Big Ten Basketball Preview: 2020-2021 Season

With quarantine still in effect and sports still not back yet, I'm going through withdrawal. I miss basketball season a ton. With a potentially historic season coming up in Piscataway, I thought I'd look around the conference to see where Rutgers might stack up against our conference foes. I'm going to be as unbiased as possible (I do have a reputation to maintain!) and try to do as accurate a preview as I can with players still in the NBA draft and transfers still looking for landing spots. Maybe I'll do an updated preview once everything has landed but this will be my initial feelings. I'm going to give my ranking, the positives, the negatives and the outlook for each team, as well as the spots I think they might hover around.

Just so I have a little legitimacy, my original predictions for last season got three of the top five right, four of the bottom five right and ultimately was only one game off in predicting Rutgers's final conference record while slightly undervaluing them by placing them 9th preseason instead of their ultimate placement of 8th. Last year, I undervalued Wisconsin and Penn State and overvalued Purdue by quite a bit. The rest of my predictions finished no more than three spots up or down. Which isn't bad in a fourteen team league. (Mind you I was predicting a Rutgers 8-9th place finish while media outlets insisted on putting us 12th. And I was right. I'm convinced I have a better grasp on this league than some media outlets.) With that said, these are just my personal opinions and I have fluctuating thoughts on these teams at all times. Here goes!

Note: All team and conference stats and ranks come from Kenpom. Recruit rankings come from 247sports.


1. Wisconsin

Positives: The Big Ten Champs bring all but one player back to Madison next year. With Micah Potter playing a full season, this team could start clicking immediately rather than taking two months like last season. Nate Reuvers will join him in the frontcourt and that's a formidable frontcourt at that. Greg Gard also has some solid recruits coming in to flesh out the bench. There's reason to believe Wisconsin will win back to back Big Ten titles for the first time since Bo Ryan was still in Madison.

Negatives: One of the biggest reasons people are high on Wisconsin is because of their eight game winning streak to end the season. However, that eight game winning streak came against very favorable opponents, with all but one finishing in the bottom half of the conference and five of the eight games played at home. Wisconsin also shot an insane 41 percent from three-point range as a team to close out the season mostly against teams with the worst three-point defenses in the conference. It's unclear how sustainable that will be in the new season.

Outlook: Even with those negatives, Wisconsin is the clear-cut favorite in this league. They're a team that will play as a sum of the parts rather than relying on a big star so the chemistry should really lift this team above the other teams in the Big Ten. Their defense was top 20 in the nation last season, their offense is solid, and their chemistry should be really good with so many returning players. With all of that said, I don't think Wisconsin is as untouchable as previous preseason number ones and it is possible that they could drop off. However, a top five finish in the B1G should be in the cards.


2. Iowa - Note: I expect Luka Garza to return to Iowa instead of staying in the draft.

Positives: With Luka Garza, a clear cut favorite for national player of the year, back in the fold, Iowa's lineup is going to be lethal. Third team B1G selection in 2019 Jordan Bohannon will return from last year's hip surgery, CJ Frederick should play a full healthy season, and Jack Nunge and Conor McCaffery will be receiving medical redshirts for missing all of last year due to injury. Add this to returning third team B1G selection, Joe Wieskamp and Iowa's offense is going to be off the charts. There will often be lineups where three or more players can shoot 35 percent or higher from three. It's absolutely brutal. Iowa's going to be a really fun team to watch.

Negatives: With all of that said, you may wonder why Iowa isn't first in my predictions. It's simple. Defense. Iowa has never been able to pull off a a defense higher than 97th in the nation since the 16-17 season. That's bad for a high major team. Luka Garza isn't known for being a great defensive presence on the inside and the guards give up so many threes it's almost laughable. They turn most games into a shoot-out, which can work with such a stellar offense. But there's not a whole lot of room to improve the offense, given Iowa was ranked fifth in offensive efficiency last year. Will going from the fifth best offense to the number one offense really make up for the points they'll give up on defense?

Outlook: I think Iowa is  a shoe-in for a top five finish in the Big Ten with their offense. It's too lethal to not give it proper respect. Luka Garza is also way too dominant to not assume Iowa will be good with another year with him. However, if the defense is still sub-par, don't be surprised if they end up on the lower end of that top five like this past year.


