Minnesota didn't appear to have any sort of momentum going into the NIT this season. It had lost six regular season games in a row before finally defeating Nebraska at home in the last game before the postseason. The Gophers beat Northwestern in the first round of the Big Ten tournament, but at the moment the game felt more like a Northwestern loss than a Minnesota win. After losing to Michigan in the second round in Indianapolis, Minnesota was quite a long shot to go far in the NIT.

It's amazing what a little camaraderie and determination can do. The Gophers won on the road at La Salle, Miami and Middle Tennessee before defeating Washington 68-67 in Madison Square Garden last night.

"We had a tough stretch toward the end of the regular season, but everybody stayed together and everybody is on the same page," said Rodney Williams, who kept up his strong recent play with 18 points. "Once we got that loss in the Big Ten tournament, we kind of just came together and said, `If we get into a postseason tournament, we are going to play our hearts out.' And that's what we are doing now."

It's really amazing how far Williams and teammate Andre Hollins have raised their games since the start of postseason play. The 18 points Williams scored put a stop to his streak of four straight 20-point games that started with the loss to Michigan in the Big Ten tourney. Tuesday night's game was the also the first NIT game in which Williams shot under 50 percent. The junior forward "only" shot 8 of 17 from the field with 9 rebounds and 2 blocks.

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Ohio State beat Syracuse to earn a trip to New Orleans this weekend. It looked like this was inevitable early in the season, after the Buckeyes pasted Duke in November they were #2 in the rankings and looking nearly unbeatable. Even after losing Diebler, Lighty and Buford folks were very bullish on OSU's chances to win the conference and make a run for the National Championship.

As is almost always the case, things didn't quite go as smoothly for OSU as it looked like it would in November. Jared Sullinger had some back pain that caused him to miss a couple of games. One of those games was against Kansas, their Final Four opponent, who handed OSU their first loss.

After that loss, they put won some games that were supposed to, before falling at Indiana. That loss was disappointing, but that was only IU's second-best win on the season, having beaten #1 Kentucky three weeks prior. The Buckeyes were still the favorites to win the conference, and everybody was gunning for them. Brandon Paul had the best offensive game of the Big Ten season, scoring 43 points to mark Bruce Weber's last big win of his Illini career.

Ohio State then handled Michigan and beat Wisconsin in a typical low-scoring affair at the Kohl Center. Purdue came to Columbus ready to play (offense at least), but the Buckeyes matched them score-for-score and pulled it out at the end.

Then came the worst stretch of the season. The Buckeyes lost their perfect home record, as the Spartans beat them 58-48. Another low-scoring effort led to a loss at Michigan, and the loss at home to Wisconsin was the low point of the season.

On the final game of the regular season, Sullinger and company went into East Lansing and came out with a win and a share of the conference title. Things were looking good headed into the BTT, and OSU rolled Purdue and Michigan to face MSU again in the finals. MSU won the rubber match and the BTT, and earned themselves the one-seed.

On Selection Sunday, Ohio State was awarded a two-seed in Syracuse's region. Shortly after the selections, Syracuse announced that Fab Melo was ineligible to play in the tournament. Many prognosticators then labeled the Orange the weakest one-seed, and they almost lost to UNC-Asheville in their first game. That seemed to wake them up, though and Syracuse was waiting for OSU in the Regional Finals on Saturday.

Ohio State's biggest scare in the tournament came against the Fighting Cincinnati Bearcats, who staged an impressive comeback in the second half of the Sweet Sixteen game after getting behind early. The Buckeyes answered with an impressive run to finish it out and win by a comfortable margin.

As you could read in almost any recap of the game, there were a lot of fouls called in the Syracuse game. Sullinger got two in the first five minutes and Matta benched him for the rest of the half. Teflon Jim Boeheim complained about the officiating in this game, even though he dismissed such concerns about questionable calls in the UNC-A game. Ohio State attacked the zone rather than being content shooting jump shots, and they were rewarded with a lot of free throws. They also hit most of them in the closing minutes, as Syracuse was fouling to try to stay in the game.

So that's a short version of how Ohio State made it to the National Semifinals. It will be interesting to see if their story ends on Saturday, or if they can celebrate one last championship to end the season.

With four Big Ten teams left amongst the nation's final 16, the circumstances looked very promising for the conference heading into the regional semifinals. Ohio State and Michigan State were playing teams that they were clearly better than. Indiana was playing mighty Kentucky, but the Hoosiers had already taken them down in the regular season. Wisconsin was matched up against a Syracuse defense that you knew they would have fun shooting over.

Obviously, not everything went according to plan. Although Ohio State played excellently, the other three B1G schools disappointed and will have to watch the rest of the tournament at home like the rest of us. Of course, making the Sweet 16 is no small accomplishment and Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan State all still had great seasons. We wish they could have gone just a bit farther, though.

Kentucky 102, Indiana 90

The Hoosiers have made up for some defensive deficiencies this season by pummeling their opponents on offense. In Friday night's South Region semifinal in Atlanta, IU's offense was splendid, but it still wasn't enough to stop a Kentucky team that got to the free throw line at will. Although Indiana hit on 52.2% of its field goals and Kentucky managed just 48.4%, the difference in the game came from the Wildcats connecting on a ridiculous 35 of 37 free throws.

