This past Sunday with the late NBA All-Star game, the NCAA BB games got an early start, so today we recap two games that involved AP Top 25 teams with No.5 Wisconsin 23-2 playing Illinois 17-9 and No. 13 Northern Iowa 24-2 playing Missouri State 9-17.
We start with the No.5 Wisconsin Badgers who beat the Illinois Illini 68 to 49 as the game was played at the Kohl Center in Madison, Wisconsin and game time was 1 PM ET. The scoring in the game started with Wisconsin scoring 32 points in the 1st half and Illinois scoring 24 points as the game went to half time with the Badgers 32 Illini 24. In the 2nd half the Badgers scored 36 points while the Illini scored 25 points and Wisconsin won the game 68 Illinois 49.
The Badgers started this game very hot as their star forward-Kaminsky and in the game he totaled 23 points with 11 rebounds and he was followed in the scoring by guard-Koening with 15 points, forward-Hayes with 14 points and forward-Dekker with 10 points, as the Wisconsin Badgers improved the record to 23-2 which is the best starting season on the school’s record books.
The Illinois Illini also started this game fast as they made 4-3 pointers in less than 4 minutes, and then the Badgers coach had his players change their defensive strategy.
Illinois got no closer than nine points the rest of the way. It was back in 1989 when the Illini last beat a top five team on a road trip, when their start Anderson at the time hit a 3 pointer from 35 feet out at the bell to beat the No. 3 Indiana at the time 70-67. Last year Illinois’s Rice had 21.4 and 9 rebounds last season in their game against the Badgers of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin’s guard Gasser is trying to become only the 2nd player in school history to score 1,000 points while having 500 rebounds and 250 assists in his career. In this game he only needed some 10 points to reach that goal, but the Illinois defense was determined not to let him do that, as they held to making only 3 points in the game, surely a game low in his present career.
If you Bet on College baskets the next game for Illinois is on the 22nd of Feb. 2015 as they host the Michigan State Spartans. The Wisconsin team will visit Penn State this coming Wed. the 18th of Feb.2015.
The second game we are recapping is the No. 13 Northern Iowa Panthers 24-2 who played the Missouri State Bears 9-17 and the game was played at the JQH Arena in Springfield, Missouri and game time was at 4 PM ET and seen on ESPNU.
The scoring in this game saw the No. 13 Northern Iowa (UNI) beat Missouri State (MOSU) 68-57 with the UNI taking the lead in the 1st have as they scored 42 points and the MOSU only scored 20 points, thus the game went to half-time #13 UNI 42 MOSU 20. The 2nd half of the game was very different as MOSU scored 37 points and UNI scored only 26, and the Bears rally was too little to late as they lost the game to the Panthers 68-57.
Before we go to the offensive leaders in the game, the amazing stats for the Northern Iowa Panthers are that they managed to hit 12-3 pointers in the game for 36 points of their total 68 points in the game. The offensive leaders for Northern Iowa were forward-Tuttle with 22 points, guards-Morgan & Mitchell both with 11 points and off the bench forward-Buss had 9 points.
Leading offensively for the Missouri State Bears were guard-Ruder with 13 points, forward-Boone with 14 points, off the bench guard-Roundtree with 9 points and forward-Thurman with 8 points.
It seems that the Panther are having a 3 pointer streak as they set a record this past Wednesday at Illinois State as they made 12-3 pointers for a season high, then matched it in this game with the Bears of Missouri State.
Actually in this game along with the 12-3 pointers, they had a very important and strong 1st half of the game taking a 22 point lead to the half way break in the game.
If you Bet on College basketball at a Sportsbook you might like to know that the Panthers present coach Jacobson with this win is now one of only 8 coaches in the Missouri Valley Conference that has had 100 victories, while the most wins is held by Coach Iba who had 187 wins during his era of 1934-1957. Both these teams play this coming Wednesday as Loyola hosts Northern Iowa and Missouri State will visit Indiana State on the same date of Feb. 18th 2015.