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LaVell Blanchard and Michigan have won 12 consecutive games. AP
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Michigan
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Indiana
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Iowa
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Illinois
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Purdue
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Wisconsin
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Michigan State
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Minnesota
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Ohio State
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Northwestern
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Penn State
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56
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Total fouls in the Minnesota-Michigan State game on Jan. 18. The Gophers and Spartans combined to shoot 70 free throws.
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“They played like men. We simply played like a bunch of soft boys tonight.”
-- Penn State coach Jerry Dunn after the Nittany Lions absorbed a 70-36 beating at the hands of Michigan State on Wednesday.
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By Brian Hamilton, Special to CNNSI.com
These aren’t just games for Michigan now. They’re 40-minute mission statements. They don’t just produce glowing reports in the next day’s newspaper of the latest obstacle razed to the ground. Each article is more retraction than game report.
Anything anyone said about this Michigan basketball team earlier this season has resulted in the embarrassing process of removing foot from mouth. Any cynical, sarcastic thought anyone had has been rendered a raging falsehood. The Wolverines may not win another game this season, but so what? They are most definitely not headed to a postseason, but so what?
These guys, without even an NIT carrot at the end of the stick, are just playing to win. Come on now, what fun is that?
“I think our team is playing with confidence and I think they should -- they have earned that,” Michigan coach Tommy Amaker said. “I think they deserve to feel that way about themselves.”
Twelve straight wins, including a 5-0 start in conference play, have made the Wolverines the lone undefeated team in the Big Ten. By now, the story of the six straight wins to start the season is old news; what’s making headlines now is the amazing resilience the Wolverines have shown in rattling off 12 consecutive victories since that start.
Yes, there is LaVell Blanchard, who dropped in 28 points against Minnesota on Monday and looks a lot like a Player of the Year candidate. Yes, there is freshman point guard Daniel Horton, now playing beyond his years. But look at what this team does: The Minnesota game ended with an 18-4 Michigan run that produced a 12-point win. This after comebacks at Ohio State and -- what really started this thing -- in the Wolverines' Big Ten opener against Wisconsin.
What makes the resilience even more impressive is that Michigan literally has nothing to play for but the game at hand. The self-imposed postseason ban eliminates any shot at an NCAA Tournament berth, yet somehow the Wolverines are playing with the urgency of a bubble team.
“For us, we’re trying to stay within the moment,” Amaker said. “It’s always a concern. That’s everyone’s dream, to be a national champion. But right now, it is what it is.”
Here’s what the moment is: a Sunday meeting with Michigan State that now borders on the surreal. The running joke lately has been that a visit from the Spartans will always sell out Crisler Arena because all the Michigan State fans would come down for the game.
But now, it’s Michigan State that is struggling with three conference losses. It’s Michigan that stands tall at 5-0. Memo to those caravaning down from East Lansing: Scalping? Not that easy anymore.
“Our home crowd was great against Minnesota, so I can imagine what it’s going to be like on Sunday,” guard Gavin Groninger said. “Their support has been outstanding. We feel like we’re playing for a lot of people.”
This is not to say that the basketball power in the state, captured by Tom Izzo’s program in the past few years, is in danger of swinging back the other way on one Sunday afternoon. That is a long way off for a team that can start planning for October when the Big Ten Tournament ends in mid-March. But the first step is now a lot closer than anyone thought it would be in December.
“This is a whole new team and a new year,” Horton said of Sunday’s game. “I'm just trying win and stay in first place.”
And that, it seems, is enough. Imagine that.
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There was a suggestion this week that the race for Big Ten Player of the Year would be interesting between its participants -- Brian Cook and Jeff Newton. Which raised the question: Jeff Newton?
It might be a stretch to label the lanky Indiana senior a co-favorite for postseason honors, but Newton leads the league in rebounding (9.4 per game) and is scoring a solid 14.7 points per game. He had a streak of six straight double-doubles in December and just had a game against Illinois -- 28 points, eight rebounds going head-to-head with Cook -- that probably inspired the player of the year talk.
That's probably a little much. But Newton has developed into the inside force that the Hoosiers needed to complement their proficiency from the perimeter. Just as important, he’s learned how to find those perimeter forces from the inside -- he had five assists against Ohio State and four against Illinois. If the Hoosiers continue to look inside to set up the outside game, if they continue to gravitate toward Newton, they’ll become the kind of force that can make noise in March.
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HOT: Hoosiers, Buckeyes tempers
Nothing like a little Greco-Roman wrestling between Tom Coverdale and Brent Darby to spice up a regular season game. The next opportunity to meet is in the conference tournament. Get ready to rumble.
NOT: Penn State’s offense
Just 23 percent shooting against Michigan State on Wednesday? Twenty-three percent? Who shoots 23 percent for 40 minutes of major conference college basketball anymore?
