By Tom Reck
Purdue and Ohio State took care of business last week in Big Ten men’s basketball and have more big games this week.
Going into games slated tonight, Michigan State and Ohio State are tied for first place in the league with 10-3 records and Purdue is half a game behind at 9-3; Illinois and Wisconsin are tied for fourth at 9-4.
Purdue was a winner at Michigan State last week and Ohio State thumped Illinois on its home court after the Illini had beaten Wisconsin at Wisconsin.
The Boilermakers and Ohio State meet at OSU on Wednesday and Illinois is at Purdue on Saturday in two of the big games this week.
Michigan State travels to Indiana tonight and is at Ohio State for a weekend game. Wisconsin is at Minnesota and has Northwestern at home.
Big Ten teams conclude play the first weekend in March.
Northern Iowa has clinched the Missouri Valley Conference title but the battle for positioning in the Valley tournament is likely to go on to the final games of the season next week.
Indiana State currently is in the second division and can still avoid the play-in game route in the tournament. The Sycamores probably need to beat Bradley at home tonight to do that before playing at Illinois State and closing the regular season at home against Missouri State.
Bradley is in the upper division and beat UNI last week, causing the Panthers to drop out of the AP Top 25 poll, while Richmond moved into the rankings for the first time in 24 seasons.
Members of the media met with NCAA officials last week in Indy and drew up a mock draft for the NCAA Men’s Championships. Northern Iowa and Wichita State both made it from the Valley while Purdue, Wisconsin, MSU, OSU and Illinois were chosen from the Big Ten with Purdue a No. 2 seed.
Kansas, Kentucky, Villanova and Syracuse were the No. 1 seeds but that was before the Orangemen lost to Louisville.
• • •
• Tom-Cattin’ It — Casey’s eighth-grade boys basketball team will play for a state championship Thursday in Illinois, meeting St. Joe-Ogden in the finals at Monticello.
Illinois boys high school teams play their final games this week and begin tournament play next week. Marshall got by Casey to win its 11th game in a row and meets Cumberland in its Senior Night home finale tonight.
Taylor Duncan is the leading scorer for the Lions and recently officially signed to play football at Eastern Illinois.
• Carmel won its 24th straight state championship in girls swimming last week, scoring 419 points, with MIC rival Center Grove in second with 186.5.
Two MIC teams won girls basketball sectional titles — Ben Davis and Warren Central — and are both in the regional at Southport. Mooresville will play the winner of the Bloomington North-South sectional game at Bedford North Lawrence.
In the USA Today girls poll last week, Ben Davis remained No. 2 and Floyd Central was 24th. Floyd Central will be in the BNL Regional if it gets by Seymour in one of the delayed sectional finals.
We can’t tell you how our sectional picks turned out since weather has delayed the final games but we were right on Mooresville and wrong on North Central at Clay City. The host Eels beat NC and will play Shakamak for the title tonight.
• Don Jennings tells us that Indiana State grad Don Noblitt has died. He was the baseball coach at Jasper for many years and took the Wildcats to the state finals in the early years of the single-class baseball tournament.
He played baseball at ISU and was on the first team to compete in a national tournament.
• Southern Indiana handed Indianapolis its first defeat in women’s basketball, winning 82-76 at USI. Terre Haute North grad Samantha Meissel had 13 points and seven rebounds for Indy while Jessica Canary of South Putnam had 22 points, seven rebounds and seven assists.
Tom Reck may be contacted by telephone at (812) 232-3231, by e-mail at tm_reck@yahoo.com or by mail at 4284 South 5th Street, Apt. 3, Terre Haute, IN 47802.
