Big Ten Preview

The start of the Big Eleven er… Big Ten basketball season is just around the corner.

Bo Ryan will mess your shit up if you don’t pay attention.

Don’t tempt him.

He eats tarantulas.

For breakfast.

After the jump…

Purdue 11-0

Key wins (vs.Tennessee, @ Alabama)

Matt Painter may look like a hard-ass dickhole (he looks like a basketball coach I had in high school who was a hard-ass dickhole so I might be biased) but he’s turned Purdue into a Final Four contender in short time. Sure, Purdue in no way is as athletic or explosive as other Final Four contenders (see Texas, Kentucky, Kansas, UNC, even MSU) but they don’t need to be, they play ballsy defense and don’t turn the ball over much. Simply, the Boilermakers rarely beat themselves.  There has been a myth out there for a couple of years that Purdue can’t score, isn’t deep and doesn’t have NBA type talent to compete with other teams top tier teams. Hammers and Rails impressively debunks these myths.

I’ll put Purdue down for 13 or 14 wins in conference, probably a Big Ten title, and probably an appearance in the Big Ten tournament championship game. The status of injured sophomore point guard Lewis Jackson will factor heavily into the success Purdue has in the NCAA tournament.

**Interesting non-conference match-up with West Virginia on New Year’s Day (2:30 ET), tune in and see for yourself if Purdue can ‘keep up’ with the more athletically gifted Mountaineers.

Northwestern 10-1

Key wins (@North Carolina State, Stanford)

Northwestern is like that pretty girl who you don’t notice until it’s almost too late. Reason you didn’t notice her was because she was shy, quiet and didn’t really stick out that much. As time progresses, guys notice shy, quiet pretty girls, and now she’s far from an unknown commodity, but you were too late to notice—the more astute pretty girl chasers beat you to her and there’s just not a whole lot you can do to get back into the game. You either were on board at the beginning (or close to it) or you weren’t, if you fall under the latter category you’re jumping on the bandwagon because it’s the popular thing to do, and well, you’re a little ashamed you couldn’t see the greatness of it all in the first place. Well, I’m that “unastute” dude who is jumping on the Northwestern bandwagon.

Playing sound basketball without their best player (Kevin Coble) the entire season is awfully impressive. Led by one of the best kept secrets in college hoops, 5’10 Michael “Juice” Thompson, Northwestern is 10th best in the nation in 2pt fg% . While they don’t shoot the three ball particularly well, they have a variety of players who are capable of hurting you from downtown. Bill Carmody really has this team playing sharp.

With this strong start Northwestern doesn’t exactly need to win 11 or 12 conference games to get a NCAA tourney berth. 10, even 9, might be good enough to make their first NCAA tourney in school history (19-20 wins total from a Big Ten team should be good enough…)

*UPDATE*- Northwestern now in Top 25

Ohio State 10-2

Key wins (Florida State)

Many (8) of OSU’s 10 wins were slaughter jobs against the cupcakiest cupcakes this side of the Mississippi. OSU did have a nice early season performance against UNC in a loss, and beat an overrated Cal team, but besides that they have not been tested with Evan Turner in the lineup.

*You may remember Evan Turner’s mighty fall in early December*

A road loss to Butler as been the only test for OSU since Turner’s injury. OSU didn’t have many players in the rotation when Turner was healthy, so now their rotation is razor-thin, and that won’t bode well in conference play.  Though there is good news…. Turner was expected to be out until February, but he’s progressing better than anticipated and is pointing toward January 9th as his return.

Turner being back gives OSU probably the best starting lineup in the Big Ten. A conference title is not out of the question, especially if guards Jon Diebler (48.3%) and Jeremie Simmons (51.2%) keep shooting lights out from deep, Dallas Lauderdale keeps swatting shots (3.2 per) and David Lighty and William Buford continue to do a little bit of everything.

10-12 wins seems most logical however.

Wisconsin 10-2

Key wins (Dook, Marquette)

Trevon Hughes and Jon Leuer might be the leading scorers, but the most important player on this team is Jordan Taylor. He hasn’t started a game all season yet he leads the team in assists and is 4th in scoring.

