Wisconsin vs. Penn State

ESPN has Wisconsin ranked #8 in the country and the AP has them at #10. Penn State is going to have to step up to the plate tonight. Wisconsin hasn't played for a week, so hopefully they'll be rusty and will open the door a crack by losing to Penn State so Purdue can step in to the Big Ten lead. Unfortunately, the game is in Wisconsin, so Penn has their work cut out for them.

Wisconsin's up 10 early... "these aren't the droids you're looking for... move along."

IU vs. Minnesota

Minnesota (18-10, 8-8 in the Big Ten) is 4 points down to IU (24-5, 13-3 in the Big Ten) at the half... the score is IU 31, Minn 27.

IU-Minnesota tied at 47 with 8 minutes to go.

IU has turned on the gas and is now up ten, 50-40 with three minutes to go.

IU wins going away, 69-55.

IU (and Purdue)'s only Big Ten hope is for Penn State to beat Wisconsin tonight.

Purdue vs. Ohio State

Purdue visits Ohio State tonight at 7pm on ESPN

The fact that Purdue is 23-6 overall is remarkable, and Matt Painter deserves major consideration for national coach of the year honors. The Boilermakers have won their last two games, including a 68-43 romp over Northwestern on Saturday. While they are 16-1 at home this season, four of their nine true road games have resulted in defeat.

Purdue has been one of the nation's most surprising teams, and the enormous success can not be attributed to one star player. Purdue has gotten the job done at the defensive end, limiting opponents to 60.2 ppg.

Purdue got off to a ragged start but came back on the power of E'Twaun Moore's three pointers... they're down 1 point about halfway through the first half.

Great defense, sure, but this is ridiculous: Purdue's up 29-26 at the half.

The lead is see-sawing, 13 minutes to go and Purdue is on top 41-40.

Purdue OSU tied at 62 with 2 minutes to go. Now 1 minute to go, same score.

OSU takes the lead with free throws, they're shooting 91 percent from the line. Up 64-62.

Now Purdue is at the line with 30 seconds left: tied again at 64.

It's overtime... Purdue stole the ball as OSU drove to the basket, but didn't have time to go the other way. Purdue has lost one player to fouls, but it is the beauty of this team that they are deep and have no names.

Three's are raining down now. Purdue up by 1, 69-68 with 3.5 minutes to go.

All tied, 72-72 with 2 minutes to go. Both teams crashing the boards and each other, the refs letting them play.

OSU up by 2, 74-72 with a minute and a half to go in overtime.

Purdue struggles on offense, trying to find an opening. OSU ties them up and Purdue gets the ball on possession. Six seconds left on the shot clock, 50-some seconds to go. Purdue down 2. Purdue can't get it inbounds and waste their last timeout.

It's hard to win on the road, Purdue loses the inbounds...

OSU scores, up 4. Hummel drops a three, OSU up 1. Purdue fouls on the inbounds, OSU at the line, up 76-75 with 16 seconds left.

OSU up 3, Purdue comes down, tries a three -- no good. Purdue fouls on the rebound... OSU at the line, 9 seconds to go. Now OSU up , it looks bad.

OSU makes a horrible mistake, if you ask me, calling a time out when Purdue has none left. Purdue as the ball and needs six points in 9 seconds.

OSU wins at home, 80-77. Purdue was beaten by free throw shooting and by Butler who protected the ball well and scored 25, many of them when it counted, in overtime.

IU Falls to #18

The new AP Top 25 is out

Butler remains at #14

Purdue rises 1 to #15

IU falls 6 to #18

Notre Dame falls 2 to #19

Wisconsin remains at #10

Michigan State rises 2 to #17

North Carolina takes over as #1

Closing out the Season

The Bluffton News-Banner has a couple of articles on the 23-1 Bluffton Tigers.

Tigers' Record Season, no fluke!

Tigers' best season ever ends in loss to Luers

Area Sectional Scores

Bishop Luers wins the Woodlan Sectional over Bluffton 66-64

Snider wins the Dekalb Sectional over East Noble, 73-54 (they'll face Marion next)

Peru wins the Peru Sectional over Elmhurst, 63-53

Harding wins the Harding Sectional over Heritage, 84-75 (they'll face Lakeland next)

The Canterbury-Blackhawk game is postponed until tomorrow.

Bluffton 64, Luers 66

What an exciting game. We were at a Euchre tournament at St. Therese, but I was able to catch bits and pieces on my transistor radio.... a nice cheer went up for Luers at the end. Brock Woodward scored 18 for Bluffton, playing injured, and even on the radio I heard the crowd crow when Woodward stuffed a DeShaun Thomas shot near the end.

Bluffton called two timeouts before Jared Johnson’s long three-pointer hit the back of the rim and bounced out.

