Big Ten Weekly Men's Basketball Central - Jan. 17-20

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WEEKLY RELEASE - JAN. 17

Big Ten. Big News.

• A pair of top 20 matchups highlight this weekend’s Big Ten slate. On Saturday, No. 17 Purdue, winners of six straight, will head to Eugene to face No. 13 Oregon, who has won five of its last six games, at 3 p.m. on NBC, while No. 19 Illinois will look to snap No. 12 Michigan State’s 10-game win streak on Sunday at 12 noon on CBS. No. 20 Michigan and No. 24 Wisconsin will also be in action this weekend, as the Badgers will visit USC on Saturday (3 p.m., BTN), with the Wolverines playing host to Northwestern on Sunday (2 p.m., BTN). 
• Milestone Watch... Congratulations to Wisconsin’s Greg Gard, who claimed his 200th career win on Tuesday. Gard becomes the fourth Wisconsin head coach to reach the 200-win plateau, joining Bo Ryan (364 wins), Bud Foster (265 wins), and Walter Meanwell (246 wins)... Congratulations to USC’s Desmond Claude, who recorded his 1,000th career point in Tuesday’s win over Iowa... Congratulations to Northwestern’s Brooks Barnhizer who became the 42nd Wildcat to score 1,000 career points, surpassing the plateau in Thursday’s win over Maryland... Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo needs five more wins to pass former Indiana coach Bob Knight (353) for the all-time lead in conference wins by a head coach.
• Illinois’ 94 points are the most ever scored by a visiting team at Assembly Hall in a regulation game, and the second-most overall behind Penn State’s effort in a 110-102 triple-overtime loss on Feb. 1, 2017. The win also marked Illinois’ largest margin of victory in a road game at Indiana, breaking the record set 69 years ago when the Illini earned a 96-72 road win over the Hoosiers at The Fieldhouse.
• Indiana center Oumar Ballo is averaging 14.1 points, 10.1 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and 1.7 blocks per contest and is shooting 67.9% (91-of-134) from the floor. He is one of four high-major conference players (Johni Broome, Auburn; Hunter Dickinson, Kansas; Danny Wolf, Michigan) to average a double-double and 1.5 blocked shots per night, and the only player to post those numbers on 60.0 percent shooting or better.
• Iowa currently leads the nation in scoring offense with 89.5 points per game. The Hawkeyes have scored 80 or more points in 11 straight games, the longest stretch since having 13-straight 80+ point games in the 1988-89 season.
• With 23 points, seven rebounds, and two blocked shots in Thursday’s overtime loss at Northwestern, Maryland’s Julian Reese moved up to 10th on the program’s all-time career rebounds list with 845, while his 148 career blocks are eight in the program’s annuls. Reese is one of just nine players in program history to record both 1,000 career points (1,248) and 800 rebounds.
• Michigan ranks third in the Big Ten and 38th nationally with a 37.8 three-point shooting percentage. Over the last six games, the Wolverines have shot .463, connecting on at least 10 three-pointers per game. Nimari Burnett has made at least one triple in each of those six games and shooting 18-for-35 from three during the six-game stretch.
• Michigan State’s win over Penn State marked the Spartans’ 10th consecutive victory and improved the team to 6-0 in Big Ten play. The 10-game win streak for the Spartans is the longest since winning 13-straight in 2018-19. The 6-0 start in Big Ten Conference play is the first time MSU has started at least 6-0 since winning its first nine conference games in 2018-19.
• Dawson Garcia’s buzzer-beating three-pointer from the edge of the center court logo gave Minnesota a 84-81 overtime win over No. 20 Michigan. The victory marked the Gophers’ first win over a top 25 opponent under head coach Ben Johnson and the program’s first since topping No. 24 Purdue 71-68 on Feb. 11, 2021.   
• Nebraska’s loss to Rutgers on Thursday marked the Huskers’ first loss at home since Dec. 3, 2023, and lost at home for the first time in a Big Ten home game since Feb. 28, 2023. The Huskers entered the game with a school-record-tying 20-game home winning streak.
• Northwestern’s Brooks Barnhizer stuffed the stat sheet with 20 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, two steals, and two blocks, marking his eighth double-double in his last 10 games. Barnhizer recorded his fifth 20+ point, 10+ rebound, and 5+ assist game of the season, which leads the nation.
• Ohio State’s Bruce Thornton is averaging a career-best 17.4 points per game this season, ninth in the Big Ten. Over the last 12 seasons, there have only been three Buckeyes to average 17 points or more per game. E.J. Liddell averaged 19.4 points per game in 2021-22, Keita Bates-Diop averaged 19.8 ppg in 2017-18, and D’Angelo Russell scored 19.3 points per game in 2014-15.
• Oregon has used just three line-ups through 17 games this season, with four players, Brandon Angel, Nate Bittle, Jackson Shelstad, and TJ Bamba recording 17 starts. This quartet, along with Jadrian Tracey, have recorded 12 starts together and posted an 11-1 mark.
• Penn State is averaging 84.4 points per game, a mark that ranks 20th in the country. The Nittany Lions have scored 80-plus points in 12 of their 19 games this season, including three games with over 100 points. Penn State’s 84.4 points per game currently tracks to best the program record for single season scoring average of 78.7 ppg that was set by the 1994-95 team.
• Purdue’s victory at Washington marked the team’s sixth consecutive win. All six of Purdue’s wins during its current streak have come by double-digits, as well as five straight wins by double-digits in Big Ten play. The last time Purdue won five straight Big Ten games by 10 or more points came from Feb. 21 to March 5, 1988. It was also the Boilermakers’ sixth straight conference victory, the fourth consecutive year the team has posted six straight conference wins.
• Rutgers’ Ace Bailey tallied his double-double of the season in Thursday’s win at Nebraska, finishing with 24 points, 11 rebounds, four assists, three blocks, and steal. Bailey is the first freshman to reach this stat line since Duke’s Jalen Johnson in 2021. It has only been accomplished eight times since 2005 and never in a Big Ten game in the past 20 seasons.
• UCLA has made at least one three-pointer in each of its last 47 games, a streak that began in a 78-58 win against Long Island University early last season in Pauley Pavilion (on Nov. 15, 2023). That game snapped a streak of 792 consecutive contests with at least one made three-pointer by UCLA. That three-point streak began after the Bruins finished 0-for-14 from three-point distance in a home loss to No. 2 Stanford (78-63) on Feb. 3, 2000.
• Since moving into the starting line-up on Dec. 7, USC’s Wesley Yates III is averaging 14.6 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while playing mor than 33 minutes per game. With Yates in the starting five, the Trojans have gone 6-2, with Big Ten victories over Washington, Illinois, and Iowa.
• Washington’s Great Osobor ranks third in the Big Ten and 36th in the nation in steals per game (2.18) and sixth in the conference and 45th in the nation in rebounds per game (8.6). He is one of three players in the nation inside the top 60 in both steals and rebounds. With six steals in the season-opening win over UC Davis, Osobor became one of four major conference players 6-8 or taller over the last 20 years with at least six steals twice in a season (Corey Brewer, Marcus Dove, Cody Zeller).
• With 14 points and seven rebounds in Tuesday’s win over Ohio State, Wisconsin’s Steven Crowl now has 1,303 points, 753 rebounds and 255 assists in his career, making him the fourth Badger ever and the 15th player in Big Ten history to accumulate at least 1,200 points, 750 rebounds and 250 assists since 1986-87.