Big Ten Basketball: Michigan’s rout puts them on top of Power Rankings

Big Ten Basketball is in the thick of league play, but there’s little question as to who deserves to be atop the conference power rankings right now.

Big Ten Basketball remains arguably the preeminent conference in college basketball this season. As the mid-January mark approaches, however, the real contenders for a conference crowd are separating themselves from the pack.

Every team in the Big Ten has lost at least once in conference play … except for the Michigan Wolverines. In fact, Juwan Howard’s team hasn’t lost once all year. Therefore, nobody should be surprised to see them atop the conference power rankings at this stage of the season.

The Big Ten has not been immune to the coronavirus, but it hasn’t affected the conference as badly as it did in football to this point. Every team has played at least six conference games except for Nebraska (five) and Penn State (three). Those two teams share zero conference wins between them, which is likely coincidental.

What’s fascinating about the Big Ten is how strong the middle of the pack is in the conference. As of Wednesday afternoon, there were six teams with exactly three wins and two of those teams are ranked (Ohio State and Minnesota). Northwestern has three wins and was ranked two weeks ago and Rutgers was ranked just last week.

It’s going to be a dogfight to see which Big Ten teams survive the conference gauntlet and make the NCAA Tournament. Here are the mid-January Big Ten power rankings.