- Reports of Ed DeChellis's demise were greatly exaggerated. In Penn State's last four games, they've beaten Michigan State, beaten Illinois, taken #1 Ohio State down to the wire in Columbus, and then last night the Nittany Lions were a blown call away from upsetting Purdue at Mackey Arena. In case you missed it, with about 5 seconds left and Purdue down 1, E'Twaun Moore lost the ball on a drive to the basket, then knocked it away from Tim Frazier and out of bounds. A referee was standing about 5 feet away from this with a perfect view, but for some reason decided to give Purdue possession, and JaJuan Johnson promptly knocked down the game-winning shot (and he was somehow wide open on the play, way to go DeChellis).
Regardless of the final score though, there's no denying that Penn State is playing excellent basketball right now, led by the criminally underrated Jeff Brooks, who had 19 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 blocks in the losing effort last night. In Big Ten play, Brooks is averaging 15 points, 8 rebounds and 2 blocks per game while shooting 65% from the field, yet all anyone can talk about is Talor Battle, who is averaging 19 per game in Big Ten play, but only shooting 37% from the field. So DeChellis, if you're reading this, tell Battle to stop chucking up 27 foot stepback threes and start feeding Brooks down on the box.
- If you're wondering what's going on with future Big Ten opponent Nebraska, well, they're 14-4 (2-2) and looking like they could be an NCAA team, which would be more than anyone expected (after all, Nebraska is one of three BCS conference teams to never win a tournament game). But what caught my eye this morning is news of former Husker Christian Standhardinger being arrested on public indecency charges over the weekend. Standhardinger left Nebraska's team earlier this year and was supposed to transfer to La Salle, but La Salle coach John Giannini (no relation to Annika I presume) has now decided not to let Standhardinger into the school. A few thoughts:
If you replace the "g" in Standhardinger with an "h", you get a pretty accurate description of why he was arrested.
Unless there's more to the story that I'm not seeing, I find it completely ridiculous that La Salle is now refusing to let the kid into their school. A college student hooking up with a girl late on a Saturday night isn't exactly deviant behavior, so unless this occurred in front of little kids or something (very unlikely given it was at 3:40 AM), then give the kid a break; it's a victimless crime after all. Surprisingly, La Salle frowns upon letting their players do a little Exploring.
Moving on...
SIU-Edwardsville Cougars at Northwestern Wildcats, 5:30 central, BigTenNetwork.com ($$$)
No real TV for this one, and why would there be: SIU-Edwardsville is so bad, this game at Welsh-Ryan serves as the warm-up act for an NU women's game. KenPom likes Northwestern by a staggering 94-55 margin, but considering SIU-E lost 111-50 to Iowa earlier this year, maybe a 39 point spread isn't so far fetched. The three goals for NU tonight are:
1. No injuries
2. Plenty of run for the second unit
3. Score 100 points
Unfortunately, goals 2 and 3 may be mutually exclusive.
Indiana Hoosiers at Wisconsin Badgers (-13.5), 8 PM central, ESPN
It would be nice for NU if Wisconsin had a potentially tough match-up tonight so they're tired come Sunday afternoon, but alas they are hosting the struggling Hoosiers. The Badgers have far too much talent and are far too disciplined for IU to handle, so take Wisconsin and watch Jon Leuer abuse Indiana's suspect interior defense.
Gambling record: 12-9-1