The Final Score - Your source for Big Ten Sports

Reposted from TheFinalScore.net (originally written 1/17/2006)

Road wins suddenly easier ... Okay, so home squads were 9-1 in the first week of conference play. After two weeks? The gap has been narrowed. Wisconsin, Ohio State, Iowa, Michigan State and yes, even Penn State (who hadn't won on the road in what, five years?) took home road victories last week. That makes home teams 14-6 so far on the season. Big roadies this week include Illinois at Indiana, Wisconsin at Ohio State and Iowa at Michigan State.

PSU not so bad after all ... The Nittany Lions won't make the NIT, let alone the NCAA, but for once, they are not the pushover, easy win they've been since coming into the conference. Not only did they beat then unbeaten Northwestern on the road last week, but they very well could have scored an upset against Iowa in State College. Watch this team the rest of the season, I'd be willing to bet they score a monumental upset along the way ...

Player of the Week ... BigTen.org named Paul Davis from MSU its player of the week. Tough to argue with that, since Davis erupted after a forgettable 2 point effort at Wisconsin for 23 points and 10 boards against Indiana and 18 points, 13 rebounds, three blocks and the game clinching free throws in the double overtime battle at Ohio State.

This week's Game of the Week ... Three games jump to mind this week - Illinois at Indiana, Wisconsin at Ohio State and Iowa at Michigan State. But, given that Wisconsin is the lone unbeaten, I'll go with the game in C-bus as the one to watch in the Big Ten this week.

Where do they rank? I'd put the following teams in my Top 25: Illinois (8), Michigan State (11), Wisconsin (12), Indiana (18), Ohio State (19), and Iowa (24).

How it will go down ... After this week, I see things starting to shake out a little bit. Indiana will hand Illinois its second loss, Wisconsin will finally tally a mark in the "L" column with a tough one at Ohio State, Iowa will pick up a second loss as well (at Michigan State) giving us a tie at the top between Wisconsin and Indiana and a glut at two losses - Illinois, MSU, Iowa and Michigan.
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