The Notables from the Mess

Oh, it has been too long — blame the flu for that! The Big Ten has certainly not stopped in my absence, with consistently intriguing results and a variety of teams showing up in ways I did not expect.

This is my first post of 2026 so…. Happy New Year! It already kinda sucks here, but not in the hoops world!

Last Hoopla: Midseason Hoopla 40

This beautiful chaotic conference is now 5-6 games in for each team. Two (Iowa, UCLA) remain undefeated, and three (Indiana, Penn State, Rutgers) are still searching for their first win. Yes, two of those teams do surprise me, but I will not be talking about the Hawkeyes and Hoosiers here, not yet.

Iowa deserves a lot of credit for a 5-0 start and the Hawkeyes have had an excellent first half of the season, but these five wins — @ Rutgers, Penn State, Nebraska, @ Northwestern, @ Indiana — is a pretty light start to the Big Ten slate all things considered. If the zero stays in the loss column for another week (Oregon, Michigan State), that’s a different story.

On the other end, Indiana has had @ Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan State, @ Maryland, @ Nebraska, Iowa. Of course, you’d like the Hoosiers to find a win in there, too, but I don’t find the defeats as notable as they’d seem on the surface. Indiana is 11-7 and 0-7 against Quad 1 opponents, which may just show where the team is at in its current form.

So, where do I want to turn?

I was keeping expectations low on Ohio State this season, or at least lower than their consistent high finishes in recent years would speak for. I was worried about a potential lack of depth and perimeter weapons to go with the obvious budding superstar at the center.

Those concerns may not be resolved, but one thing is clear: These Buckeyes have more elite potential than I once thought.

Ohio State is 15-2 and 5-1 in the Big Ten, with losses to the nation’s No. 1 and 3 teams. In the past week, the Buckeyes went on the road and beat two ranked opponents: No. 12 Maryland and No. 25 Illinois, and did so behind two of Jaloni Cambridge’s very best performances ever.

Cambridge scored 41 of the team’s 78 points in a nine-point win over the Illini, then followed that up with a 28-point outing in the 89-76 victory against the Terps. Even further, she also led all players in assists in both contests, with six against Illinois and eight against Maryland. Add 15 combined rebounds and four total steals, and it’s no wonder the sophomore was named National Player of the Week for her efforts.

My eyes are telling me that Ohio State is playing great basketball, and the AP agreed, moving the Buckeyes up to 14th. The NET and Bart Torvik are less convinced, placing Ohio State 22nd and 28th, respectively. The team three-point shooting (29.6%, 214th in NCAA) and middling rebound rate (52.0%, 137th) remain areas to focus on, but there are plenty of bright spots in how Ohio State has started to find itself lately.

Maybe Michigan State wanted to test how much one single bad loss can anchor a team’s PR, because ever since faltering by double digits to Wisconsin, the Spartans have been humming. On the whole, it’s been eight straight victories, most recently coming out of a West Coast stint against Washington and Oregon unscathed.

These wins stood out to me more than just being against stronger competition. Michigan State trailed by double digits early in the Washington one before completely flipping the script, leading by as much as 22 in the fourth. The Ducks led by as much as 16 in the first half, but the Spartans really had to grind it out late this time. But, after retaking the lead with 3:05 to go, they never trailed again, keeping that narrow lead all the way until the clock hit zero.

Easy non-conference schedule aside, this team now has three Quad 1 wins (last two wins + the 66-49 win over Ole Miss) and is showing that they can show up in the big ones. I continue to be so impressed with Kennedy Blair, who has at least 10 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists and a steal in five straight contests. There’s also Rashunda Jones, who had 40 combined points in those two big wins last week and is averaging career highs in just about every stat, including shooting percentages.

I was ready to pump the breaks on my Michigan State hype after that loss to the Badgers, but it does feel like another gear has flipped since the turn of the new year. Despite this, the Spartans did not move in the AP Poll this week, staying at 15th. Still, this is a Top 10 team in the NET, and games against Nebraska (home) and Iowa (away) are going to be incredible tests to see just how real this recent run is.

…How about those Boilermakers?

I was harsh on Purdue early after some troubling defeats to Purdue Fort Wayne and Central Michigan. But from there, the Boilermakers did start handling business in the non-conference, finishing with four straight wins by 30+, and the first four games they were handed in the Big Ten — @ Michigan, Illinois, Ohio State, @ Nebraska — did not allow much room to get things going.

But Purdue is officially on a damn winning streak in the Big Ten and that must be celebrated. Both wins impress me, too: A 75-67 road win against Wisconsin, followed by a 78-72 overtime victory against Washington.

