Wisconsin avoided a letdown game following its shocking upset at Michigan when John Blackwell crushed a triple at the buzzer to give the Badgers a 78-75 victory at Minnesota on Tuesday night. The Gophers led 41-30 over their rivals with 18 minutes left thanks to Jaylen Crocker-Johnson hitting a floater plus the foul, but Blackwell answered with a pair of three-point shots to lead Wisconsin on the comeback trail. The Badgers would lead by as many as nine thanks to former Gopher Braeden Carrington knocking down seven triples of his own for a season-high 21 points, but Minnesota refused to go away. Nolan Winter’s missed free throw with 12 seconds left gave Cade Tyson the opportunity to tie the game at 75-75 with five seconds to play, but Blackwell struck right back with his clutch winner.

Blackwell led everyone in scoring with 27 points and added five assists as well. Minnesota had four players in double figures led by Crocker-Johnson with 20 points while Langston Reynolds scored 12 points with 10 of the Gophers’ 20 assists.

Talk about two teams going in different directions. Nebraska wrecked Oregon 90-55 to keep the Cornhuskers undefeated at 6-0 in the Big Ten and 17-0 overall. It’s the biggest blowout Nebraska has ever had over a Big Ten opponent in conference play. This is also the best start to Big Ten play that Nebraska has had since joining the conference for the 2011-12 season. Meanwhile, the Ducks are 1-5 in the Big Ten haven’t started this poorly in league play since they went 1-5 to begin the Pac-12 campaign of 2013-14.

The game didn’t start so lopsided. Oregon center Nate Bittle made a layup to tie the score at 28-28 with four minutes left in the first half, but then Oregon rolled off a 14-2 run to gain a 42-30 lead at halftime. The burst was spearheaded by Pryce Sandfort and Braden Frager each making two three-point shots, and they would end up torching the nets by each going 7-for-11 from beyond the arc during the game. That accounted for 14 of Nebraska’s 17 three-point shots. On the other side, Oregon made just six shots from beyond the arc while shooting 26 percent from there.

If it wasn’t clear enough from the Michigan State and Indiana results from earlier this month, the Huskers are for real. Rienk Mast has developed into an all-conference player, Sam Hoiberg is a steady hand at point guard, and the Sandfort-Frager combo is lighting up scoreboards. Plus, Nebraska’s defense ranks even higher than its offense on KenPom!

Two traditional Big Ten powers battled in East Lansing, but the hotly contested game turned into an 81-60 Michigan State blowout thanks to Indiana going seven minutes without scoring down the stretch. With just over 11 minutes to play, Indiana’s Lamar Wilkerson dunked to tie the score at 53-53, but Jordan Scott came back with a mid-range jump shot for Sparty to spark a 7-0 run over the next minute that was punctuated by a breakaway slam from Coen Carr. Hoosiers head coach Darian DeVries called a timeout, but it did nothing to get his team back into the game, as MSU rolled off 12 more unanswered points to make the score 72-53 with five minutes left.

Jeremy Fears Jr. was fantastic for Sparty with 23 points and 10 assists while Jaxon Kohler also had a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Wilkerson scored 19 points for Indiana, but no other Hoosiers scored more than nine points, as Tucker DeVries was held to that many on 3-for-10 field goals.

In the night cap, Maryland continued to slump in the first year of Buzz Williams’ leadership, falling at USC 88-71 and dropping to 0-6 in league play. Trojans star Chad Baker-Mazara was limited to seven points in nine minutes due to injury, but Jordan Marsh came through with 20 points off the bench. The gigantic center Gabe Dynes played a larger than usual role for USC with 10 points and eight rebounds. Four of those rebounds came on offense, which contributed to USC’s 13-4 edge on the offensive glass. That led to the Trojans firing off 66 shots in this game compared to just 48 for Maryland. All of those extra shots helped USC overcome a 30-point game from Terps guard David Coit.

Just like with Indiana and Michigan State, this one was close for most of the game, but USC outscored Maryland 25-12 over the last 11 minutes following a three-point shot by Coit that trimmed the Trojans’ lead to 63-59. Jade Brownell made a layup and a triple on consecutive possessions for USC to push the lead to 11 points with six and a half minutes left. Coit tried to stop the run with a layup, but then Marsh and Jacob Cofie hit back-to-back jumpers to put the game away.

There are four more Big Ten games tonight with both Northwestern and my Nittany Lions looking for their first conference wins of the season. Penn State has had a brutal schedule to start league play, so hopefully it can finally pull of a win over UCLA. The Wildcats are coming home to face in-state rival Illinois after losing at Rutgers in overtime. We also have Iowa visiting the Purdue juggernaut and Michigan traveling to Washington for late night hoops.