Big Ten Basketball power rankings: Illinois, Rutgers rise to top of standings
By Adam Childs
Big Ten Basketball might be the deepest conference in the country as 12 teams have legitimate shots at the NCAA tournament. But who leads the way in this week’s rankings?
Coming into the season Big Ten Basketball looked to be in great shape, but it looked like Michigan State and everybody else. But right behind them looked to be Maryland and Ohio State and then another drop-off. Illinois and Penn State looked like potential sleeper teams and Purdue and Michigan were looking to reload.
But no one could have predicted what has happened so far in one of the craziest seasons in conference history thus far. While the Spartans are still at the top, right behind them are Illinois and Rutgers. Yep, the Scarlet Knights are tied for second place and ranked for the first time since 1979. It has been that crazy.
If you are playing at home you will probably win and if you are playing on the road you will probably lose. As a whole conference, there have been only seven road wins and four of those have come against Nebraska and Northwestern who are clearly the two worst teams in the league.
Only Wisconsin has more than one road win in the conference so far, but they have they own the only other home loss among the top 12.
So who is the best team in the Big Ten currently? Michigan State has looked the best but they also have a 29 point loss at Purdue. Every team in the top 12 could have an argument for about any spot in the rankings right now. They have all played well enough to beat anybody but also poorly enough to get blown out.
Rankings the Big Ten right now is like throwing darts blindfolded. But even with the chaos we still take a stab and without further ado, we present the Big Ten rankings as January quickly comes to an end.
*Records are Big Ten records as of January 21st