NCAA Basketball: Indiana, Illinois, Virginia Tech, Maryland headline Sunday Mailbag
By Bryan Mauro
Who is the second-best team in the Big Ten after Purdue? – Tristan Freeman (@hoopsnut351)
This question required the most thinking for me this week. The Big Ten has one team that is clearly above the rest and that is the Purdue Boilermakers. After the Boilers, the league is going to be extremely bunched up and anyone can finish from 2-8. The clear bottom six teams, at least through this point in the year, are Nebraska, Northwestern, Rutgers, Penn State, Minnesota, and Maryland. Aside from those teams, anyone can finish in the 2-8 spots.
The team who I think comes up with that spot is the Illinois Fighting Illini. Illinois started slow but they have since found their stride since getting their star Kofi Cockburn back from an early-season NCAA suspension. Illinois was also battling some injuries early on in the year and everyone is slowly starting to get healthy for Illinois. If Illinois continues to improve on their early-season woes they will easily take the second spot in the conference.
Heading into the year Illinois is the team I picked to win the league because of the play in the backcourt with Trent Frazier and point guard Andre Curbelo. Curbelo has not been great this year and is now out for an undisclosed period of time with an injury so he is not currently playing. Hopefully, when he comes back he can regain the form he had last season when he made Illinois the team they were. Curbelo has been a turnover machine this year and he is going to have to earn his spot when he comes back.
Alfonso Plummer is a sharpshooter who has given this offense a different look. Plummer is more than just a sharpshooter though as he just dropped 30 points and is playing a ton of minutes. He can pass, rebound and defend as well. Illinois is playing very well right now and they are going to be the team that challenges Purdue for the top spot in the Big Ten.