“Bluffton is a great team, and we underestimated them,” [Luers Coach] Barnett said. “People were saying we were going to blow them out, but we weren’t thinking that. We got lucky and came out with the win.”

A tip of the hat to Bluffton for a great season... I suspect these two teams will find themselves back face-to-face next year since they both have many underclassmen on the starting five.

Bluffton, like Woodlan before them, double teamed Thomas most of the game and only allowed him 15 points; but Bluffton tired near the end, which allowed Luers to ourscore them 17-7 in the final quarter.

Luers will face either Oak Hill, or Tipton next week. Bluffton ends their stellar season 23-1.

Area Scores of Interest

Elmhurst 37, Norwell 34 :(

Bluffton 65, South Adams 52

Luers 65, Woodlan 54

Peru 59, Wayne 53

Wes Del 66, Southern Wells 60

Harding 71, Dwenger 68 in Overtime

Marion 74, Northside 47

Snider 60, Dekalb 52

East Noble 66, Northrop 64

Jay County 60, Huntington North 38

Heritage 55, Concordia 53

Canterbury 67, Lakewood Park 57

Blackhawk 56, Bethany Christian 51

Bluffton vs. South Adams

14-11 Bluffton at the end of the first quarter. Cody Cochran for Bluffton has 12, I think, of the 14.

22-15 Bluffton, Brock Woodward hurt his ankle, Cochran has 17. Bluffton in foul trouble already.

30-19 Bluffton at the half. Woodward has not returned to the game, Cochran has 19 points.

Woodward still out at the start of the 2nd half... he is not even on the bench.

37-22 Bluffton. Cochran has 25 points. He's dropping 3 after 3.

47-27 Bluffton, Cochran has 28 points. Bluffton's big men are out, Woodward injured, Trent Herman with four fouls.

49-29 at the end of three.

54-34 Bluffton with 5:40 to go. Cochran with 29 points. Herman back in.

Woodward has ligament or cartilage damage to his left knee. Bluffton has the game well in hand. South Adams is starting to foul to get the ball... one starter just fouled out.

58-36 Bluffton, Cochran with 31 points with 3:something left in the game.

64-49 Bluffton, 30 seconds left, fouls every trip down the floor.

65-52 Bluffton wins.... but loses 6'7" Brock Woodward for the all important Sectional Championship against Bishop Luers tomorrow.

Bluffton looked better than Luers, but it's hard to compare since Woodlan's whole goal was to stop DeShaun Thomas and they were forced to play a very messy game.

Luers vs. Woodlan

Luers is up, 33-31, just after the half. DeShaun Thomas has only 2 points as Woodlan is double and triple teaming him at every possession.

47-46 Luers with 5 minutes to go.... Thomas still with only 2... Woodlan playing a "Diamond in One" falling in on Thomas at each touch of the ball.

56-49 Luers with 1:50 to go... other Luers players are taking up the slack for Thomas. Woodlan has a ton of fouls compared to Luers.

60-52 Luers with 40 seconds left, Thomas has 8 points... Woodlan fouling at every possession, trying to score with the clock off.

64-54 Luers with less than 20 seconds left. Woodlan players are starting to foul out. Thomas has 10 points.

65-54 Luers, Final. Woodlan was able to stop Thomas, but at the cost of many, many fouls and the scoring just moved to other, capable Luers players.

Can Bluffton Beat Bishop Luers

A nice article in the Berne Tri-Weekly about the Adams Central (0-20) vs. Bluffton (22-0) game on Wednesday.

[Bluffton Coach Wayne] Barker was asked what separates a team from going undefeated, as his team has done thus far, and a team that manages to go an entire season without tasting victory.

"We've been lucky at times, and I don't mean to discount our players' talents, because we've got good players, but there have just been times that we've been fortunate," he said.

Perhaps Coach Barker was just being generous in the interview, and sensitive to Adams Centrals' fans. But, in fact, Bluffton has been lucky, taking a couple of very close games it might not have taken on another night. There was a nice article in the Banner a few years ago about Big Wells County Games of the past, it's the type of article local newspapers should pursue more often to help their bottom line. Luers isn't a Wells County team, but Wells County residents are students there. This will be one of those Big Games.

Anyway, it's perhaps dangerous to assume that Bluffton will get past South Adams and Luers will get past Woodlan to face each other on Saturday, but let's be dangerous. Can Bluffton Beat Bishop Luers? Can number 1 defeat number 3? Bishop Luers is averaging nearly 73 points a game and has won their last eight games. Bluffton is averaging about 60 points a game and has won all their games. But to whom did Luers lose? Luers lost three games on the season 1) 4A South Side by 2 points, 2) 3A Indianapolis Howe by 16 points, and 3) 3A Harding by 10 points. All three are tough teams above the 2A level with winning seasons.