HOT: Ref bashing
Even after Mike Davis’ tantrum, Big Ten coaches entered this week trying to figure out whether officials were going to call it close, call it loose or change at every time out.
NOT: Purdue from the perimeter
Not too hard to pinpoint at least one reason for the first conference loss of the year -- just 3 of 16 shooting from 3-point range against Illinois on Wednesday.
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The people in Minnesota were starting to wonder: Weren’t you Rick Rickert? Weren’t you the budding superstar, the Big Ten Freshman of the Year who was supposed to carry the Gophers to the promised land of the NCAA tournament?
Early struggles for the sophomore big man raised those questions, but the span of just a few minutes against Michigan on Wednesday suggested that Rickert may hardly be the issue. In fact, Rickert scored eight straight points in a second-half flash to put Minnesota squarely in control. He dominated whomever Michigan sent to guard him in the post. And then he disappeared. Just three shots for the rest of the game, and Minnesota wound up losing by 12.
Why the freeze-out? Why didn’t Minnesota’s perimeter players get their go-to guy the ball when he was obviously in a zone? Said Minnesota coach Dan Monson afterwards: “I don’t have an answer for that.” And that’s the refrain of a team off to a 1-3 start, indeed.
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 Michigan's Lavell Blanchard
The senior forward should merit serious Player of the Year consideration if the Wolverines continue as contenders, as evidenced by his 24 second-half points that propelled Michigan past Minnesota and to a 5-0 league start.
Indiana's Marshall Strickland
Scored 15 points in 20 minutes off the bench against Ohio State, including zero turnovers and an 8-for-8 showing from the free throw line.
The old Michigan State
Clamp-down defense held Penn State to just 23 percent shooting and relentless work on the glass resulted in a 42-31 rebounding edge for the game -- not to mention the mere eight Spartans turnovers.
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Well, it’s come to fruition. No one figured that the lone meeting between Michigan and Michigan State would have any kind of serious Big Ten title implications. The thing was, no one expected Michigan to be the team that perhaps didn’t have to worry about that. But here it is, a twist of fates that has Twilight Zone written all over it -- Michigan State limping along with three conference losses in five games, and Michigan rolling with 12 straight wins overall and a 5-0 league mark. If anyone put money on that scenario, he or she is a rich, rich individual.
The lone league meeting between Indiana and Purdue is nothing to sneeze at, either, especially since the Hoosiers don’t get a return match in Bloomington (the first meeting at the RCA Dome counts as a non-conference game). It actually starts a brutal stretch for the Hoosiers, who have four straight road games, including trips to Michigan State and Louisville after Saturday. Indeed, seven of Indiana’s next nine games take place away from Assembly Hall, meaning a Big Ten title will be well-earned.
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Already Illinois has started to hear various calls for a massive renovation of Assembly Hall -- if not the construction of an entirely new building -- and apparently Purdue has also joined the discussion. Reportedly there are whispers in West Lafayette, Ind., that Mackey Arena is showing its age and that, at the very least, a modernization effort is needed. Or perhaps a new place totally. When asked about the advantages of playing in a state-of-the-art facility such as the Breslin Center, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo didn’t deny the advantages. “I don’t think there’s any question that kids would rather go somewhere where [they have] the Corvette instead of the Chevette,” Izzo said. … Opinions were mixed this week on what’s being perceived as inconsistent officiating in league play -- too touchy at times and too loose at others. Michigan State and Minnesota, for example, were whistled for a combined 56 fouls in their game last weekend. The only issue is that there doesn’t seem to be an agreeable middle ground. “We’re all so critical that there’s so much contact … but I don’t think Tom [Izzo] or I felt that the flow of game went very well because of them trying to clean stuff up,” Minnesota coach Dan Monson said. “The toughest thing is to see where we want to clean it up, and that’s where it gets frustrating.” … Iowa coach Steve Alford isn’t fitting his team for Big Ten title rings just yet, especially after the first conference loss of the season on Wednesday. Alford pointed out this week that Iowa’s most difficult portion of the schedule comes in February, when a squad going with just seven men in the rotation doesn’t have any byes to recoup. “Our margin for error is very slim,” Alford said. “Playing seven, eight guys, you’re a tweak of an ankle, an illness away from having problems set in.” … This week’s positive spin for Penn State, which scored just 36 points against Michigan State: The Nittany Lions are maybe the only team in the league that hasn’t had a serious free throw shooting problem, leading the league with more than 75 percent of the freebies made. “You try to put them in as many situations as possible where it’s competitive [in practice],” Penn State coach Jerry Dunn said. “A big part of it, also, is getting the right people to the line.”
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Brian Hamilton covers the Big Ten for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. His “This Week in the Big Ten” column appears Fridays during the season.
