Three games to talk about. Let’s start with football.

College football: Michigan State 21, Purdue 7. It’s hard to argue with Drew Sharp’s contention that MSU is far from an elite team. (Though it’s also hard to see why he seems to take such glee in saying it, or why he keeps repeating himself.) Even as State moved to 9-2 with the win today and carried a shutout into the fourth quarter, the Spartans’ weaknesses were still apparent: despite holding the Boilers to 191 total yards, the run defense was still suspect, allowing Kory Sheets 93 yards on 22 carries; Brian Hoyer again completed less than 50% of his passes (10 for 22 for 154 yards) — though his receivers, particularly B.J. Cunningham, did a better job holding onto the ball than in last week’s game against Wisconsin; and MSU turned the ball over four times and forced only one turnover. Turnovers haven’t been a season-long issue, but they were such a factor in the Ohio State game that the trend bears watching.

Still, Michigan State is 9-2. Whether they’re a good 9-2 is irrelevant, and even if they get blown out by Penn State and in their bowl game, this season goes in the books as a landmark success. And one of the team’s most important achievements is now guaranteed: no upset losses. Mysteriously flat performances against beatable opponents have been part of MSU’s DNA in recent years, so eliminating those losses this year is as significant as a marquee win. Though a big win in either of these next two games would be nice, too . . .

Here’s the box score.

College football: Michigan 29, Minnesota 6. I’m sure all of you expected Michigan to play suffocating defense and win in a rout, right? And that the ground game would produce three runs of more than 30 yards? And that Nick Sheridan would hit 60% of his passes, throw for 203 yards and, perhaps most importantly, no interceptions?

The Wisconsin game looked like the first marquee win of the Rich Rodriguez era, but the misfortunes of both the Wolverines and Badgers since then have taken some of the shine off that dramatic comeback. But beating a solid Gophers team on the road — that’s more like it. If the Wolverines can pull out a home win against Northwestern next Saturday, they’ll have earned some momentum heading into the offseason, regardless of the outcome of the Ohio State game.

Here’s the box score.

A note on the Big Ten standings: With Minnesota’s loss, along with Northwestern’s 45-10 home loss to Ohio State, Michigan State is assured of no worse than a third-place Big Ten finish. But Iowa’s upset of previously undefeated Penn State isn’t helpful. (Unless you want to see the Big Ten spared another bad loss in the national championship game.) If MSU beats Penn State in two weeks, the Nittany Lions will have two conference losses, and MSU only one. If Ohio State also has one loss, then the three-way tiebreak MSU would have won — by virtue of the fact that MSU, PSU and OSU would all be 1-1 against each other and that MSU is the only one of the three that didn’t play any Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) teams — wouldn’t stand. Instead, it would be a two-way tie between MSU and OSU, and OSU would have the edge because of its head-to-head win over Michigan State. (Here are the tie-break rules.) But if Michigan can beat Ohio State . . .

One other football note: The Mitten isn’t really an all-Michigan sports blog, and only aims to cover MSU and U of M basketball and football and the Pistons, Tigers, Lions and Wings. But from time to time we’ll bend the rules, and Western Michigan deserves some love for picking up its eighth win by beating Illinois at Ford Field today.

NBA: New Jersey 103, Detroit 96. If I open the football discussion with a Drew Sharp reference, it’s only fair to lead with the most depressing view of Allen Iverson’s Pistons’ debut, right? So please note that while AI scored 24 points and hit six of his 12 shots, the Pistons lost. And while Chauncey Billups shot five of 17, the Nuggets won.

But there were some positives: Iverson drew a lot of attention and used it to find open looks for Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and Rasheed Wallace. In the first half, when Detroit’s offense went stagnant during a 14-7 Nets’ run, he broke through by drawing a foul after an impossible-to-defend crossover move from the left wing. Iverson’s capacity to create his own shot is new in town and will come in handy.

As for Detroit’s inability to pull out the game, it had a lot to do with Devin Harris going for 38. And with that, I will break what must surely be a cardinal rule of blogging by suggesting you head over to ESPN.com to read this piece by Chris Sheridan that includes the revelation that Michael Curry decided to leave Rodney Stuckey matched up on Harris throughout Harris’ fourth-quarter run, despite the fact that Stuckey was getting torched. It was a matter of principle — an object lesson that Stuckey should get his defensive act together.

The Mitten is warming quickly to Curry, who has already made several decisions that run counter to standard NBA logic. The verdict is out on whether they’re wise, but they are decisive and well explained — both good characteristics for a coach, and rare ones in a rookie coach. Sounds like the idea for an upcoming post, doesn’t it?