12/3 Big Ten basketball preview: Indiana at Minnesota

Finally, Big Ten men’s basketball games.

There’s still a few non-conference games left for your favorite college basketball conference, but we do get this little preview of league action in early December. Would it make more sense to just play all these games in the new year? Maybe, but I’ve always found this little preview to be a bit neat.

Onto the games:

No. 22 Indiana Hoosiers at Minnesota Golden Gophers

• Tip time/TV: 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CST on Big Ten Network

• KenPom spread: Hoosiers by 9

Two of the league’s new head coaches face off to open Wednesday’s action.

Indiana enters this game riding a hot streak behind a high scoring offense and a defense that’s punching above the weight of what this roster seemed capable of on paper. The Hoosiers are 7-0 and have risen in the AP top-25 after debuting last week. The only issue is none of the teams they’ve been are, well, good.

Minnesota has… not done that. The Niko Medved era is off to a rocky start as the Gophers sit at 4-4 overall with three consecutive losses to what feels like the entirety of the Bay Area’s college basketball arsenal in San Francisco, Stanford and Santa Clara. Truly it feels like they only missed out on Cal.

Anyway.

All of one thing is going well up in Minnesota and it’s getting to the free throw line. And just getting there, because the Gophers make just 66.7% of their attempts from the stripe. Oof.

Indiana has to keep its bigs out of foul trouble but otherwise should take care of business.

Northwestern Wildcats at Wisconsin Badgers

• Tip time/TV: 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CST on Big Ten Network

• KenPom spread: Badgers by 7

We head right from a game between two new faces to one between two Big Ten stalwarts.

Northwestern sits at 5-2 on the season but the metrics aren’t poor and the Wildcats were firmly competitive in each of their two losses so far. The only issue is said losses were two of their better chances for a signature performance in the non-conference slate aside from a late December semi-road game against Butler in Indianapolis.

Chris Collins turned to Arrinten Page to fill the void left by his departing frontcourt and the Cincinnati transfer has done a remarkable job with 15 points, 7 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game. The only issue up to this point is that the other guys on the roster haven’t been enough outside of Nick Martinelli and Jayden Reid. That could change as the season goes on, but Northwestern needs that extra boost to feel good heading into conference play.

Wisconsin got got on the road in Utah at the hands of a star-studded BYU squad and just dropped a game to TCU. Not the best start, but the Badgers will be fine long-term. John Blackwell looks great and the offense has looked pretty good all things considered.

Nick Boyd has been a revelation in the backcourt, averaging 21 points, 2.9 rebounds and 3.1 assists while shooting 50% from long range. If he keeps that pace, he and Blackwell will be among the best tandems in the Big Ten.

I do think Wisconsin takes this one. Partially because it’s at home and I think the supporting cast for the Badgers is better than that of the ‘Cats.

UCLA Bruins at Washington Huskies

• Tip time/TV: 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PST on Big Ten Network

• KenPom spread: Bruins by 1

Wow, here’s one I have absolutely no feel for and KenPom seems to agree with me.

Another one between two relative Big Ten newcomers. Mick Cronin is about as known of a commodity as it gets around college hoops and Danny Sprinkle was a hot name on the coaching market when he was hired, but both are entering just their second season in the Big Ten.

The Bruins’ schedule has been weird in that they’ve stuck to either sub-200 KenPom teams or a national title contender in Arizona. Also Cal, I guess, which is somehow 66th in KenPom. Good for them! Not sure how that happened but good for them nonetheless! Speaking of not sure how that happened, UCLA did lose to Cal, which uh… shouldn’t happen.

It’s almost certainly delicious schadenfreude in Berkeley to beat your university system rival’s crown jewel revenue program after said rival fled to another conference and helped kill yours but pretty bad for UCLA. The Bruin defense is still stingy but the offense can’t do anything well at all. Bodes ill.

As for Washington? Well, the Huskies are… fine? They’re 5-2. Baylor is a more than understandable loss but Colorado is probably one you’d rather have if you have any designs on making the NCAA Tournament. Not a terrible loss though.

This team leans slightly more on its defense, doing nothing particularly well but nothing particularly poorly. The same could be said for the offense, though Washington grabs plenty of offensive boards and is less than ideal scoring in the interior.

But these Huskies HATE shooting 3s. Despise it. They’re 320th in 3PA/FGA, which is firmly in the Woodson Zone around this conference. I’d hope that’s a sign of this team’s strengths and weaknesses (they make 35% so like not terrible) than what Sprinkle is coaching them to do or intends to with this program.

This is a toss-up. Sorry!