Tom Dienhart, BTN.com Senior Writer, January 7, 2014

Today is the day: It?s No. 3 Ohio State vs. No. 5 Michigan State. This tilt will help establish early pecking order at the top of the Big Ten. Cleveland.com has a nice breakdown on the huge contest. A big key will be the battle of point guards: The Spartans? Keith Appling vs. the Buckeyes? Aaron Craft. The Buckeyes have had success getting Appling off his game in year?s past. Keep an eye on it, people.

?Those two get talked about a lot and that's not good for Keith,? Tom Izzo said. ?I think he just has to play his game. They're two different kinds of players. They're both very good defenders, but Keith can do some things scoring the ball that Craft can't do. And there are some things Craft does that Keith doesn't do as well. It's about how you play and not getting caught up in rivalry games or things with rivalry players.?

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Tough blow for Nebraska, which is losing secondary coach Terry Joseph to Texas A&M.

With Joseph bolting, Nebraska will be looking to find its fourth secondary coach in five years. Marvin Sanders resigned for personal reasons in 2011 and Corey Raymond left the Huskers for LSU in 2012.

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Speaking of Nebraska, Sam McKewon of the Omaha World-Herald thinks the Cornhusker offense only focus in 2014 should be to protect the defense.

McKewon wonders if the staff will refit the offense to serve the defense. It's fine to say the Huskers simply will stop turning the ball over one day. But they haven't - for any extended number of games - at any time in Pelini's tenure. The man's won nine per year despite dragging the chain of miscues around with him. At least some of the chain's been made within the structure of an offense that often detracts from Pelini's biggest passion: his defense.

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Nice piece from Pat Harty of HawkCentral.com on recruiting as it has been tough sledding for Iowa of late.

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I hate to tell you this, Minnesota fans: But this man has another national title ring.

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Fran McCaffery?s ejection continues to make waves. Check out this video of Wisconsin?s Josh Gasser, who says it probably helped the Badgers. Oops.

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The Penn State coaching search marches on. Ron Musselman gives us the latest.

We know Al Golden is out. The Miami coach has said so. Vanderbilt?s James Franklin and ex-Tennessee Titans coach Mike Munchak sound like top targets. Long-time assistant Larry Johnson also is in the mix. That?s nice, but I don?t see that happening. My pecking order: 1. Franklin. 2. Munchak. 3. Johnson. Franklin may be hard to get, as the Browns and Redskins supposedly are eyeing him. So, the job could fall into the lap of Munchak, the top target the last time around.

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Time for Michigan State to start looking toward 2014. The great Mike Griffith of Mlive.com has five things for the Spartans to work on. Yes, the 13-1 Spartans do have things to work on. Really.

Chief among Mark Dantonio?s concerns: Keep defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi.

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Elliott Eliason has been looking pretty good in the pivot for Minnesota. Does that mean coaches will cease and desist with the platoon?

Hmmm. It sure does seem like Eliason is making Mo Walker less relevant. Amelia Rayno of the Minneapolis Star Tribune notes that in the last five games — ever since returning from the ankle tweak that held him out for all but four minutes against New Orleans on Dec. 7 —  Eliason has begun to separate himself as the center, reaching a new level of production offensively while ever strengthening his rebounding and defensive capacities.

Meanwhile, Walker's minutes have failed to increase, with the big man playing an average of 13.5 compared with Eliason's 25.7 in the four games heading into the Purdue game, and then getting in the game for just five minutes against the Boilermakers.

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Herbie Gould of the Chicago Sun-Time tells the story of Bo Ryan and his high-flying Badgers as well as anyone.

Is Wisconsin the best team in the Big Ten? Interesting thought, huh? These games will go a long way toward determining how good the Badgers are.

  • Feb. 1: vs. Ohio State
  • Feb. 9: vs. Michigan State
  • Feb. 22: at Iowa

You read that correctly: Wisconsin doesn?t play at Ohio State or at Michigan State. That?s big.

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TWEETS THAT MATTER

My take: Amen.

My take: Will be tough to top that title game last night.

My take: Interesting. Sure was a good almost-two-years.

My take: Exactly.

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About Tom Dienhart BTN.com senior writer Tom Dienhart is a veteran sports journalist who covers Big Ten football and men's basketball for BTN.com and BTN TV. Find him on Twitter and Facebook, read all of his work at btn.com/tomdienhart, and subscribe to his posts via RSS. Also, send questions to his weekly mailbag using the form below and read all of his previous answers in his reader mailbag section.