Ask any Big Ten basketball coach: the Big Ten is the toughest, deepest and most viciously competitive conference in the country.
Same as every year, right?
“Coaches always are going to say things like that,” Northwestern coach Kevin O’Neill said. “But I think there’s one stat that gives you an idea why they say that this year: There are only about five freshmen starting in the entire conference.
“That means you have a lot of teams with a lot of veterans playing key roles, and that also means you’ve got a lot of depth.”
Indeed, eight of the league’s top 10 scorers through Monday are upperclassmen, and six are in their final seasons of eligibility.
Because most teams aren’t nursing youngsters, the Big Ten has enjoyed an upswing in non-conference play.
There are five Big Ten entries in this week’s Associated Press Top 20–No. 8 Indiana, No. 11 Purdue, No. 13 Michigan State, No. 16 Minnesota and No. 19 Wisconsin. And computer whiz Jeff Sagarin ranks the conference second among the majors, a shade below the traditionally powerful Atlantic Coast Conference.
The Big Ten has split six games with the Southeastern Conference and has a winning record against every other major conference, including the ACC (6-4), Big 12 (7-2), Conference USA (4-1) and Big East (7-6).
The non-conference season has produced a handful of eyebrow-raising victories–including wins by Indiana, Penn State and Wisconsin over Temple, a preseason Top 10 team. Iowa overcame a 19-point deficit to end Kansas’ 62-game home winning streak. Ohio State beat UAB, North Carolina State and Ole Miss to win a holiday tournament in Puerto Rico.
Even the bottom tier looks better. Don’t forget that Ohio State has stood atop the conference standings for the last five weeks. Of course, its 70-62 victory over Penn State Nov. 20 in Columbus is the only conference game to be played so far.
“You talk about how hard it is to pick a top team, but it’s every bit as hard to pick a bottom team,” said Iowa coach Tom Davis, whose Hawkeyes have charged to a surprising 9-1 record.
But in basketball, success is measured mostly on postseason accomplishments, so fall-semester basketball can be misleading, if not irrelevant. The Big Ten won’t regain its national luster until it can reverse a trend of disappointments in the NCAA tournament.
If the college basketball season is a three-act play, composed of non-conference and conference competition and the Big Dance, then the Big Ten is about to wade into the meatiest portion of the schedule.
Big Ten play kicks into high gear Wednesday night, when surprising Wisconsin (12-1) takes on Michigan in Ann Arbor, where it hasn’t won since 1982. Indiana meets Iowa in Iowa City on New Year’s Eve.
This is the second year that the Big Ten will cap its season with a tournament in Chicago. A year ago, Illinois and Michigan State split the regular-season title in a dramatic race that wasn’t decided until the Spartans fell in overtime on the final Sunday.
The tournament produced an entirely different outcome. Michigan, an underachiever for most of the winter, came together for one weekend in the United Center and romped to the championship. And Purdue, which had finished third in the regular-season standings, made the finals.
This year, three teams– Michigan State, Indiana and Purdue–began the season as the top contenders for the regular-season title. But the Badgers, relying on veteran guards, seem to have shouldered their way into the mix with a dozen wins in their first 13 games.
“I don’t know about that,” Wisconsin coach Dick Bennett said. “In the Big Ten, the one certainty is the uncertainty. It’s almost impossible to sit here and predict who’s going to be there at the end.”
A team-by-team breakdown of the conference, in order of their non-conference records:
– Indiana (13-2). The Hoosiers’ attack is heating up at precisely the right moment. Indiana is averaging more than 95 points in its last five games, led by Luke Recker and A.J. Guyton, who are scoring 15.6 points per game.
The main knock on Indiana is its lack of height and rebounding; the Hoosiers rank 10th in the conference in defensive rebounding.
– Wisconsin (12-1). For the first time in Bennett’s four-year tenure at Madison, the Badgers are playing with a healthy roster. That has meant headaches for teams unable to cope with Bennett’s grind-it-out, defense-oriented style. And that has produced a 10-game win streak, the second-longest at Wisconsin since 1940-41.
