HQ Live Report - Big Ten tournament - First round - Conseco Fieldhouse

Going to wrap up Day One of the Live Report from Conseco and finish up some copy for tomorrow's News-Gazette. Check back to HQ for more coverage later tonight. Thanks for reading.

HQ Live Report - Big Ten tournament - First round - Conseco Fieldhouse

-Minnesota is pulling away from Penn State, 56-34, with about nine minutes left. Ed DeChellis is right in front of us. Without a healthy Talor Battle, the Nittany Lions didn't have much of a chance.

-The last five Big Ten tournaments have featured a Most Outstanding Player from a different school: Robbie Hummel (Purdue, 2009), Marcus Landry (Wisconsin, 2008), Greg Oden (Ohio State, 2007), Jeff Horner (Iowa, 2006) and James Augustine (Illinois, 2005).

-Klee's chat from yesterday includes some speculation on how injuries might affect the Illini's NCAA tournament status: Click here.

Back in a few.

HQ Live Report - Big Ten tournament - First round - Conseco Fieldhouse

-Minnesota has opened up a 44-28 lead on Penn State. There's 14:18 left in the final game of the day.

-Penn State's Chris Babb is still a ringer for former Illini Chris Hicks.

-Checked in with John Gasaway of Basketball Prospectus for his take on the Illini over the past few games. He's an Illinois alum and a statistics guru.

John said the Illinois-Wisconsin game had 58 possessions. Even then, Wisconsin was able to score 72 points. That's mainly because Wisconsin rebounded 44 PERCENT of its missed shots. That's way too many, especially when, as John said, Wisconsin was a below-average offensive rebounding team during the season. Bo Ryan usually wants his guys getting back on defense, not necessarily crashing the offensive glass.

-Just finished Steve Kelly's Sports Talk show on WDWS from here at Conseco. Here's the podcast: Click here.

Back in a few.

Klee

HQ Live Report - Big Ten tournament - First round games

-Devoe Joseph has 10 points as Minnesota leads Penn State 28-13. Joseph did this to Illinois, too.

-About 90 percent of Iowa coach Todd Lickliter's postgame press conference was about his future at the school. For one, he was asked if he's confident he'll be the coach next season.

"You know, my future is that I'm healthy, I have a great family," Lickliter said. "I love what I do. I've done it well, and that's not in my hands."

-Marcus Jackson caught up with Northwestern guard Drew Crawford, who shared Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors with Illinois guard D.J. Richardson.

"I'm good friends with D.J. We played AAU together," Crawford said. "I called him the night we found out about the awards and we had a good talk and I congratulated him."

Back in a few.

Klee

HQ Live Report - Big Ten tournament - First round games

-Minnesota leads Penn State 12-9 with 11:25 left in the first half. Probably the smallest crowd of the day at Conseco. Still some orange in the stands, warming up for tomorrow.

-Penn State all-star Talor Battle's wearing a hefty brace on his right ankle. He just came over here to the sideline in noticeable pain. One of the athletics trainers is looking at the ankle. That kind of thing kills you, to see a big-time player in such disappointment. He's bumming.

-Just as we type this, an Indiana fan yells, "Suck it up, Battle!" Pure class among the IU fandom.

-Verdell Jones finished with a game-high 20 points in Indiana's loss. He made 5 of 12 fielders (Tate phrase) and added six assists. Marcus Jackson caught up with the Central grad in the Indiana locker room.

"It's very difficult mentally for every player, especially me," Jones said of IU dropping 13 of 14 games to close the season. "I hate losing with a passion, you can ask anybody who knows me. I don't want to talk to nobody, I don't want to see nobody. It's real tough."

Back in a few.

Klee

HQ Live Report - Big Ten tournament - First round games

-Northwestern opened a can on Indiana in the second half to win 73-58 a few minutes ago. Tom Crean's second season at IU is officially over and Indiana hasn't won a Big Ten tournament game since 2006.

-Got some stuff coming from bracket experts Jerry Palm (CollegeRPI.com) and Brad Evans (Yahoo! Sports). Their views differ, but both believe Illinois needs to win Friday to have a chance of slipping in the backdoor of the NCAA tournament.

"I think they still need to win it (the entire Big Ten tournament)," Palm said tonight, "But Conference USA is falling on its sword, so that's helping."

"A loss (to Wisconsin), especially a lopsided one, would prove devastating to Illinois' at-large chances," Evans said. "A Chihuahua emerging unscathed in a scuffle with a Rottweiler would have better odds."

Back in a few.

Klee

HQ Live Report - Big Ten tournament - First round games

Indiana leads Northwestern 45-43 here with about 10 minutes to go. Northwestern's Luka Mirkovic just fouled out, leaving the 'Cats without their best big man the rest of the way.

Caught up with former Hoosier player, assistant and interim head coach Dan Dakich a little bit ago for his take on Indiana.

