Big Ten: State Of A Conference Amassed In Parity

Coming into the season, the two certainties we thought knew in the Big Ten was that Wisconsin was the best team and the rest of the conference would be pretty tightly contested. However, after two and a half weeks of gameplay, even those things can be questioned about this season with Wisconsin not even atop the conference.

Instead of the Badgers, the Maryland Terrapins have surprised everyone in their inaugural season in their new conference. With a 5-1 start to conference play, the Terrapins are alone atop the conference, albeit simply due to the fact they’ve played one more game than those directly under them in the standings. Nonetheless, they won that extra game and are flying high this season, having dropped just two games all year.

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Led by freshman Melo Trimble, who we recently named one of our top guards in the Big Ten, and his 16.1 points a game, the Terrapins swept the season series with the Michigan State Spartans already this year. However, Mark Turgeon has been gifted a relative easy start to the season. As it currently stands, the Spartans and Purdue are the only two teams they’ve played with a record over .500 with Maryland going 3-0 against those teams. However, they’ll be given their toughest test to date when they travel to Bloomington to face the Hoosiers later this week.

Speaking of Indiana, few could have expected the Hoosiers to be tied with Wisconsin in the standings likely at any point this season judging by how their off-season went. However, with the Hoosiers’ road win over Illinois on Sunday, the Hoosiers themselves sit at 4-1 in the conference and tied for second place. Unlike Maryland, they’ve been tested a bit more, with a win over Ohio State at home to go with a couple decent road wins over Nebraska and Illinois.

We’ll learn a lot about the Hoosiers in the next week and a half as they host the Terrapins on the Thursday, then travel to Columbus on Sunday and finish up next Wednesday in West Lafayette with a big-time rivalry match-up against Purdue.

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Wisconsin still looms large in the conference though, sitting at 4-1 themselves. Aside from their ugly, ugly loss to Rutgers, the Badgers have looked as dominant as anticipated with an average margin of victory of 12.5 points a game. However, similar to those mentioned before them, the Badgers have had a very easy schedule, their toughest game coming against 3-2 Purdue. And much like their counterparts, they are about to have an uptick in competition with two of the next three games coming against an upstart Iowa squad with a road trip to Michigan in between.

We already took an in-depth at the Iowa Hawkeyes last week, they’ve continued their run with wins at Minnesota and against Ohio State to position themselves as the third team in the three-way tie for second place in the conference. As seems to be the case with every team in the conference, they’ll be tested in the coming games with their two games against Wisconsin and a home game versus Maryland consisting of three of their next four games.

After the three way tie up top in the conference, you have a mess of teams below. Michigan sits at 4-2 and fifth in the conference, but will now have to deal with the loss of their star Caris LeVert who has been ruled out for the season with a foot injury. Michigan State and Ohio State both loom at 3-2 and 3-3, respectively, and both figure to be factors by the end of the season.

While they may no longer hold the throne as the top conference in the country, there are more than enough storylines to keep even the casual fans captivated by the Big Ten this season. And considering that the competition is about to pick up, there’s no time better than the present to join the wackiness.

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