First things first: a dramatic come-from-behind victory against our biggest rival in hockey and a road win at the #3 team in the nation to tie up the Big Ten race both deserve this:

First, basketball: Not enough can be said about the spectacular defensive effort today. When you hold a team to fewer made baskets (14) than turnovers (15), you usually win. Jared Sullinger got his (17 points on 15 shots + 8 free throws, 16 rebounds, but 10 turnovers in the process), and Aaron Craft added 15 points (more than half of which came from the free throw line), but they got no help offensively from anyone else; Deshaun Thomas and William Buford each went 2 of 12 from the floor. Interior defense in particular came up big; Keith Appling, Adreian Payne, Brandon Wood, and Austin Thornton each got credit for a steal on Sullinger, and Payne drew at least one charge as well.

Offensively, it was the Adreian Payne show: 15 points (6 for 6 shooting, including a couple of thunderous tip-dunks) in just 20 minutes. Ohio State had no answer for Payne down low. Appling added 14 (but had 7 turnovers and no assists). Draymond Green came up one rebound short of yet another double-double (12 points, 9 boards). Derrick Nix added a couple of nice hook shots (6 points), and Branden Dawson and Brandon Wood helped clean up the glass (8 and 7 rebounds, respectively; 5 of Dawson's on the offensive end). A couple of long droughts in the second half let Ohio State get as close as four, but everybody chipped in a few points to pull away again: Appling, Nix, Payne, and Green each contributed two points to widen the lead back out to 10 with three minutes to go.

Four factors chart:

Rebounding and turnovers were both fairly close; at the risk of being Captain Obvious, FG% was the big difference. Ohio State had not been held below 42% eFG this season; we held them below 30%. Only Kansas had held their efficiency below 0.95 PPP; we held them to 0.75.

With six games to go in conference play, we're tied with the Buckeyes, and Michigan and Wisconsin sit one game back. It's going to be a wild finish.

Hockey weekend recap after the jump.

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IT'S TIME YOU GUYS. Most of us assumed that Ohio State would be in first place at this point in the season, and I think it's safe to say that most of us hoped that Michigan State would be second. A win here means MSU is tied for first in the Big Ten; a loss puts the Spartans two games back and their title hopes on life support.

In case you wanted to know who the officials are:

RT @OSUADAthComm: Officials for Michigan State at Ohio State: Mike Kitts, Ted Valentine, Lamont Simpson.

Faaannnnttasstic.

This is the game thread. Same rules as always: No slurs, no links to illegal game streams, and be cool to one another. Enjoy the game everyone.

GO GREEN, GO WHITE, BEAT OHIO STATE

Earlier in the week I did a question and answer session with Elika from Eleven Warriors, the results of which can be found here. In return, Chris from Eleven Warriors was kind enough to answer some questions about the Buckeyes for me, which can be found below.

- OSU's defense is rated the best in the nation by KenPom. What have been the causes for improvement in the past year?

The defense was pretty good last year as well so there really hasn't been a huge standout reason why the defense is rated so highly. Obviously, it all starts with Aaron Craft. The kid may be the best on-ball defender in the country and his ability to disrupt the flow of the opposing offense has been crucial to Ohio State's success.

Lenzelle Smith has been a pleasant surprise this year and seems to grow with each game. He's an excellent rebounder from the two guard spot averaging 4.7 rips while playing just 23 minutes per game.

Another factor in the defensive equation is that Thad Matta has used his bench significantly more than we've seen in previous years. Not only does this afford the starters a chance to be fresher at the defensive end, it has created a mentality for the reserves that if they want to see the floor, they better go balls to the wall on defense.

Sam Thompson has made the most of his opportunity off the pine showing a decent ability to defend and as a 6'7" wing, he can alter some shots playing help side defense.

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Three phases to this one:

1) Defensive dominance in the first 23 minutes leads to a 46-24 lead for MSU, and the only question appeared to be how long before the Human Victory Cigars (Anthony Ianni and the rest of the walk-on brigade) would make their appearance.

2) Absolute panic from fans as Penn State went on a 23-6 run to cut that seemingly insurmountable lead to just five with 9:18 to go.

3) MSU answers with a 23-5 run of its own (featuring three and-ones and a pair of three-pointers) to put it back out of reach with three minutes to go.

The result? Possibly the most nerve-wracking 20-point win ever.

The four-factors graph:

As usual, rebounding was a huge advantage, getting nearly half of our own misses back while holding Penn State under 20%. The other key factor: Penn State fouled. A lot. We took 34 shots from the charity stripe, our highest number in conference play on the year. (Free throw shooting left a little to be desired, however - only 23 of those went in.)

Player notes:

• Draymond Green was up to his usual stat-sheet-stuffing ways: 23 points, 12 rebounds, 5 assists, and a steal. One sour note: 5 missed free throws (9-14), including two when the game was at its closest in the second half.
• Branden Dawson is on a roll (earning a shout-out from CBSSports.com as a potential Freshman of the Year dark-horse): 12 points, 7 boards, 3 steals, 2 blocks.
• Adreian Payne (12 points, 5 boards, 2 steals) and Keith Appling (10-4-7 with a steal as well) also got to double figures.
• Derrick Nix was limited to just two points and had two turnovers as well. He had more difficulty than usual dealing with double-teams inside, particularly during Penn State's run.
  
• Two near-trillions (for those unfamiliar with the concept, it's an appearance in which you record absolutely no stats except for minutes, so the box score has one or two minutes followed by a bunch of zeros - Mark Titus, former walk-on for Ohio State and now writer at Grantland (warning: the article linked contains mention of the game that absolutely did not take place last Tuesday) may have coined the term (edit: as MSUDersh points out in the comments, the term goes back quite a bit further) popularized the term among college basketball bloggers, although it was apparently in use in the NBA well before): Ianni went two minutes recording only a turnover, and Brandan Kearney nearly pulled an incredibly rare eight-trillion: 8 minutes, 1 foul, nothing else.
  

Next up: a trip to Ohio State (Saturday at 6:00 ET). Win that and we set up a likely winner-take-all (or at least "one team can win outright, the other can force a tie") finale three weeks later (not to mention establishing further separation from Wisconsin and Michigan); lose and we will have to win out and hope for a little help.

Coming off an impressive win against Michigan, MSU will now face Tim Frazier Penn State. I don't really think this is a trap game -- the Nittany Lions' best true road win is against Boston College (don't be fooled by the name, they're #254 in KenPom), and are one of the worst shooting teams in the nation. If MSU can deny clear paths to the basket, this should be an easy win; the bookies think so too as the line for this game is MSU -14.5

This is the game thread. Same rules as always: No slurs, no links to illegal game streams, and be cool to one another. Enjoy the game everyone.

GO GREEN, GO WHITE, BEAT PENN STATE.