"They’ve had some leadership issues that Tom (Crean) has addressed, he went with a younger group against Northwestern and I think watching them play, there’s a new energy to this team. Credit the kids and this staff coming off an 11-game losing streak. They played their hearts out against Northwestern at Assembly Hall, now they’re hanging with them tonight and that’s great to see."

Be back in a few

— MJ

HQ Live Report - Big Ten tournament - First round games

-The score here: Indiana 30, Northwestern 27 (18:55 left in regulation). It's truly a unique experience to sit five feet behind Tom Crean during a game. Animated doesn't begin to describe it.

-Champaign's Verdell Jones was very good in the first half. Nine points on 3-for-5 shooting with two assists and a steal.

-As for Illinois, it must deal with Jon Leuer tomorrow. He was the difference-maker Sunday at the Assembly Hall. One Big Ten assistant just told me he's the most NBA-ready player in the Big Ten (not named Evan Turner). Wisconsin is 4-1 since Leuer returned from a wrist injury. Its margin of victory in those wins? 20.3 points. WIsconsin lost at Minnesota in Leuer's first game back.

"It's the same way me and Mike Davis are difficult to guard," Mike Tisdale said Tuesday, when asked why Leuer is a tough matchup. "He can score inside and outside."

Thing is, Leuer is stronger than both, so Bruce Weber said the Illini must focus on keeping the ball away from Leuer.

"We talk a lot about playing defense before your man catches the basketball," Weber said.

Back in a few.

Klee

HQ Live Report - Big Ten tournament - First round games

Sorry for the delay, we've got some Internet connection issues inside the arena. Michigan held off Iowa, despite the Hawkeyes getting a career-high 25 points from freshman Cully Payne.

"He was huge today, he stepped up and knocked down a lot of threes. He played an all-around game and took care of the ball. It was good to see as a freshman coming into this environment," Iowa's Matt Gatens said afterward.

Michigan, which got 22 points from Manny Harris, moves into the quarterfinals where it will face Ohio State. The Wolverines beat Ohio State earlier this season without Evan Turner.

Northwestern trails Indiana 26-22 late in the first half. Champaign's Verdell Jones has six points and two assists for the Hoosiers. He left the court briefly for the locker room limping. But he's back now and looks fine.

Gonna try to talk to some folks. Be back in a few.

HQ Live Report - Big Ten tournament - First round games

Jackson caught up with some Big Ten coaching legends this week to get their thoughts on this weekend, as well as some thoughts on the Big Ten's dominance in the 1980s.

The five he spoke to, Tom Davis (Iowa), Bill Frieder (Michigan), Jud Heathcote (Michigan State), Lou Henson (Illinois) and Gene Keady (Purdue) all agreed on one thing: Evan Turner is really good.

"He’s one of those 6-7 guys that can play inside, outside. A guy kind of like Jim Jackson was for Ohio State. Guys that do it all and are skilled with the ball at a height that makes them very effective compared to the guys that have to defend them." — Heathcote

"Glen Robinson jumps out, but not exactly like that. He’s built more like Steve Smith from Michigan State, but (Turner) is one of a kind. I don’t know that you can duplicate that kind of a talent." — Davis

Heathcote, who lives in Spokane, Wash., still keeps up with his MSU hoops. He thinks the Spartans are sound defensively, but endure too many scoring droughts.

"They go six, seven possessions without scoring a basket and when you do that, you're gonna have trouble against the better teams."

Michigan keeping Iowa at bay midway through the second half. The Wolverines lead 49-39. Iowa's Cully Payne, a Schaumburg product, has a game-high 21 points.

Be back in a few.

Jackson

HQ Live Report - Big Ten tournament - First round games

Good afternoon everyone. Paul Klee and Marcus Jackson joining you from the Big Ten tournament at Conseco Fieldhouse. We'll be through the Michigan-Iowa, Northwestern-Indiana and Minnesota-Penn State games today. Feel free to send an email to Klee (pklee@news-gazette.com) or Jackson (mjackson@news-gazette.com) with any questions or observations. A few things to get started...

-The score here: Michigan 28, Iowa 20. Iowa looks like, well, Iowa, and there are rumors swirling that Todd Lickliter is in trouble. Here's what one of their beat writers had to say: Click here.

-Illinois sold 870 tickets for the tournament through its ticket office. That's down from 1,000 last year. That's mainly because the Big Ten introduced student ticketing for the first time, and 200 UI students went with that deal. Those are the tickets that normally would have been purchased through the UI ticket office.

-Chris Korman of the Bloomington Herald-Times tells us much of the attention in Bloomington is focused on a local high school team, Bloomington South. The squad features Butler, Xavier and Indiana recruits and has 48 straight games - two shy of the state record. Bloomington South can break the record this weekend.

-The Illini are practicing in Champaign today before driving over to Indy tonight. More on Illinois later.

-Klee picked the Big Ten bracket in today's N-G. Click here.

-We'll have updates on Twitter, as well. Follow us here.

-Loren Tate just arrived, so the tournament can start for real now.

Back in a few.

Klee