Big Ten Basketball Power Rankings: Michigan, Michigan State both lose

3. Purdue Boilermakers (14-6)

Previous rank: 3

There’s no need to write 400 words to try and convince you all that Purdue deserves to be ranked third in the Big Ten this time around. Purdue has won eight out of their last nine games. Their only loss came to Michigan State who they knocked off last weekend. It was a 10-point victory that the Boilermakers needed. They haven’t been ranked since the end of November because the AP voters pay too much attention to number of losses.

Virginia Tech and Florida State were both ranked at the time Purdue lost to them. Texas was on a roll at the time and the neutral court loss to Notre Dame was rock bottom. That put Purdue at 6-5. The Boilermakers did what they needed to do to get out of rock bottom and that was win ball games.

Just when you thought that the Boilermakers ran to the beat of Carsen Edwards, they take down some good Big Ten teams. There was the OT thriller against Wisconsin, Indiana was ranked at the time and Ohio State is decent. Edwards came out against Michigan State doing the opposite of what he did previously. He wasn’t playing hero ball.

Edwards shot under 30 percent once again, still made three three-pointers for 14 points. Ryan Cline though made five shots from the outside. Nojel Eastern showed the improvement everyone was waiting for and two bench players combined for 21 points. Matt Haarms showed his dominance and Aaron Wheeler is a mismatch who can shoot from the outside. The Boilermakers did great things against Michigan State to make this at least a three team race for the Big Ten Title.