Illinois Thumps Northwestern

#20 Illinois 88, Northwestern 63
This game was never competitive. Illinois jumped off to a 28-10 lead and had a 23 point lead at halftime. Early this season the Northwestern offense looked really efficient against a soft schedule, and their offense does still look like perhaps the best in Bill Carmody's tenure at Northwestern. But their defense has been horrible, and this game was a completely layup line for Illinois. The Illini shot 70.5% from the field and had 25 assists on 31 made baskets. After that weak non-conference schedule Northwestern was going to likely need a 10-8 Big Ten record to make the Tournament, and they knew they were in for a tough start to the conference season against Purdue, Michigan State and Illinois. But now they're in that worst case scenario of an 0-3 start. On the season they are now 9-0 against teams with an RPI of 90th or worse, and 0-4 against teams with an RPI of 90th or better. They now face a near must-win against Indiana on Sunday evening, and then head to Iowa on Wednesday night. Northwestern will be favored in, and should win, both of those games, but neither will be a gimme. As for Illinois, they now move to 3-0 in Big Ten play with a very winnable game coming up next, at Penn State on Tuesday. They do have that inexplicable loss to Illinois-Chicago, but the Selection Committee has proven many times that they will overlook one bad loss if a team has a bunch of big wins. Illinois has beaten Gonzaga, Maryland, North Carolina, Wisconsin and now Northwestern. They're rated as one of the 20 best teams in the nation by both Sagarin and Pomeroy. If they're going to make a serious run at the Big Ten title their quest will begin in earnest on January 15th when they'll play at Wisconsin, and then will play Michigan State and Ohio State at home.

Arizona 73, California 71
Arizona continued their shaky start to the Pac-10 season with another unnecessarily close game. Their defense was poor, allowing 1.04 points per possession against a Cal team that is averaging only 0.95 points per possession. Arizona's offense really struggled as well until they realized late in the game that Cal had no way to guard Derrick Williams. Eventually Williams ended up with 31 points, including a ridiculous 22 free throw attempts. It's not a surprise that all of those free throws meant a lot of foul trouble for a thin California front line: Harper Kamp and Markhuri Sanders-Frison both fouled out. Arizona is 13-3 and 2-1 in the Pac-10, but this is their first RPI Top 100 victory of the season and they do have a bad loss to Oregon State. As weak as the Pac-10 is, Arizona will very likely need to get to at least 10-8 in conference play to make the Tournament. They play Stanford at home tomorrow, and then play Arizona State at home the following Saturday. As for Cal, they will get credit for a brutal schedule (both Pomeroy and Sagarin rate it as one of the ten toughest in the nation so far), but they are now only 7-7 (including 0-2 in Pac-10 play) and are losing even more momentum with the news that Gary Franklin will transfer out. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is still 67th in the nation, but they need a big win (only Washington is realistically a "big win" in the Pac-10) and they've got to get on a winning streak. They play at Arizona State tomorrow and follow that up with road games against the two Washington schools, so their strength of schedule numbers will remain high for at least the next couple of weeks.

Butler 79, Cleveland State 56
This was a reality check for Cleveland State after beating up on a cupcake schedule. This game was never close. Butler opened up a 26-8 lead and Cleveland State never got their deficit out of double digits after that. This was the first time I watched a full Cleveland State game this season, and I was bothered by their lack of offensive patience. They let Norris Cole shoot anytime he wants to shoot, even if it's a 25 footer at the start of the shot clock, and that attitude spreads to his teammates. Good coaches don't let their players get away with that kind of stuff. As Bob Knight always says, if you are taking a shot in the first ten seconds of the shot clock it had better be a layup or dunk. One big problem with that type of play is inconsistency, and that's a real problem for a team that can't afford more than one or two more losses if they're going to have a realistic shot at an at-large bid. The reason their overall record (15-2) is so good is simply because they've played cupcakes. They haven't beaten a team yet in the RPI Top 80. They play at Valparaiso (70th in RPI) on Sunday, and that would be their strongest victory of the season if they can pull it off. Cleveland State's Sagarin ELO_CHESS is still going to be very strong after this loss (somewhere around 25-30th), but that will drop way off if they start losing more conference games. Without a big win they're going to need an overwhelming won-loss percentage. As for Butler, they've been off to a tough start this season (including losses to Evansville and UW-Milwaukee), but they reaffirmed here that they are still the best team in the Horizon League. But their lack of big wins (their only quality victories were over Florida State and Washington State) means that their margin of error remains small. They can't afford more than two more regular season losses if they're going to earn an at-large bid should they fall in the Horizon League tournament.