General

Big Ten Basketball Is Really Exciting

Feb 19, 2009, 3:00 PM UTC

Living in North Carolina has spoiled me with basketball riches in the form of the ACC. This is the greatest basketball conference in the land, no one denies this, and if you do, you better not be arguing in favor the Big Ten. ‘Cause good god, that conference is insufferable to watch. â†µâ†µCase in point, last night’s barn-burner between Penn State and Illinois. The former is a bubble team, the latter is probably a lock and both played like they’d be lucky to make the NIT. The final score: 38, 33 in favor of Penn State. Yes, there was a shot clock in use. Some highlowlights: â†µ

â†µâ†µPenn State’s leading scorer was Talor Battle, who was 3-11 (27%) from the field, 4-4 from the line for a total of 11 points. â†µ

â†µâ†µThe four free throws Battle attempted were four more than Illinois tried all game. That’s right: they had a total of zero FTs. â†µ

â†µâ†µIllinois’ Demetri McCamey attempted 12 shots. He made two. â†µ

â†µâ†µThe two teams shot a combined 28.5% from the field. â†µ

â†µâ†µThere were 14 assists in the game. Total. â†µ

â†µâ†µThe first five minutes of the game played out like this: 11 missed shots in a row, one made 13-foot jumper. Official timeout. 2-0, Illinois. â†µ

â†µâ†µUNC and NC State both scored more points each last night than the total points scored by both Penn State and Illinois. â†µ

â†µâ†µSo yeah, thrilling stuff out there in the heartland. All of which was really summed up best by The Big Picture, which wrote this in reference to the photo you see in the upper right: “The caption of that photo would tell you that Penn State’s Andrew Jones is fighting for a rebound. Could be. But he most likely just missed a shot, got the rebound, and then missed the put-back.” â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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