3. Michigan State - Note: I expect Xavier Tillman to stay in the draft and for Aaron Henry to return.

Positives: Even with Cassius Winston and Xavier Tillman set to depart from East Lansing, Tom Izzo will still bring back a great core of Rocket Watts, Aaron Henry, Gabe Brown and a four-star transfer in Joey Hauser. With the bench MSU threatens to have, there's good reason to believe they'll still be very solid next year, especially with two more four-star freshmen on the way. Rocket Watts threatens to make a big leap next year with the ball-handling falling on him.

Negatives: Cassius Winston and Xavier Tillman are two of the best players that Michigan State has ever had and replacing them will not be easy. To do it will require some leaps from Foster Loyer and Marcus Bingham, neither of whom have displayed any star quality in the past. This could be worrying, as MSU can't entirely rely on the core mentioned above, no matter how good that core proves to be. Malik Hall will also need to improve into his sophomore year after a solid freshman season in order to provide relief for Henry.

Outlook: Overall, MSU still has a lot of talent on this roster. While they do lose two supernovas in Winston and Tillman, I'm still fairly sure that Izzo will get this team working and clicking given the roster pieces. However, if some players don't make the leaps expected, this team could go down a few spots in the conference. I do ultimately think they are a top half team.


4. Rutgers (This is not a biased pick I swear!)

Positives: Rutgers brings back seven of their nine rotation players from the team that was eighth in the conference last year and had the conference record to tie for fifth. Rutgers also adds a top-50 center in Cliff Omoruyi to add valuable bench minutes at the five. With the addition of Omoruyi, there's reason to believe Rutgers will maintain their top ten defense into next season. Rutgers is also a team that's more sum of the parts than reliant on a star so it's beneficial that the team chemistry will also be intact going into the next season. While Akwasi Yeboah, a three-point threat, will be graduating, he wasn't the best three-point shooter on the team in the last two months of the season, which bodes well for maintaining the three point percentage. Myles Johnson is poised to be the top shot-blocker in the conference and Jacob Young should repeat as the one of the top in the conference in steals. Couple that with an expected improvement from Ron Harper Jr., this team could surprise a lot of people.

Negatives: Rutgers probably has the opposite problem as Iowa. It's the offense that worries a lot of people, including me. While most of Rutgers's offense stats rank somewhere from sixth to eighth in conference play, the free throw shooting is an eyesore and is second worst in the conference. Myles Johnson has to improve his free-throw shooting given how many times he gets to the line; 35 percent will not cut it. Not only that, but Rutgers is prone to scoring droughts that cost them a few away games. While the elite defense has been able to make up for some of it this past season, having an increase in offensive efficiency would do wonders for this team. If they could go a whole season shooting the three like they did the last two months of the season (32.8 percent) Rutgers could make some noise. The only problem is, one of their best three point shooters is graduating. Harper Jr., Baker, Mathis, Young and McConnell will have to shoulder that burden and Mulcahy will have to improve.

Outlook: I do think Rutgers is a top half team given the roster make up compared to the teams below them. The defense should be elite again, the team chemistry is definitely there and the determination to get a bid will probably drive this team to outperform. However, if a consistent three-point threat can't be found, the offense will suffer. Ultimately I'm feeling a fourth to sixth finish for Rutgers. I place them here because I have less questions about this team than I do the rosters below.


5. Michigan - Note: I'm assuming Isaiah Livers comes back to Michigan

Positives: Franz Wagner and Isaiah Livers are the prize jewels of this roster. Wagner, Mo Wagner's younger brother, had a solid freshman year and is expected to make a leap next year. Isaiah Livers should be back for the year and a healthy Livers would be huge for the roster. Eli Brooks should be a solid senior guard with great three-point shooting. Howard also brings in the top recruiting class in the conference and Mike Smith of Columbia as a grad transfer (23 ppg in the Ivy). The starting five should be really solid for this team and should be a really tough out.

