Wake Forest yesterday too? How’d that go? Oh well, yeah start dreaming of next year’s team Scarlet Knight fans!
Good Game Bad Game
Loosely defined as a weekly game where I name one (or more) good game and bad game from a player, coach, ref, mascot, towel boy, jumbotron operator or anybody in CBB.
Good Game: Marcus Domask and Terrence Shannon Jr.
This week I am going to use Good Game Bad Game to talk about the effort that Marcus Domask and Terrence Shannon Jr had against no.11 Florida Atlantic.
TSJ had MSG magic on Tuesday night scoring a career high 33 points and was just flat out unstoppable downhill.
Marcus Domask also had his career high at 33 points and was straight up being ISO’d almost the entire second half. Domask was dicing up any Owl defender and finishing with ease going 13-15 on 2 point attempts. 100% an emergence game for Domask as the Illini’s second best player.
This was an awesome win for Illinois over a top team in the country. The best part? I think there is still room for growth. Brad Underwood stopped running the flex offense and basically beat a top 10 team from just lethal transition scoring and ISOs from these two studs. Once the newcomers can get more comfortable in Illinois’ motion how much will this offense hum in halfcourt too?
Bad Game: Everyone on Villanova
So, Villanova lost on Saturday to Drexel in the Big 5 Classic round robin series. Villanova went 0-3 and finished in last place in this with losses to Penn, Drexel and St. Joes. Before their overtime loss at Kansas State on Wednesday those were the only losses for Villanova on the season.
If you take away Eric Dixon’s 7-14 outing, the Wildcats went 13-47 (27.6%) from the field. Yikes.
This is definitely a talented team but it’s unclear who their best 5 is and its unclear on how much blame Coach Kyle Neptune should shoulder.
Weekend Wagers
I preview the biggest games in the weekend slate and give my moneyline picks. For picks ATS follow us on X.
Iowa +6.5 vs Iowa State O/U: 153.5
- The Cy-Hawk series is back!
- The Iowa schools have split the last 10 but the Hawkeyes have won 5 of the past seven meetings\
- Vegas believes the home team in Iowa State will win it this year
- The Cyclones have been lead by a young core with highly rated Freshman Milan Momcilovic and Sophomore Tamin Lipsey being two of their best.
- Respectfully, I don’t think that Iowa has it this year.
- This could be a turning point for a young Hawkeye team like UVA was for Wisconsin, but I believe it will actually just be an embarrassing loss for the 2nd time this week.
Illinois vs Tennessee
- This game will be awesome!
- Both teams are Top 15 in KenPom and both teams wear orange.
- If I am power ranking the oranges in college basketball, I’ll go Tennessee at 1, Texas at 2, Illinois at 3, and Syracuse at 4. Don’t ask about secondary color teams like Florida or Auburn.
- Terrence Shannon Jr vs Dalton Knecht is about as good as it gets.
- This game will be a battle between Illinois trying to make it a track meet and the Vols trying to keep it in the half court.
- I like Tennessee
Alabama vs Purdue
- A Zach Edey homecoming game in Toronto
- Two one seeds in last years tournament going head to head
- Alabama isn’t ranked but is a top 15 KenPom team.
- The Crimson Tide guards of Aaron Estrada and Mark Sears will be a fun matchup for Lance Jones, Braden Smith, and Fletcher Loyer
- Alabama has nobody over 220 lbs on their roster… I assume Nick Pringle guards Zach Edey
- Will the Tide go small to try and counter Purdue and will Grant Nelson have to front Zach Edey for an extended period of time?
- Nate Oats and Matt Painter are must watch.
- I like whatever the over will be set at in this game and I like Purdue up to 5.5 points or so as favorites.
Auburn vs Indiana
- In Atlanta
- Auburn is a pretty good team lead by Johni Broome down low and stud Freshman Aden Holloway on the perimeter
- The Tigers just lost to Appalachian State. Can they bounce back?
- This would easily be the best win so far of the Hoosiers’ season.
- Can Kel’el Ware snuff out Johni Broome and maybe foul him out on the other end?
- I like an under in this game for anything under 138.
