Views from the Editors Chair: Is the B1G the Best?

Welcome to the newest addition to our features for you, my weekly opinions and views on things going on with the Badgers, Big Ten, and college sports in general: Views from the Editors Chair.  It’s my chance to get things off my chest or give you a longer editorial and today is going to be one of the latter.  

After watching the first few weeks of the Big Ten basketball season unfold, it’s quite clear that it’s the deepest and best conference in the country, yes the Big East included.  Not only that, it might be the single deepest season I’ve ever witnessed as a Big Ten basketball fan for my 30 years on this earth. 

Let’s just look at the numbers first.  The B1G is ranked 1st in the conference RPI (rpiratings.com) and 1st in the Sagrin ratings as a league as well.  In the Sagrin ratings the Big 12 is 2nd and over a full point behind (that’s a big difference in this ranking), if you look at the “Simple Average”, which is a non-weighted measure the B1G’s lead gets even bigger and I think more telling of just how difficult it will be to win this conference in 2011-12.  

Even Tom Izzo doesn’t see this being a cake walk to the conference title for anyone, stating on the coaches teleconference this morning “I don’t see a way it won’t be a team with 4 or even 5 losses that wins this league, it’s just that deep.”  

I couldn’t agree with him more.  Let’s just take a look at the standing as they are right now: 

2011-12 Men’s Basketball Standings

Just think, a week ago it looked very grim for the Badgers’ chances of getting back into the conference title race.  Well, over the past week we’ve seen a previously winless Minnesota team take down Indiana on the road.  Wisconsin beat Purdue on the road, Ohio State going down to Illinios, and the mother of all upsets in my book, Northwestern being the 1st to take down Michigan State.  

So early into the season and we see that every team but Penn State is above .500 overall and being 5 or 6 games into their conference schedules 10th place is just 3 games out of 1st place.  Sure, it’s early, but would it really surprise you to see Minnesota or Nebraska take down the Spartans or Illini?  I know it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.  

Heck, this is the same season where we’ve had conference teams take down multiple top 5 non-conference opponents, only to see them lose to “lower level” conference opponents.  

Just how good is the B1G?  Well, the conference’s schools are all ranked in the top 140 of the RPI (according to realtimerpi.com), the only major conference that can say that.  Penn State is the lowest at 140, but the Big Ten shows it’s strength in the middle teams of Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, Purdue, and Northwestern.  Iowa is the lowest rated of the middle teams at 105th, with Wisconsin the next lowest at 55th, followed by Purdue at 50th, Northwestern at 25th (ahead of Michigan in RPI mind you), and Indiana ranking 17th.  

Think about that for a second.  Indiana, the 6th place team in the conference at this point in time is also the 17th best team in terms of RPI.  If that doesn’t tell you a thing or two about how dominant this conference is, I don’t know what will, but should you need more convincing, here you go:

In the individual Sagrin ratings the B1G is the only conference with all it’s teams in the top 150.  Penn State brings up the rear there as well, ranking 149th.  Those same middle of the pack schools?  Well, Iowa comes in at 101st, followed by Minnesota at 49th, Northwestern at 38th, Purdue at 32nd, Wisconsin at 13th, and Indiana at 9th (both ahead of Illinois’ 30th).  Ya, a pair of teams that are tied for 6th in the conference are ahead of a conference leader at this point in the season.  Again, I don’t know what more proof you need of how deep or good this conference is from top to bottom.  

All I can say as a Badger fan and journalist is that this thing is far from over and I have a feeling we’re in for a few head scratching wins and losses before this race is all said and done.  Sit back, watch the conference race unfold on ESPN, CBS, and BTN and just remember where you were when you were a witness to the best season of B1G basketball you’ve ever seen.  I know I fully plan to enjoy it all and hope you’ll join us for the ride of a lifetime this season.