Big Ten Basketball had a good showing in the Gavitt Tipoff Games, winning five of the eight contests. What were the biggest takeaways for the conference?
Big Ten Basketball came into this season with a lot of question marks. They were one of the best conferences in the country last year, but many teams lost a lot or even lost their head coach and there is was still a wait and see to many of the teams. While there are still many questions out there, this past week of games helped clarify some of them.
Except for a huge dud of a game from Iowa and one bad half from Purdue, the Big Ten looked good in the Gavitt Tipoff Games against the Big East. They would win five of the eight games including one very shocking win by the Northwestern Wildcats.
The Big Ten will get another big test when they take on the ACC in their annual challenge, but for one week they looked like they belonged among the nations best in college basketball. But what were the biggest takeaways? We take a look at the five biggest things we learned this week.
1. Northwestern isn’t the worst team in the conference
This may seem like a silly takeaway, but when you come off a loss to Merrimack (a team in its first year as a D1 program) its a big deal. Many thought head coach Chris Collins might not make it the whole season, and he still might not make it past this year, but getting a big win after such a bad loss will at least take some off the pressure off of him.
The Wildcats showed a lot of guts coming out after such a bad loss and beat a good Providence team. Not only did they beat them they got up big on them early and held on. It wasn’t a fluke that they won the game and it showed that maybe, just maybe they will be able to compete with some of the other teams in the Big Ten.
After their loss to Merrimack, they looked like they could one of the worst, if not the worst Power 5 team in the country. But after showing what they did against Providence they aren’t even the worst in the Big Ten. That dubious honor would fall to the Nebraska Cornhuskers until further notice.