The Badgers’ three-guard rotation is led by Sean Mason, who has led the team in scoring every game and ranks fifth among conference scorers with 18.6 points per game. But the Badgers will go as far as their defense takes them; they have allowed a league-low 53.8 points per game.
“You’ve got to give Wisconsin credit,” Davis said. “They’ve been winning and winning big.”
– Purdue (12-2). The Boilermakers don’t score a ton (73.9 points per game, fifth in the league). They don’t always play great defense (opponents shoot 42.2 percent against them, eighth in the conference).
Their top scorer (Jaraan Cornell, 13.9 points per game) ranks 13th in the Big Ten and their top rebounder (Greg McQuay, 5.4 per game) is 15th.
But the Boilermakers are proving to be scrappy and resourceful. That’s a trademark of Gene Keady’s teams.
– Ohio State (11-3). The Buckeyes became a much better team the moment Scoonie Penn became eligible. Penn sat out last season after following his coach, Jim O’Brien, to Columbus from Boston College.
Penn gives the Buckeyes a dynamic floor leader. Much of their scoring and rebounding load is carried by sophomore Michael Redd, who is averaging 19.4 points and 6.2 rebounds per game.
– Iowa (9-1). The Hawkeyes could have rolled over when the school announced that this would be Davis’ final season. But the opposite has happened, and the Hawkeyes are flying as they prepare to meet the Hoosiers on New Year’s Eve.
As always, Iowa is deadly from three-point range. It is averaging a league-best 44.6 percent from beyond the arc. Only two Big Ten players have made more than half their three-point shots this year. Both are Hawkeyes: Kent McCausland (54.1 percent) and Dean Oliver (51.5 percent).
– Michigan State (9-3). A month ago, the Spartans were seen as the only Big Ten team with a realistic shot at the Final Four. But an 0-3 record against Top 10 teams–Temple, Duke and Connecticut–has tempered expectations in East Lansing.
The Spartans have struggled when point guard Mateen Cleaves, the returning Big Ten MVP, isn’t shooting well. But junior forward Morris Peterson has become a dangerous sixth man. He averaged 17 points and 5.3 rebounds per game to win the tournament MVP award as the Spartans won the Pearl Harbor Classic against middling competition last week.
– Minnesota (9-1). The Golden Gophers are proving the old maxim: You win with veteran guards. Seniors Quincy Lewis (22.4 ppg, tops in the Big Ten) and Kevin Clark (18.1 ppg) are the highest-scoring backcourt tandem in the conference. Each has been named conference player of the week once.
The Gophers played a cheesy non-conference schedule, losing their only meeting with a ranked opponent. But that opponent happened to be mighty Cincinnati, which escaped Williams Arena with a 62-61 overtime victory on Dec. 16.
– Northwestern (7-2). The Wildcats are dramatically better in O’Neill’s second year in Evanston. Center Evan Eschmeyer, who only seems to have been in town as long as Michael Jordan has, is having a solid sixth season. He has scored in double figures in 50 straight games and has five double-doubles this year.
NU is off to its best start in five years, but it hasn’t played a single ranked opponent. That changes in the next two weeks, when the Cats meet Iowa (No. 24 in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll), No. 16 Minnesota, No. 8 Indiana and No. 19 Wisconsin.
– Penn State (7-3). Calvin Booth has become the leading shot-blocker in Big Ten history. The Nittany Lions are tough to figure; they beat Temple but got drubbed by 18 points by Florida International Monday night in Tucson.
– Illinois (8-4). Until Tuesday night’s victory over No. 14 Clemson, the Fighting Illini had been unable to score a headline-grabbing victory. Their best players are also their youngest–including freshman Cory Bradford, who had led the team in scoring the last two games before Tuesday night’s meeting with Clemson.
– Michigan (6-7). The only school to carry a losing record into conference play, Michigan has yet to hit its stride under Brian Ellerbe, who had the “interim” label removed after last season. The Wolverines haven’t come close to finding a replacement for Robert “Tractor” Traylor, who bolted for the NBA last year. Michigan won the conference tournament last season, but without its usual athleticism it seems unlikely to defend that crown or to challenge for the regular-season title.
