B1G Saturday Recap: Rutgers scores 26

Saturday marked the end of the college football regular season and the season as a whole for Michigan, Indiana, Purdue and Northwestern. The Axe, the Hat and the Bucket were all up for grabs as well, as the conference's teams all faced one of their biggest rivals. This great day for football marks not only the end for regular college football, but also the last weekend before college basketball starts to take over. Next week has the B1G/ACC Challenge starting on Monday and next Saturday twelve conference teams will be in action. As exciting as that is, let's not forget about the three games from this Saturday.

Game of the Night: Rutgers vs. #6 Virginia

Rutgers had a chance, and that is more than most people expected out of a team that lost to St. Peters going up against a bonafide national championship contender. The Scarlet Knights had the lead at halftime 18-17, but while a poor shooting night got worse for Rutgers, the Cavaliers were able to capitalize and outscore them 28-8 in the second half. To put Rutgers' 28 points in perspective you need only to look to the gridiron and see that their classmates scored 41 yesterday against Maryland.

Rutgers put in a solid effort, Virginia is going to be one of the best defenses in the nation this season and they are going to hold a lot of opponents to terrible shooting nights. This was an ugly game and I think this experience will help this team down the road because they are most likely going to have to learn how to win ugly if they want to see their first B1G season end anywhere but the bottom. Statistically, the only real bright spot on the night was Greg Lewis' 5 blocks. Kadeem Jack did lead the team in scoring with 8 point on 4-11 shooting while the team as a whole went 12-48 and 0-13 from behind the arc. Rutgers heads to Clemson on Monday in their first ever B1G/ACC Challenge game, while Virginia will face rival Maryland on Wednesday in the Terrapins' first game on the B1G side of the Challenge.

The Rest:

Michigan vs. Nicholls State

The Colonels of Nicholls State came into this game having gone 0-3, with all games being played on the road, last night was no different. Michigan thumped the Colonels 91-62, while missing starting guard Derrick Walton due to an injury. Caris LeVert scored 24 to lead Michigan, including 5-6 from deep, while Spike Albrecht scored 10 and dished out 7 assists in Walton's absence. The Wolverines draw Syracuse at home on Tuesday of the Challenge.

Iowa vs. Longwood

Longwood is a small school located in, no joke, Farmville, Virginia. One interesting fact about Longwood is that the university did not start allowing male students until 1976. Unfortunately for the Lancers, there wasn't anything interesting happening for their team on the court against Iowa. The Hawkeyes put together an impressive defensive game holding their opponents to only 44 points, the Lancers lowest total on the season. On offense Iowa was led by Aaron White who scored 19 to go along with 3 steals and a block on defense. Gabriel Olaseni had 5 blocks to go along with 6 boards and 10 points off the bench. Iowa plays at North Carolina on Wednesday in their Challenge game.