Negatives: There's a lot of inexperience on this roster. Most of the bench will consist of freshmen and decent, but not great, players. Mike Smith is poised to start but it's unclear how his game will translate to a power six conference, especially since he'll probably be switching from a two to a one. Howard also lost three of the more promising underclassmen on his roster to transfer, which isn't the best sign. Expecting mostly freshmen to contribute in place of great players like Zavier Simpson is probably too much to ask. On top of that, Livers was out for ten games last year with an injury. Should it get re-aggravated, there's little on the bench to make up for his production.

Outlook: There's a lot of unknowns on this roster which makes me hesitant to put them higher than fifth. Should everything fall into place for Juwan Howard, Michigan could probably be as high as third in the conference. But expecting major production from freshmen, even top-100 freshmen, and an Ivy League grad transfer in order for you to go from ninth to third in the conference is perhaps too much to ask. I think what they have on the roster could lead to a four spot increase in their rank and should keep them in the top eight.


6. Indiana

Positives: Indiana brings back all but one player on their roster from last season. Trayce Jackson-Davis, a top-30 recruit, should have a solid sophomore year and improve on his 13.5/8.5 freshman year. With all the major players back, this team should know how to play together. They should bring back the top-30 defense from last year. Jackson-Davis should also be a top shot-blocker in the conference. A healthy Rob Phinisee should also help on the point guard front. Archie Miller also has a top-100 recruit coming in to compliment the rest of the roster.

Negatives: (sigh) I hate putting Indiana this high. In fact, I loathe it. For various reasons. Sure team continuity is a good thing. But when that team finished eleventh in conference last year, there should be plenty of questions about putting them anywhere near the top of the conference. One of those is offense. Indiana was twelfth in the conference in offensive efficiency and thirteenth in turnover percentage. That's not great. And there's nothing coming in to suggest that gets any better. They also were twelfth in two-point defense and tenth in three-point defense in conference, which is not a good indicator of defensive efficiency, even if they were eighth in overall defensive efficiency in conference. None of these stats inspire confidence that this team will be any better. Archie Miller also has a wonderful ability of getting four-star talents and doing nothing with them (i.e. Romeo Langford, Jerome Hunter, Damezi Anderson). Rob Phinisee is the only four-star that has done anything of worth on Indiana and even he has poor shooting percentages. Even with the addition of the four-star Jordan Geronimo, I don't see this team improving enough to warrant their fringe top-25 talk.

Outlook: So why did I put them this high? Great question. Team continuity is worth a lot these days and the teams below lose way more than Indiana. So for now, I'll look like a fool and put them this high. Overall, I think Indiana's ceiling is probably sixth and their floor is tenth in the conference. The improvement of Hunter and Jackson-Davis is crucial if Indiana hopes to improve. While Jackson-Davis is almost guaranteed to do so, if no one else does, this will be another long year in Bloomington.


7. Ohio State

Positives: Chris Holtmann is set to bring back Kyle Young, CJ Walker, EJ Liddell and Duane Washington from the team that finished sixth in the conference last year. Holtmann was also able to get Seth Towns into the fold from Harvard, one of the top grad transfers on the market. Justice Sueing, transfer from California, should also be an interesting piece for the Buckeyes. Kyle Young should be the glue that holds this team together.

Negatives: Holtmann lost a lot of his roster in the off-season. The departure of Kaleb and Andre Wesson and the transfers of DJ Carton and Luther Muhammad left a young roster completely depleted. Ohio State's offense has gone through Kaleb Wesson that last few years and now Ohio State doesn't have a great frontcourt presence to mitigate that loss. It's also unclear how Seth Towns is going to perform, as he's from the Ivy League, hasn't played the last two seasons due to injury and may not even make it through the entire season. If that's the case, Ohio State could be in some serious trouble. There's simply not enough frontcourt depth and the tallest guy on the roster is 6-8. This may not go well at all.

Outlook: This is probably a little generous of a ranking at the moment. However, Holtmann is a good coach and I expect he'll find a way to get Ohio State clicking. I do think that Ohio State could fall as low as tenth if they can't get something working on the inside and with their lack of height, this might be their ceiling. I'll give the benefit of the doubt for now but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a drop from here.


