By the TSB staff.
Welcome to a new weekly feature here at The Sports Bank. Every site out there gives you professional team power rankings, and in college sports you have the national polls, but what about Big Ten power rankings? We fill that gap- especially in a year of extreme competitive balance. The number following the respective records indicates the points obtained from TSB voters: just like in golf lowest score wins.
1. (tie) Michigan St. 18-4, 8-2 & Purdue 17-5, 6-3 (6 pts each)
MSU -Sparty needs Raymar Morgan to get healthy
-Injuries have made Izzo’s squad vulnerable.
-H to tha Izzo always has defense and rebounding going for him…well, usually
PU -Injuries are killing them, but look out for JuJuan Johnson.
-Boilermakers need Robbie Hummel to get healthy
3. Minnesota 18-4, 6-4 (12) -Defense doesn’t have off nights.
-Depth and defense the key for Tubby
-They don’t win pretty, but they just keep winning. Upcoming stretch of games will likely decide NCAA Seed
4. Illinois 18-4, 6-3 (16) – After a terrible performance against the Gophers, the Illini bounced back well against Iowa
-Now if they only had a closer, how far they could go.
5. Penn St. 17-5, 6-3 (22) -Sorry Tubby and Bruce, but Ed DeChellis is conference coach of the year up to this point
– After starting 0-3 in the conference the Wildcats are 4-2. They could be a tough draw in the Big Ten Tournament.
– Sneaky team with some serious weapons offensively.
-They’re a scrappy bunch
6. Ohio St. 16-5, 6-4 (25) – Inconsistent in conference play has hampers the Buckeyes. Next 8 games will decide if this team goes to the NCAA or NIT
– 7’0 freshman B.J. Mullens’ potential is starting to shine
7. Northwestern 13-7, 4-5 (28) -Getting better, still have best GPA in the conference.
-The Princeton offense is working for Carmody’s squad in exactly the same way, the spread option works for Fitzgerald’s group in football- space out defenders to negate one-on-one physical match-up disadvantages
-Could this finally be the year the Cats make the tourney?
8. Michigan 14-8, 4-6 (30) – Harris & Sims are great 1-2 combo, but need more depth.
– Early season wins over Duke and UCLA may be forgotten if the Wolverines poor play continues. They’ve lost 5 of 6.
9. Wisconsin 12-9, 3-6 (36) -The Bo Ryan tirades are getting more fun to watch as the losing drags on
-Can you say NIT?
– Hard times for the Badgers. Sure they’ve lost a lot of close games, but they don’t have any signature wins this year
10. Iowa 12-11, 2-8 (39) -What a boring team to watch
11.Indiana 6-15, 1-8 (44) –Indiana haters appreciate this sinking ship on so many levels–
-I’m sure Tom Crean didn’t think it was going to be easy to clean up Kelvin Sampson’s mess, but he couldn’t have imagined it was this bad of a train wreck, right?
-For the record, Marquette’s 20-2, 9-0 in the Big East.