Big Ten Basketball: Way-too-early power rankings for 2020-21 season

Wisconsin surprisingly won a share of the Big Ten regular-season title after winning their last eight games of the season, going from an NCAA Tournament bubble team to a projected No. 5 seed in the span of about a month.

The Badgers are hoping to carry over some momentum from that hot finish, too. Brevin Pritzl is the only significant rotation player they have to replace with their projected starting lineup of Brad Davison, D’Mitrik Trice, Aleem Ford, Micah Potter, and Nate Reuvers all returning.

As we saw last year, that five is capable of playing alongside any lineup in the conference. Depth won’t be an issue either, thanks to a combination of returning role players and their five-man recruiting class headlined by top 100 prospect Ben Carlson.

The nice thing about the Badgers is that you know what you’re going to get from them, and there aren’t many teams in the Big Ten you can say that about (at least in a positive way). The negative about them, though, is that they may have already hit their ceiling.

They were undoubtedly overachieving on that season-ended run, though the emergence of Micah Potter played a big role. From an experience and cohesion standpoint, Wisconsin will be better. Talent-wise, however, their ceiling may not be as high as other teams in the conference – but that doesn’t mean they won’t finish near the top of the standings.