We get Josh Whitman here in a few minutes. (5 pm CT). I’ll post any breaking news.

Going out to two decimal places because it's that tight...

1. Purdue (5) - 15.64
2. Rutgers (14) - 13.30
3. Illinois (21) - 11.58
4. Iowa (32) - 10.87
5. Michigan (51) - 10.61
6. Penn State (38) - 10.20
7. Mich State (40) - 10.19
8. Ohio State (17) - 10.03
9. Maryland (43) - 9.68
10. Northwestern (58) - 9.50
11. Wisconsin (67) - 9.25
12. Indiana (28) - 9.19
13. Nebraska (95) - 6.59
14. Minnesota (186) - 3.37

• 1.68 projected wins are all that separate 4th place from 12th place
• The only real threat to Purdue right now is Rutgers. Rutgers is currently alone in 2nd place and projected as the #14 team in the country.
• Illinois was #33 in preseason, rose up to #12 before the Penn State loss, dipped to #40 before the Wisconsin win, and is now #21. We are currently favored or 1-point underdogs in our next 8 games. We need to keep banking victories
• Some odd positioning of teams relative to their efficiency rankings (see Michigan, Ohio State, Indiana). Some of this is injuries but I expect the efficiency rankings to move to match the rankings and not vice versa. A lot of these teams aren't really rated properly right now. I think in the era of NIL and transfers it takes a little while for your team to gel and more November/December results will be misleading. Trust Vegas over KenPom right now when they differ.

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The 1965-66 Men's basketball season.

Northwestern beating us home and home in the same season.

Yeah, I am worried about this game. I don't want to ever see us losing to them twice in one season especially when we play them at SF Center.

I don't know if it's the NW's AD giving Collins an ultimatum before the season but they are playing better than anyone imagined they would this year.

Chase Audige, Boo Buie, and their defense are playing out of their minds.

I wonder how many of the dedicated Wildcat fans will be there on Thursday?

With the announcement of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC in 2024 coming last week, there has been a lot of discourse in the college football arena about how the Big Ten and SEC are likely moving away from a divisional model in 2024 and moving to a 3-6-6 schedule model that features three protected opponents and six other conference foes that will be played home and away in a four-year timeline. This would allow each school in the Big Ten or SEC to visit each of the other conference members in a four-year time frame. The three protected games -- notice I did not use permanent -- could change every four years, if necessary.

I wanted to have some fun, so I made my own model for the Big Ten and SEC of three protected opponents for all 16 league members come 2024. I did my best to preserve historic games and competitiveness But I also found it important to create must-see games that are attractive to FOX, CBS and NBC -- the Big Ten's new media partners -- because television ratings are going to be important in these decisions. All of the SEC's games are going to be broadcast on the ESPN family of networks.
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I'm in the house at State Farm Center for this one. Last home game of the season for Illinois.

Illinois defeated Nebraska in Lincoln 72-664 back on February 9.

Top 50 prospects

Purdue gets an easy 92-55 win over Ohio State. What a terrible year for the Buckeyes.

Northwestern hammers Iowa 80-60. Hawkeyes 3-of-24 on threes, Kris Murray 0-6

Nebraska upsets Maryland 70-66.

Multiple sources now reporting that he’s out with a concussion vs. Indiana.

How Underwood has handled this is the flat out wrong approach.

When a player is in a deep shooting slump, you tell him to go make hustle plays. Get some garbage baskets.

The “just keep shooting” approach has really hurt this team and further broken RJ’s confidence. You could argue that it cost them the game against Indiana.

JMO

Thought I'd sketch out some rough outlines of what our NCAA seeding might look like based on future W-L record. We have 18 wins total and 9 Big Ten wins right now. I feel confident that we will not be playing on Wednesday in the BTT. I'm also assuming that the Sunday BTT game is irrelevant for seeding purposes, should we make it that far. This is pure speculation on my part so if you think I'm full of it then I apologize. Bear in mind that a regular season win is better than a BTT win because you remove a loss from your total with a regular season win but each BTT win just delays it one day. I'm also going to assume that we need to go 4-0 to get a double-bye in the BTT.

I think to lock up a bid, we need either one more regular season win (19-13 or better) or two BTT wins (20-14 or better.)
19-13/20-14 = 11-seed play-in

0-4 reg season + 0-1 or 1-1 BTT = 18-14/19-14 = NIT
0-4 reg season + 2-1 BTT = 20-14 = 11-seed play-in
0-4 reg season + 3-1/4-0 BTT = 21-14/22-13 = 9 seed

1-3 reg season + 0-1 BTT = 19-13 = 11 seed play-in
1-3 reg season + 1-1 BTT = 20-13 = 10 seed
1-3 reg season + 2-1 BTT = 21-13 = 9 seed
1-3 reg season + 3-1/4-0 BTT = 22-13/23-12 = 7 seed

2-2 reg season + 0-1 BTT = 20-12 = 8-seed
2-2 reg season + 1-1 BTT = 21-12 = 7-seed
2-2 reg season + 2-1 BTT = 22-12 = 6-seed
2-2 reg season + 3-1/4-0 BTT = 23-12/24-11 = 4 seed

3-1 reg season + 0-1 BTT = 21-11 = 6-seed
3-1 reg season + 1-1 BTT = 22-11 = 5-seed
3-1 reg season + 2-1 BTT = 23-11 = 4-seed
3-1 reg season + 3-1/4-0 BTT = 24-11/25-10 = 3 seed

4-0 reg season + 0-1 BTT = 22-10 = 5-seed
4-0 reg season + 1-1 BTT = 23-10 = 4-seed
4-0 reg season + 2-1/3-0 BTT = 24-10/25-9 = 3 seed
(the 3,4,5 seeds in this scenario would be higher on the S-curve than the 3-1 ones, but not quite at the higher seed line)

I think our ceiling right now is around the #9 overall seed if we win out until Sunday in the BTT. If I had to predict where we end up, I'd guess 3-1 reg season + 2-1 BTT = 23-11 = 4-seed (probably the #16 overall on the S-curve.) Path to the Sweet 16 is a cakewalk through the 13/12 seeds (finally a good draw!) and then it's a battle royale vs. Houston or Alabama.

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TJ Shannon officially ruled out. He's not out for the shoot-around.