Wisconsin at Arizona
- Wisconsin has had a great week, but I don’t think it continues here.
- The McKale Center is up there with the Kohl Center for being impossible to win at.
- Oumar Ballo and the rest of Arizona’s frontcourt will not be surrendering the amount of rebounds the Badgers have been clinging to recently.
- Keshad Johnson will be a problem for Wisconsin and I don’t know who guards Caleb Love.
- I like the Wildcats by double digits.
Award Winning Wings
A rotating selection of made up superlatives and awards. Named fondly after how every restaurant has ‘award winning wings’
Myles Colvin Dunk Alert
Coen Carr isn’t the only electric Freshman dunker in the Big Ten this season.
I can’t tell you how quickly I stood up out of my seat when I saw no help was coming and I knew what was about to happen.
The Wait What? Upset of the Week
It’s not like Penn State is awesome this year. I don’t think anybody expects a ton from the Nittany Lions this season. Still, you would think they could take care of 2-7 Bucknell at home on a full weeks rest.
Penn State did not do that though losing 76-67 and giving up 45 points to Bucknell in the second half. Penn State lost on Wednesday to Maryland and see below for my thoughts on that game.
Honorable mention to Kentucky’s loss to UNCW that I broke down in my Super Sixteen rankings on Tuesday.
The Am I Sure I like this Sport? Award
I hopped on the Maryland vs Penn State game as it was coming to a close and what I saw made me question whether or not I like this sport.
Maryland won in overtime, but for something like 15 minutes of my workout I saw essentially no live ball baskets and over a dozen free throws and it was like 2 minutes of actual game time.
I love this sport, but sometimes you understand where the haters of the sport come from. This is a prime example.
Player of the Week
There is a lot to choose from here between Boo Buie, Bruce Thornton, Marcus Domask, Steven Crowl etc. In reality, this award should go to Zach Edey 80% of the weeks, but for diversity let’s give it to Terrence Shannon Jr.
TSJ was awesome against FAU but also was great in Illinois securing a win at Rutgers earlier in the past week too. Purdue proved how hard it is to win on the road in the Big Ten. Illinois survived what Rutgers’ run and put down the weaker opponent in their gym. In large part because of Shannon.
Coach of the Week
I was too early with my praise of Greg Gard last week. I should have waited to pick him this week, but now I will pick someone else because everyone needs recognition.
So, Mike Woodson is the Coach of the Week. Xavier Johnson is out with injury right now and Woody is leading a less than stellar Hoosier team to a hot start. Indiana picked up a tight win at Crisler Center over Michigan and a strangled the Terrapins at home to a 2-0 start. Congrats to Indiana as they emerge as the best team of the weak middle tier of the Big Ten.
Ethan Morton Three Point Tracker
In a twist no one saw coming, Ethan Morton is now down to 2-8 from 3 on the season or 25%. I can’t hate on his 0-3 shooting performance against Iowa too much as he actually did play a very good game defensively, grabbed 4 boards and connected the team offensively with 5 assists in 26 minutes.
Did Louisville win a game this week?
No for the first time this season actually Louisville did not win a game. The Cardinals lost their only contest in a respectably close game at Virginia Tech. No jokes to be made honestly.
No Explanation Power Rankings
I am just the humble mouthpiece for the No Explanation College Basketball Committee, who release their weekly Big Ten Rankings to me. I provide their rankings with… no explanation.
It appears the committee has leveled up and sent me a graphic of this week’s No Explanation Power Rankings with no explanation given.
Lot’s of movement here. We have a new last place team in Penn State. Nebraska has tumbled down after a crushing loss to Creighton and a road loss to Minnesota. Not enough to move below Minnesota apparently. Let’s see… huh Illinois is still ahead of Wisconsin, that might upset some Badger fans. Ohio State is still in front of Northwestern after the Purdue game. Okay.
Well, I wish I could explain this, but like we learned in College Football, these committees do what they want to do!
Thanks for reading we will be back next week after another great stretch of college ball. Next week’s ISO will be on a team from Illinois! Here’s a hint; the school doesn’t have an official mascot…. Alright see you next time!