Michigan and Michigan State played a highly entertaining game that lived up to advance billing, with the Wolverines prevailing by the slimmest of margins. This result flew in the face of the conventional wisdom that Michigan can’t win when its threes aren’t falling, as John Beilein’s team scored quite well despite shooting 29 percent from deep. As it usually does with a Beilein offense, the answer lied in a high conversion rate on twos and a low turnover rate.

No. 18 Michigan beat No. 9 Michigan State for the third consecutive time (recap) and Purdue held off Iowa (recap) in men’s hoops action Tuesday night. Catch up on all the action on our Big Ten scoreboard, plus get stats, recaps and in-game tweets in this post. Did you see the exciting final possession in the Wolverines-Spartans game? Watch the final 31.4 seconds and check out all of our popular highlight clips in our Did You See This? archive.

One-third of the way through the Big Ten schedule, it’s time to compile a quick stock report. What we’re analyzing here is whose stock is up and whose is down since Big Ten play opened late last month. In this post, you’ll find five players who have improved their play since the real season tipped and five who have struggled during that time.

The Big Ten features 11 men’s basketball games this week, including an interesting non-league contest that has Michigan playing at Arkansas. Will this week’s slate of games feature as many upsets, further jumbling the conference race? Here’s how I rank the games this week.

BTN.com senior writer Tom Dienhart’s weekly Big Ten player rankings are in, with the same big men remaining at the head of the class. Those players, of course, are Indiana’s Cody Zeller, Michigan State’s Draymond Green and Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger.