Aaron

Patberg makes both now and we should be ok. Up 8 with less than 30 sec left.

Patberg to the line up 6 with 30 seconds left.

IU gets the ball back up 5 after an Illinois miss.

Lead back up to 5 on a Cardano-Hillary layup with under a min. left.

IU up 3 with just over a min left and doing pretty much everything wrong. Photo finish.

Lead is down to 3 but looks like we got their big fouled out finally and Patberg to the line. She has been the one messing up Holmes today with her defense but most of that is Holmes missing bunnies she usually makes when guarded the same by anyone else.

Still up just 5 at last media timeout. Holmes is singlehandedly responsible for this game being a nailbiters missing about 15 layups. If she had her normal game we would be up at least 20. She just has no confidence at this point and is blowing every layup. When your elite post player struggles as she is you are in a war with a horrible team.

Glad we are playing Illinois today as we would lose to anyone else not named Wisconsin in Big Ten with this effort. Just a 7 pt lead after 3 and letting them hang around for no reason. Also, someone kidnaped Holmes' talent today as she is missing every easy lay-up. She still is making her sick moves down there but instead of making the shot as she always does she is missing bunnies.

And he missed the tournament 4 out of the 5 previous years prior to that huge season. Iowa fell into the ultimate trap of hiring the hot mid-major coach after one great year and predictably it killed Iowa as they failed spectacularly with Lickliter and Butler got an elite coach in Brad Stevens. Without this stroke of luck Butler never becomes what they are today. At best they are like a Murray State, Stephen F Austin or some really good mid-major that dominates a bad conference most years and gets the auto bid out of Horizon League. Iowa is absolutely the reason Butler is a Power 6 program rather than a really good Mid-Major. Without those runs to the Final Four they still have the old president who wanted to keep athletics to a minimum rather than current president who wants to emphasize them (Former prez was run out for not caring about athletics enough after Final Four runs). Todd Lickliter NEVER makes runs to the Final Four and Butler is still a good Mid-Major in Horizon League.

Won't happen. Any clause agreed to in a contract by both parties is absolutely enforceable (and I happen to know this was) and PU can have her for 10 million dollars. I am not a lawyer but my sister is and I just texted her to ask. Here is what will happen: Versyp will be fired as she should as she has ruined their most elite program. When she is replaced they will get someone new and it will not be Moren as no one would pay 10 million for a basketball coach for the Women's program. PU Women were IU's version of soccer until Versyp got her hands on the program. Fortunately, when IU got a bad coach in soccer in Mike Freitag they got rid of him pretty quickly and went right back to the top. Purdue has held on to Versyp way to long and she has basically made the job way less attractive. Much like I mentioned yesterday with Archie, hiring is a lot of luck and just as OSU lucked out by waiting so long on Matta and ending up with Holtman over Archie, we ended up lucking out that Versyp left us as we got the much better coach eventually in Moren. Now we have the best program in the state over the last couple years with Versyp driving PU into ground and ND struggling with Muffett McGraws retirement. If you had told me this three years ago that IU is the best program in state right now I would have laughed but thats where we are at.

Lickliter is a horrible coach and Butler was so lucky (back to a lot of luck involved as I mentioned earlier) Iowa took him at first sign of success or Bulldogs never get to where they are today. Missed tourney 4 times in 6 seasons and if Iowa does not poach him after his one great season they never get to where they are today with Stevens. Butler owes Iowa a huge thanks to where they are today. Completely agree that Matta for his one yr was very good. Lickliter, Collier and now Jordan were/are very up and down and Miller was horrid in his one season. Butler's best years were under Holtman and Stevens and one is in NBA and other is tearing it up at OSU. Lickliter is struggling at Evansville and gone through NAIA route. He is mediocre with a couple good seasons. Miller quit over mental problems and Collier is now AD and Matta was very good at OSU. Jordan is TBA to be frank but right now he looks much more like the up and down of Collier and Lickliter than the elite of Stevens and Holtman.

Yup luck is important as I said, although McDermott is a pretty damn good coach at Creighton as well. Not sure you do wrong with either.

How lucky is OSU that Matta waited to resign until way into the offseason after we hired Archie? If Matta had resigned at beginning of offseason they hire Archie and are in world of hurt. History has proven Holtman is a terrific coach and Archie is not. Its no accident Butler's best years are under Holtman and Stevens. You take those years out Butler has been average at best more often than not. Hiring is a crapshoot and sometimes you get lucky (like when Glass hired Tom Allen with no search and lucked into it) and OSU got incredibly fortunate Matta waited so long to resign and they did not get Archie.

Uh OSU lost to Wisconsin so we are in sole control of 2nd place now as Buckeyes took their third loss in Big Ten play just now. That is by far worst loss of yr for ANYONE in Big Ten and maybe in country as Wisconsin is worst team in conference. Wiscy had not come remotely close to beating a top team prior to tonight. Only games Badgers were even in before tonight was against fellow bottom feeders when they barely beat Illinois and almost beat Purdue and Minny. They were blown out by everyone else at top of conference and several teams at bottom. Not sure what the problem was for Buckeyes tonight, but good for IU and we can out them away in Columbus in a couple weeks in what should be our toughest game left.

Ballgame. Final is 90-65. Held PSU to 25 points in second half after 40 in first half. Outscored them 25-14 in final quarter. Even if we had not scored in 4th quarter game would of gone to OT tied at 65. Also the Grace Berger Triple Double was awesome. Second half shows how great this team is when they put 100% effort no matter how bad PSU is. Next game against an even worse Illinois team Sunday at 3pm on BTN+ (subscription required).

We have a ref down with an injury. Accidentally tripped up by Warthen as she hits a three to grow lead to 28 with about 1 min. left

Berger just got her third triple double of season! No one else in Women's College Basketball has more than 1.

We made our run to end it! IU by 23 halfway through fourth. Exactly the second half you needed to put away a far inferior PSU team.

Much better quarter that looked like how I expected game to go from start. Better D to as we outscored them 26-11. One more quick run to open fourth quarter should end this.

Holmes back in as expected. Thank god it was a false alarm. Turned away for a second second so when I saw her screaming I thought she had broken something and our season was flashing before our eyes. Then I saw the replay and breathed a sigh of relief and could tell she would be fine. Lead up to double digits.

Better start to second half forcing a PSU timeout. Now put the game away. Scary moment as Holmes went down in screaming pain, but appeared to just take a knee to her kneecap from a PSU player and walked off and should be fine.

No idea what that was. PSU was the female version of Iowa that half where they play really well on offense but cannot stop anything or anyone. The problem is IU gave by far the worst defensive effort I have seen from them this season that half. Hopefully that can be adjusted at halftime and this turns into a runaway in second half like it should. The announcers can mention as many times as they want that PSU has won four in a row, but they beat 3 of the worse teams in the Big Ten and Nebraska, who can literally win or lose to anyone depending on what day you catch them. PSU took advantage of a soft spot in their schedule, but have top Big Ten teams rest of year starting with us and should not win again based on their talent. Time to play like IU is capable of in second half on defense.

PSU has won four in a row but all against the bottom half of the Big Ten. Nittany Lions may not win again though as they play the top half of the Big Ten the rest of the season starting with IU on Thursday and are not very good. Will be very disappointed if IU does not win this by double digits.

Nice of Keyanna Warthen to check the score for everyone. Certainly her biggest contribution of the day as she is someone who rarely plays. I don't mean that as an insult at all but I am sure that made the entire locker room very happy. Can't tell if Mackenzie Holmes while sitting down is checking score as well or if she is looking at something else on her phone but she is definitely a difference maker and best player on the team. She is the women's teams version of Trayce Jackson-Davis (same position) but even better as a player than he is and more dominant inside.

Nice win in a true tossup game and now gives us two huge road wins over both Iowa and NW. We were jealous for years of Iowa with Megan Gustafson and her dominant and powerful post play. Well now the shoe is thankfully on the other foot with Mackenzie Holmes having a very similar game as our best player and she has been compared to Gustafson on more than one occasion on the broadcasts. First win in Iowa City since 1994 and a great performance overall. Schedule lightens up next two games with a bad PSU and Illinois team. Hopefully Cardano-Hillary can keep up the play she had today in the post Jaelynn Penn world and we can keep rolling. Also, Rutgers finally returned today and beat Nebraska who is the most schizophrenic team in the league having beaten ranked teams in OSU, MSU and NW but also terrible losses to PU, Penn State and Minnesota who are horrifically bad. Glad we don't have to play the Huskers again as it could be an easy win or a sure loss depending on which day you catch them.