Big Ten Day Three Recap
The third day of the Big Ten Tournament featured four games. The first game of the day was Michigan State vs Purdue. Purdue is first in the Big Ten at 28-3 after today's win in which they narrowly beat Michigan State. The final score was 67-62 after an incredible performance by Purdue Center Zach Edey. Edey scored a game-high 29 points to go along with 12 rebounds. He also did this on very impressive shooting splits as he shot 10-16. For Michigan State, they put up great effort yet still came up just short. Tyson Walker was one of the main reasons they remained in the game as he scored 15 points and played strong defense. Purdue came into the Tournament as the clear favorite and they surely backed it up with their performance.
The second game was Wisconsin vs Northwestern. Both sides had huge individual performances yet in the end Wisconsin was able to come away with a 70-61 win. For Wisconsin, Guard AJ Storr scored a game-high 30 points marking this his highest-scoring game of the season. Although Storr stole the show, Northwestern Guard Boo Buie shot the lights out. Buie went 7-11 from the three-point line contributing 29 points in total, without him this game may have been a complete blowout. Overall, the performance by Storr and the impressive shooting splits by Wisconsin, in general, is the reason they will be moving on to the next round.
In the third game of the night number 13 in the country, Illinois matched up with unranked Ohio State. Ohio State came off a high-scoring win against Iowa last night and was looking to continue their success. However, Illinois was on a whole different level. Terrance Shannon Jr scored 28 points and helped Illinois quiet the hype of Ohio State. While Ohio State did not go down easy at multiple points in the game Ohio State was up 10 points. Illinois showed true perseverance throughout the game as even when their shots weren't hitting at first, they continued to shoot the three ball. They were able to win this one 77-74 in a major nail-biter. At 1:44 Ohio State's Jamison Battle hit a three-pointer to give them a 74-71 lead yet this would be the last points they would score. Illinois would then go on a 6-0 run to end the game securing the win. Illinois will now play Nebraska in the next round where they are once again the favorites.
Lastly, Nebraska took on Indiana. This one was by far the biggest blowout of the day but featured a masterclass by Keisei Tominaga who caught fire scoring 23 points in the 93-66 victory. Looking back on the performance by Indiana there were very few bright spots, as a team they shot only 35% overall and 25% from the three-point line. Although this is the end of the road for them in the Big Ten tournament an appearance in March Madness could be a possibility as a lower seed. For Nebraska, they will now look to build off this dominating victory in their next game against Illinois.
