{"id":24030,"date":"2017-03-09T07:39:56","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T07:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=24030"},"modified":"2017-03-09T07:39:56","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T07:39:56","slug":"top-seeded-purdue-will-play-motivated-foe-b10-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/sports\/top-seeded-purdue-will-play-motivated-foe-b10-tournament.html","title":{"rendered":"Top-seeded Purdue will play motivated foe in B10 tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"font-size:22px;\"><strong><span style=\"color:#000000;\"><span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Top-seeded Purdue will play motivated foe in B10 tournament<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"color:#000000;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">A look at things to watch in the Big Ten before the conference tournament semifinals Saturday:<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"color:#000000;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">GAME OF THE WEEK: Regular-season champion Purdue will play its Big Ten Tournament opener on Friday against a very motivated opponent, be it Michigan or Illinois. The Wolverines and Illini, the Nos. 8 and 9 seeds, play on Thursday after splitting their regular-season games. Michigan (20-11) has closed strongly and should be safely in the NCAA Tournament field. If the Wolverines can beat Illinois, they&#39;ll be able to improve their NCAA seeding by knocking off a Boilermakers team they beat 82-70 on Feb. 25. The Illini (18-13), if they get past Michigan, would help their chances of sneaking into the NCAA Tournament if they avenge a 23-point loss to the Boilermakers in January.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"color:#000000;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">LOOKING AHEAD: Ohio State coach Thad Matta and Penn State&#39;s Patrick Chambers got statements of support from their athletic directors earlier this week. Nebraska&#39;s Tim Miles did as well, right after the Cornhuskers&#39; 76-67 overtime loss to the Nittany Lions on Wednesday. Athletic director Shawn Eichorst tweeted that he looked forward to next season under Miles&#39; leadership and that the future is bright. That leaves two coaches with uncertain futures. Indiana&#39;s Tom Crean, the 2016 conference coach of the year after leading his team to the regular-season title, is getting static after the Hoosiers dropped to a tie for 10th place. Illinois&#39; John Groce appeared to have saved his job with a late run in which the Illini won five of six. That was before a road loss to last-place Rutgers on Saturday, and now it might take an NCAA bid to bring him back.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"color:#000000;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">INSIDE THE NUMBERS: Six schools have won the Big Ten Tournament. Michigan State has claimed a conference-best five tournament titles. Ohio State has won four, Wisconsin three, Illinois and Iowa two apiece and Purdue one. &#8230; Conference player of the year Caleb Swanigan of Purdue needs one double-double to tie Jerry Lucas (three times) and Brad Sellers for the Big Ten&#39;s single-season record (26). &#8230; Wisconsin won at least 12 Big Ten games for the eighth consecutive season, the longest active streak in the conference.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"color:#000000;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">PLAYER TO WATCH: Michigan has won nine of its last 14 games, and senior guard Derrick Walton Jr. is a big reason. He&#39;s averaged 17.6 points, 5.6 rebounds and 5.4 assists over that stretch, with five straight games with 20-plus points and four double-doubles.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"color:#000000;\"><span style=\"font-size:18px;\"><span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">ON THE WOMEN&#39;S SIDE: Maryland (30-2) won the Big Ten Tournament for the third straight year is probably is looking at being a No. 2 seed for the NCAA Tournament. Four or five other teams also are in position for NCAA bids. Ohio State (27-5) knocked off Maryland in the regular season and was the top seed in the conference tournament. Michigan State (21-11) won four of its last five regular-season games and made it to the Big Ten semifinals, where it gave Maryland a competitive game. Purdue (22-12) helped itself by reaching the conference championship game. Michigan (22-9) has lost four of its last five and is on the bubble.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n\t<span style=\"font-size:8px;\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\"><span style=\"font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Source:-&nbsp;http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ncaab\/2017\/03\/09\/top-seeded-purdue-will-play-motivated-foe-in-b10-tournament\/98942272\/<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/sports\/top-seeded-purdue-will-play-motivated-foe-b10-tournament.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Top-seeded Purdue will play motivated foe in B10 tournament A look at things to watch in the Big Ten before the conference tournament semifinals Saturday: GAME OF THE WEEK: Regular-season champion Purdue will play its Big Ten Tournament opener on Friday against a very motivated opponent, be it Michigan or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[14898],"class_list":["post-24030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-top-seeded-purdue-will-play-motivated-foe-in-b10-tournament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}