It's difficult to lose a game when you get to the line that many times, but when you make over 90% of your attempts, well, that is a pretty good recipe for success. When you combine Kentucky's free throw efficiency with its dominance on the boards (the team grabbed 42.4% of it's own misses), the advantage more than makes up for the small edge Indiana had in actually shooting the ball.

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The East region semifinal on Thursday night was a tale of two teams for the Ohio State Buckeyes. There was one team that took a 12-point lead into halftime and eventually won going away, and another that saw the 12-point lead disappear in 5 minutes and made it seem like the Big Ten would go 0 for the night.

Jared Sullinger did a fine job describing the Jekyll and Hyde phenomenon:

"We've got two types of basketball teams: We've got the cool guys and then the blue-collar guys," Sullinger explained. "I thought to start the second half we got into the cool-guy mode and we kind of let our guard down. ... I mean, we just came out and decided to be cool guys, and they came out and they stung us, and then we got ourselves back into another basketball game."

The "cool guys" scored 4 points compared to 3 turnovers in the first five minutes of the 2nd half while Cincinnati's Sean Kilpatrick caught fire on offense to bring the Bearcats even to a 41-41 tie. However, the "blue-collar guys" soon found their way back onto the floor so that Buckeye fans did not need to sweat it out down the stretch.

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Ohio State, Michigan State, Indiana and Wisconsin aren't the only Big Ten teams still alive in the college basketball postseason. Last night, Minnesota beat Middle Tennessee 78-72 to book a trip to New York for the NIT semifinals. "Getting to New York to play in the Garden is special for anybody," said junior forward Rodney Williams

Williams must have been especially excited to play at Madison Square Garden, as he scored 8 points, including 2 three-pointers, in the game's first four minutes to get the Gophers off to a hot start. Williams continued to score throughout the game to post a career high 24 points on 8 of 11 shooting.

Despite only averaging 12.1 points per game on the season, Williams now has at least 21 points in every NIT game. Just before that, he scored 20 in the regular season finale at Michigan. This surge by Williams may be evidence that his basketball skills are finally catching up to his boundless athleticism. That's a scary thought for other Big Ten teams.

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Four teams from the conference won their first two games in the tournament and are now in the Sweet Sixteen. Three of them play on Thursday and there is one game on Friday. Here is the schedule:

Thursday:

7:15 4 Wisconsin vs 1 Syracuse - Boston, MA

7:47 1 Michigan St. vs 4 Louisville - Phoenix, AZ

9:45 6 Cincinnati vs 2 Ohio St. - Boston, MA

Friday:

9:45 1 Kentucky vs 4 Indiana - Atlanta, GA

We'll try to answer a few quick questions after the break.

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After Purdue's heart-breaking loss to Kansas in the round of 32, broadcaster Steve Kerr made a suggestion.

"When Matt Painter gets back to Purdue, the first thing he should do is retire Robbie Hummel's jersey," Kerr said.

The idea caught fire, as #retire4 exploded on Twitter. But it's not the fact that Boilermakers want to retire Hummel's number that's significant. Numbers are retired every year all over the country. It was the urgency of it. Kerr suggested it be the first thing Purdue did when their plane touched down in West Lafayette and many agreed.

The reason for the rush was that Hummel was different, even special.

It's difficult to find a basketball fan who doesn't respect and even admire the Valparaiso, Ind. native. Even most Indiana fans appreciate him.

Everybody remembers Hummel's two knee surgeries. Most of Boiler nation can recall exactly where they were the moment they heard about each ligament tear.

The angle of what might have been had he and E'Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson been able to finish out their junior and/or senior season together has been covered backwards and forwards. Few have discussed what that group really meant to Purdue fans, though.

That trio helped bring Purdue basketball back after a stretch of six straight sub-20 win seasons. This is part of the reason Hummel has been so endeared to Purdue fans. He and the rest of the "Baby Boilers" are seen as part of the rebirth of the program when Gene Keady passed the torch to Matt Painter.

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I first heard about Lewis Jackson when I was listening to the Matt Painter radio show on my way home from work. Jackson had just signed his letter of intent, and Painter was free to talk about him for the first time that I had heard. Painter saw something special in Jackson, and was very enthusiastic about him. Coaches aren't really going to be negative about a recruit they just signed, but it seemed genuine to me. I heard a mention that this kid from Decatur, Illinois who stood well under six foot, could dunk. That seemed amazing to me, that a high school kid that short could dunk.

When Jackson started playing his freshman year, it wasn't quite what I expected. I guess the dunking comment stuck with me, and this kid didn't look like he was going to dunk anytime soon. I still liked what he brought to the table though: a true point who could handle the ball and was faster than anyone else on the court. And his on-ball defense was great: right up in the offense player's space, with his chest bumping into him on occasion.

Then the Wisconsin game happened. A few minutes into the game, Jackson was hit with a screen that he didn't see coming by Joe Krabbenhoft. It wasn't just a screen, though. The Badger big man clearly threw a forearm shiver into Jackson during the screen. Jackson went down hard and hit his head on the court. He went to the bench and was clearly dazed. They kept showing him sitting on the bench and it was clear to me that he had a concussion of some sort.

I don't know why the Purdue coaches and trainers didn't recognize this; Jackson definitely shouldn't have been allowed to play anymore that night. Jackson did get back in the game, and, although it was a terrible decision to put him back into the game, I gained a lot of respect for Lewis Jackson on that night.

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