Against the Badgers, Purdue was lights out from three, hitting 12 of 20. The Hayden’s — Madison Layden-Zay and McKenna — hit three apiece while Nya Smith went 4 off 6 and finished with a game-high 20 points. The Washington game was a different story, and Purdue adjusted from a cold shooting day (7 of 26 from three) to work on the interior through Tara Daye (19 points and Lana McCarthy (14 points, 12 rebounds). They forced 20 Huskies turnovers and completely stifled Washington in the extra frame to hold on for a pivotal win against a then-ranked opponent.

Like many recent Purdue teams, this is a unit without a high-volume scorer: Daye leads the team at 12.4 PPG, and Layden-Zay (10.9 PPG) is the team’s top option from deep. The Boilermakers still play slow relative to the conference, but have been generally efficient with a Top 50 shooting percentage, three-point percentage and effective field goal percentage nationally. These are all important, as Purdue still has not figured out an excellent solution to that “defense” thing, though holding Washington and Wisconsin to ~40% from the field is a good indicator of improvement.

Probably doesn’t need to be said, but these were massive victories for a team staring down the barrel of a lost year. It’s especially large for head coach Katie Geralds, who appeared to be on the hot seat heading into the season.

Getting to the Big Ten Tournament is the first major priority for this unit, but any level of competition on this upcoming road trip to USC and UCLA, and maybe we can start truly considering the Boilermakers as a team capable of getting to the NCAA Tournament.

The final team I felt I needed to discuss was Michigan. Not because I am so impressed by last week’s wins or that I am so disgusted at the loss to the Huskies. Instead, I am in a state of unrest with what this team is.

UCLA is busy laying waste to its schedule and seems to be every bit of the national title threat I thought it was. Throughout most of the 2025 portion of this season, I thought Michigan was right on the Bruins’ tail, showing how high the ceiling for this team is in the blowout against Notre Dame, a down-to-the-wire loss to UConn and the other blowouts against just about everyone else.

Now? I’m not out, not by any means, but there are things to fix and the Wolverines are good enough to fix them without faltering much in the wins column.

That 64-52 loss to Washington showed off Michigan’s two key weaknesses: the free throw line and the three-point line. Michigan was 9 of 17 on free throws and 3 of 14 from deep in the loss. The Wolverines also only had three assists as a team, but they have not been held below 12 in any other game this year so I am willing to call that an anomaly for now.

On the year, Michigan is shooting 66.5% from the line and 32.1% from deep. Those rank 292nd and 125th in the nation, respectively. While you’d like a team this talent to be better from behind the arc, it’s that horrifying free throw number that really sticks out like a sore thumb.

Have things improved since the loss? Sort of! Michigan has shot 26.9% from three (worse!) and 72.8% on free throws, the latter of which would place them around 110th across the whole season. On the bright side, the Wolverines have gotten a ton of in-game practice on those free throws, shooting 92 of them in those three wins.

I think the Wolverines are worth nitpicking at this depth because we saw the ceiling early in the year, and that ceiling looked like a Final Four-caliber team. It’s also a group led by three — arguably now four with Te’Yala Delfosse’s rise — sophomores, so it’s a team that should be constantly improving.

Big games are ahead very soon for this Michigan squad, and the defensive dominance gives the group a great floor to work from. But are they capable of what I thought they were after their start to the year? Right now, I can’t say.

What to Watch

(TTQ: Torvik Thrill Quotient)

• **1/14 — No. 12 Maryland at USC (TTQ: 106)**

• 1/14 — No. 3 UCLA at Minnesota (TTQ: 96)

• 1/14 — Washington at Indiana (TTQ: 75)

• **1/15 — No. 24 Nebraska at No. 15 Michigan State (TTQ: 103)**

• 1/15 — Oregon at No. 11 Iowa (TTQ: 96)

• 1/17 — No. 12 Maryland at No. 3 UCLA (TTQ: 96)

• **1/18 — No. 15 Michigan State at No. 11 Iowa (TTQ: 98)**

• 1/18 — Minnesota at Washington (TTQ: 94)

• 1/18 — Rutgers at Penn State (TTQ: 48, I disagree!)

• NON-CONFERENCE BANGERS

  • **1/19 — No. 8 Michigan vs. No. 5 Vanderbilt (TTQ: 100)**

  • **1/19 — No. 14 Ohio State vs. No. 10 TCU (TTQ: 98)**

Photo Credit: Ohio State Women’s Basketball (@OhioStateWBB), Twitter

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