Big Ten Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2024-25 season

2. UCLA Bruins

Last season did a number on Mick Cronin. Now, he is locked and loaded with one of the deeper teams in college basketball. Returning to Westwood is last year’s leading scorer, Dylan Andrews, alongside Sebastian Mack and Lazar Stefanovic. All three were double-digit scorers.

From the transfer portal, Cronin welcomes the likes of Tyler Bilodeau (Oregon State),  Skyy Clark (Louisville), Eric Dailey Jr. (OK-State), William Kyle III (South Dakota State) and one of the top on-ball defenders in NCAA basketball in Kobe Johnson (USC) -- a perfect fit for Mick Cronin’s system.

There will be plenty of mouths to feed because, in a perfect world, Cronin can go 10 or 11 deep with this roster. But that won't likely be the case come March as the rotation will unquestionably tighten. All in all, that’s as good of a problem to have. Watch out for the Bruins in the wide-open Big Ten.

1. Purdue Boilermakers

Until proven otherwise, Purdue is the team to beat in the Big Ten despite losing the most dominant, irreplaceable player in college basketball over the past two seasons, Zach Edey.

Addressing the elephant in the room, there is no better pure point guard in the Big Ten than Braden Smith, the pre-season Big Ten POY. Smith will lead the charge in West Lafayette behind Fletcher Loyer, who increased his FG% from 36.7 to 41.6 and 3P% from 32.6 to 44.4 last season.

While Purdue may not be as dominant as it was last season, it’s the next-in-line mentality that has the Boilermakers as the No. 1 team in the Big Ten. Myles Covin, Cam Heide and Caleb Furst are breakout names to watch. Trey Kauffman-Renn will carry a substantial role in the frontcourt and incoming 7-foot-4 freshman Daniel Jacobsen may be as good as advertised.

Purdue basketball has been the cream of the crop in the Big Ten for quite some time now. Even without Zach Edey, don’t expect that to change.