Luers had only three games all season at the 2A, 1A level (2A Woodlan, 1A Canterbury and 1A Blackhawk). Luers crushed Woodlan 69-46 and Canterbury 82-42. Bluffton, on the other hand, had only 1 4A contest this year (9-12 Connersville) compared to Luers 7 4A match ups. Bluffton had 11 games against 2A and 1A opponents. In fact, of all of Bluffton's 22 wins this season only Leo (11-10), Northfield (12-8) and Southwood (12-9) are over .500 this year... Leo barely qualifies at 11-10 and counts as one of Bluffton's lucky wins. Of Luers' 18 wins, 11 were against teams that are over .500. Luers, despite the three losses, seems far more battle-tested that Bluffton.

Lastly, in that article above about "Big Wells County Games of the Past," take note of the 1965 game between Ossian (17-1) vs. Garrett (17-1). The game that had to be moved to the Coliseum in Ft. Wayne because the Ossian Gym could not hold the over 8000 fans who showed up to watch. Ossian could not stop Chuck Bavis (who went on to star at Purdue with Rick Mount) and ended up losing in a blowout (87-56).

Who in the Bluffton lineup is going to stop the Mr. Basketball bound DeShaun Thomas.

The end result

Anybody who's interested in IU Coach Sampson being fired already knows about it, right? So why not look at a slideshow of what happens when you spray water on buildings in the winter.

Bluffton: 20-0

Bluffton beat New Haven last night to move to 20-0 on the season with only 2A Southwood (12-7) left on their schedule.

Adams Central -- poor, poor Adams Central, sitting at 0-18 on the season, get's stuck playing Bluffton on February 26th in the opener of the Woodlan sectional. South Adams gets a bye, forcing Bluffton to play three games to win the 5 team sectional, while Luers would only have to play 2.

Norwell ends season 8-12

Norwell 50, Jay County 54. Norwell (8-12) moves to the 3A post season to face Elmhurst (5-14). The Peru Sectional consists of Peru (9-10), Bellmont (8-11), Wayne (10-9), Maconaquah (8-11), Norwell (8-12), and Elmhurst (5-14). With records like those, anything can happen.

Purdue falls short

Purdue had a very bad shooting night. They made a game of it, starting out strong and coming back to within two points with about six minutes or so to go... but they just couldn't put the ball in the hoop... and give Indiana their due, they made 30 free throws on the night to offset their many turnovers.

Big Ten Game of the year

Indiana-Purdue Big Ten game of the year 7pm on ESPN

AP College Rankings

The new AP ranking poll is out

Butler #8
Purdue #14
Indiana #15
Notre Dame #21

Whose the underdog now? USA Today and ESPN have IU and Purdue reversed, IU 14, Purdue 15.

Big 10 Boiling Over

Big 10: Conference Title Race 'Boiling Over'

Purdue is the antithesis to everything glorified by ESPN's Ultimate Highlight or And 1 Tour—today's warped versions of Basketball for Dummies.

A look at Purdue's overall statistics showcases exactly how unusual this team is.

The leading scorer on the team, freshman guard E'Twaun Moore, posts a rather pedestrian 11.9 ppg. The second leading scorer, another freshman, Robbie Hummel—who is Brian Cardinal reincarnate (minus the male pattern balding syndrome), nets a second-best 11.3 ppg.

The team's leading rebounder, Hummel, gets only 5.9 rebounds per game. But the Boilers have eight players averaging at least three rebounds a game, an unheard of statistic that has been a key to their success. Despite the lack of a dominant inside presence, the Boilers' defense is what other Big Ten coaches are talking about.

But perhaps the most unbelievable stat for the Baby Boilers is this: No one on this team plays more than 30 minutes per game. And the team goes nine players deep every game.

No me-first superstar. Just a team willing to do all the right things.

The tradition is back for Purdue basketball.

Also back is the crowd support. Dubbed the "Mackey Magic," Purdue's Mackey Arena is rocking again—standing room only, face paint, crazed students, the whole nine [yards].

Bluffton moves to 19-0

Bluffton 70, Mississinewa 41 and I didn't even realize they had a game on Saturday night.

The Bluffton Tigers set themselves out from other Bluffton teams by becoming the first to win 19 games without a loss in a season.

The Tigers did that with a 70-41 romp over the Mississinewa Indians (8-11) Saturday night at the Tiger Den, led by [Norwell's] junior forward Brock Woodward's season-high, 34-point effort.

Next up, New Haven away, tomorrow night.

Let the mind games begin

Indiana's D.J. White has a sprained knee and may not play against Purdue

Since White is one of the best players in the Big 10, if you believe his knee-ouchie will keep him out of Tuesday game, I have a bridge to sell you.