Big Ten Basketball: Purdue, Ohio State, Wisconsin rise in latest power rankings

The first few weeks of the college basketball season can be very telling, but in reality don’t give us a great picture on the upcoming year. We spend months making predictions and building expectations as these teams are built from the ground up, but one or two games can really throw a wrench in that analysis.

The Big Ten is certainly one of the leagues that has had enormous attention over the years, and the offseason changes only increase that excitement. The addition of four former Pac-12 programs builds this once ten-teamed conference up to 18 members. This is a power conference with additional power, adding a few very potent basketball programs to go along with the strong names already in the league, but does this mean anything for the current day?

The bottom line is that we’re still just a few weeks into the season and can’t make generalized statements, but there’s not a standout, elite Big Ten team this year. There’s no question that there’s immense talent in this league and that several of these teams have postseason potential, but you likely won’t find a Big Ten squad among the very top teams in the nation, at least not right now.

It’s quite an outlandish statement for a conference that sent a team to the national title game last year, but things are different and 2025 is shaping up to be quite the year for Big Ten basketball. With the few games each of these teams has under their belt, we’ll be diving in and ranking how all 18 teams currently stack up. Nothing is guaranteed at this point in the year and these types of rankings could look foolish in a number of weeks, but let’s get right into where these teams stand and what we expect in the future.