Joining us for the game are our friends from the BBN: The Buckeye Blog, Buckeye Empire, Men of the Scarlet and Gray, and Buckeye Ninja. Make sure to swing by their place and say hello.

Today’s game is scheduled for 6:00 PM EST. The LiveBlog is scheduled to start 15 minutes before tip.

Go Bucks!

Ohio State vs. Iowa- Shootyhoops live chat… [Read More]

School: University of Iowa

Location: Iowa City, IA

Founded: 1847

Student Population: 31,498 total, 20,574 undergrad

School Type: Public

Stadium: Carver-Hawkeye Arena

Seating: 15,500

Opened: 1983

Head Coach: Fran McCaffrey

Experience: 3rd year

Here we go, another ‘Before we get started‘ commentary. Actually, I don’t have anything, so on to the Preview. Information will be pulled from the excellent site at Statsheet . I‘ll measure of teams capabilities that I will refer to will be the Four Factors; effective FG%, TO%, Off Rebounds Rate and FT Rate, as well as a couple other metrics just to flesh out the teams performances.

Iowa

Iowa is coming off an impressive take-down of Wisconsin 70-66 on Saturday. They … [Read More]

One of four days of the tournament are finished. One third of the combatants have been sent home. Now it’s time for the big dogs to get a chance to see the court.

Today’s games mostly went as expected, with Iowa, Indiana, and Purdue staying alive. The lone surprise was Minnesota’s overtime win over tournament dark horse favorite Northwestern. With the Wildcats eliminated early, it’s very likely that their NCAA tournament dreams have died with their Big Ten Tournament run. We’ll have to wait and see before we can be certain, however.

As for tomorrow’s games, there are some intriguing matchups. All four of the games involve teams that played each other only once during the regular season. Even more surprisingly, all of those games were played at the home court of the higher seed in each matchup. That means that each game has a good chance of being much … [Read More]

Game 4 Final – #6 Purdue 78, #11 Nebraska 61

10:00 PM – Gary Russell here from Indy finishing out today’s action. The second half started off with a flurry but Purdue really flexed its muscles in pulling away and beating Nebraska in the Husker’s first trip to the tourney by a score of 79-61. Today’s action reminded me of what the Big Ten is all about. While Minnesota’s overtime thriller was the best game of the day, the other games still showed us that the Big Ten has tremendous heart, determination, and class. Here’s to a great first day and an awesome second day.

9:00 PM – Gary Russell from Indy … [Read More]

Are you ready? Ready for tournament time?

The coaches are. Some of the coaches don’t usually care about the Big Ten Tournament – particularly Tom Izzo. The tournament rarely changes anything heading into the NCAA tournament, and the Regular Season Championship is considered more precious. But Tom Izzo seemingly changed his mind this season after being forced to share the regular season title with the Buckeyes and Wolverines,

We’re going to go win our championship back.

He’s ready for March. Are you?

You’d better be. This Big Ten Tournament promises to be one of the best yet. The field is deep with teams that want to win. Consider Northwestern, who has never been to the NCAA’s, and Minnesota, who would like to prove what they can do as a young team missing a key player. How about Purdue, with Robbie Hummel’s last go around. And that’s … [Read More]

Our Buckeye Blogger friends will be joining us at 2:30 pm. In the meantime, go check out their places! the Buckeye Blog, OSU Silver Bullet, Scarlet and Game, Buckeye House Call, Our Honor Defend, Men of the Scarlet and Gray, and Fox Sports Ohio.

If you’re looking for web-video for the game, try First Row Sports (warning: pop-up ads). Click the basketball tab, and you shouldn’t have any trouble finding the right game. I’ve heard people having issues with this website recently – if that’s still the case, let me know and we’ll hunt around for another source.

Go Bucks!

Basketball LiveBlog: Iowa… [Read More]

If you’re looking at this game as an easy OSU win, you’d better think again.  You’re probably thinking that because you were busy watching last year’s [Game Vacated by Ohio State] Bowl that happened to occur at the same time on January 4th.  Take a moment and recall how that game went down, as recorded by then-BBC-staffer Jay.  Of course, we did get them more easily in the rematch, but that was played in Columbus where Ohio State has an incredible record against opposing unranked teams – and, lets be honest, even against much more … [Read More]

The Basics:

History: We’ve previewed this bowl twice already, with last year’s having a much more comprehensive discussion.  This game as been the destination of Big Ten teams for the last 6 seasons, with only Indiana in 1991 participating before the current run.

Iowa: Kirk Ferentz’s team was a middle-of-the-road squad that went .500 in the Big Ten by beating Michigan but falling to MSU, PSU, and Nebraska.  They’re not a quality team by any stretch of the imagination, but they can make things happen.  They look primarily to junior quarterback James Vandenberg to do that as he completed 214 passes for 2806 yards and 23 touchdowns.  RB Marcus Coker will also be looked on for production, with no solid second answer behind him.

Oklahoma: There’s no … [Read More]