Bo Ryan Bo Ryan Bo Ryan Bo Ryan Bo Ryan Bo Ryan Bo Ryan Bo Ryan Bo Ryan Bo Ryan Bo Ryan Bo Ryan Bo Ryan

I think my work is done here.

Michigan State 9-3

Key wins (Gonzaga)

I’ve watched MSU play a couple of times this season and they always leave me expecting and wanting more. By regular season’s end I expect MSU to be a 3 seed and a legitimate Final Four contender, but to me they could just as easily struggle in the Big Ten, maybe only win 10 or 11 games, and stumble into the tourney with a 7th seed or something. While the Spartans have a load of talented front court players, they could really use the experience and savvy of Goran Suton this season. If Delvon Roe and Draymond Green can be more consistent scorers I believe the Spartans can be very dangerous.

You could read this solid conference preview and probably be all set for the season.

Minnesota 9-3

Key wins (@Butler)

The Daily Gopher says Minny is capable of winning 13 conference games, but thinks 10 or 11 is more realistic.

Fun fact: No player plays more than 25 minutes per game, that likely explains why just about every player on the team has started at least one game. Fun fact #2: Minnesota is 4th in the nation in blk%… that means they block a lot of shots.  With no Gopher player being offensively head and shoulders better than the other, the Gophers defense will make or break their season..

Illinois 8-4

Key wins (@Clemson)

Two terrific freshman Brandon Paul and D.J. Richardson have been just what the doctored ordered for Bruce Weber and the talented Illini. However, and not unsurprisingly, there have been growing pains for the freshmen. A good remedy for the struggles of the young’uns would be to feed talented, but at times too jump shot oriented, big men Mike Davis and Mike Tisdale. Much like Minnesota, the Illini boast a lot of different players who can score the ball, but unlike Minny, the Illini have more guys who can take over a game when need be. Ok, maybe only Demetri McCamey can take over and when a game for the Illini, but the guy is a straight up beast.

A NCAA tournament caliber team for sure this season, but for next season the Illini should be returning every starter and that will be disasterous for the rest of the conference.

Penn State 8-4

Key wins (@Virginia)

Junior guard Talor Battle does everything for PSU. Scoring, rebounding, passing, Talor is the man. But will it be enough to overcome the incredibly weak PSU non-conference schedule (317th in the nation!) ? You would have thought PSU would have learned their lesson by playing a more challenging schedule than last season, but no, that is not the case. As Eric from Battle Does It Again writes, “the more things seem to change, the more they stay the same.”

10 or 11 Big Ten wins will probably justify the tourney committee putting PSU in and not leaving them out in the cold like last season.

Michigan 6-5 (actually 5-5- 1 DII win)

Key wins (none)

My 12-6 conference record prediction for the Wolvies looks really, really far-fetched right now (as far-fetched as the chance forward Anthony Wright will date you if ur breath smells like salami juice and bread crumbs). But without such a dandy mark the Wolvies will find themselves out of the NCAA tourney discussion come March (actually they already are out of the discussion). First five games of the conference season could make or break Michigan’s battle to get back into the tourney conversation.

@Indiana

Home vs. OSU (no Turner)

@PSU

Home vs. NW

Home vs. Indiana

Come out of it 4-1 or better and maybe the Wolvies can salvage the season.

Indiana 6-6

Key wins (@ Pittsburgh)

Horrible news out of Bloomington– standout freshman Maurice Creek injured his knee Monday night and may be out for the rest of the season. That’s over 17 ppg and a whole lot of excitement gone just like that.  What was going to be another long season for Tom Crean just became even worse.  I’ve always liked Crean and can’t wait until Indiana is relevant again, it’s good for the conference and good for college basketball.

[Pic via Inside the Hall ]

Iowa 5-7

Key wins (none)

Iowa is just flat out not a good team, and the December 20th Anthony Tucker (11ppg) arrest for public intoxication is not helping matters at all. Unfortunately the pertinent news surrounding the Iowa Hawkeyes is whether Tucker, who has been in trouble with the law before and ruled academically ineligible last season, should get yet another chance at returning to the team.

Good luck winning 10 games Iowa.

Big Ten Standings Prediction *NCAA tourney teams in bold

Purdue

Wisconsin

MSU

OSU

Illinois

Northwestern

Michigan

Minnesota

PSU

Indiana

Iowa