8. Illinois - Note: I'm assuming Ayo Dosunmu stays in the draft and Kofi Cockburn comes back.

Positives: With Kofi Cockburn back, Illinois will have an absolute beast in their frontcourt. The Big Ten Freshman of the Year will absolutely dominate the middle and should improve on his already insane stats (including 27th in the nation in offensive rebounding, only behind Myles Johnson of Rutgers and Trevion Williams of Purdue in terms of the Big Ten). With him in the middle, Illinois's defense should still benefit and will probably still be in the top-35. Illinois also has two top-fifty guards coming in that should receive starter minutes right away.

Negatives: Illinois is losing a lot of production in the off-season. Ayo Dosunmu was the star of this team and the one that the offense ran through. He was a really clutch player down the stretch and without him, I'm not sure who Illinois turns to in late shot-clock situations. On top of that, Alan Griffin, the best three-point shooter on the team, transferred out of the program and Andres Feliz, the glue guy on the team, is graduating. With these two gone, the shooting is going to suffer...a lot. Illinois was already last in the conference in three-point shooting and thirteenth in effective field goal percentage but now their best returning three point shooter only shoots 30.8 percent. That's....bad. Don't be surprised if smart defenses exploit this. There's also just not enough quality depth behind the starters and there's been some regression in players at Illinois in the past.

Outlook: With Cockburn on this team, it's hard to rate them lower than eighth. But with the poor shooting it's really hard to place them any higher. While the two guards coming in should be good, it's unclear how much they'll contribute in their first year. And with so much production going out the front door, the pressure may simply be too much. I think anywhere from sixth to tenth is appropriate for this team. Brad Underwood is a good coach but this team feels closer to the one from two years ago than the fourth place team of last year.


9. Purdue

Positives: Trevion Williams is a really solid center, one of the best rebounders in the nation, and will be back as a junior. Sasha Stefanovic and Eric Hunter are also back for Purdue and were impressive in their sophomore seasons. Matt Painter also has two more top-100 guards coming in to compliment these pieces for next year. With more three point shooters, it's possible Painter will employ a four-out offensive system which should help with the offensive efficiency woes of last year.

Negatives: Matt Haarms and Nojel Eastern have both transferred out of Purdue in the off-season. While this move might help the offense, it's going to be killer on the defensive end. Matt Haarms was the best shot-blocker in the Big Ten and Nojel Eastern was a two time selection for the conference defensive team. With the two gone, the defense is going to suffer in both parts of the court. On top of that, Matt Haarms's departure leaves no frontcourt depth. When Williams is not in the game, Purdue's interior is going to crumble. On top of that, the two-point shooting of the remaining players wasn't great last year and was last in the conference. The three-point shooting wasn't much better at eleventh in the conference. With this in mind, having the players moving to a primarily offensive team may not be the best move. A lot of the reason that Purdue had such a good defense last year is out the door and there's not offense to make up for it.

Outlook: Purdue could probably still surprise, depending on how the freshmen perform and if Stefanovic and Hunter can utilize their good three-point percentages. However, I'm not necessarily buying it entirely. I'll say their ceiling is sixth and their floor is maybe eleventh. The players on this roster are going to have to shoot better or this could get ugly.


10. Penn State

Positives: Myreon Jones and Myles Dread are set to return to College Park. Jamari Wheeler and Izaiah Brockington are also solid guards that will return for their senior seasons. Pat Chambers was able to scoop up JUCO Valdir Manuel who should see a lot of usage. He also got transfer Sam Sessoms, who averaged 19 ppg in the America East conference, though he may not play until next year. (This ranking would stand even if he did play this year.)

Negatives: Lamar Stevens and Mike Watkins are two frontcourt presences that won't be easily replaced. Manuel can probably make up for half of the production but it probably won't be enough. There also isn't any great frontcourt depth and no great recruits coming in. When you have four recruits signed and still have the twelfth best recruiting class in the conference, there's probably not a lot there. There also isn't great guard depth. The starting five could probably go toe-to-toe with most teams in the conference but if they get into foul trouble Penn State doesn't have much to fall back on.

Outlook: I think that this could be this team's floor instead of an average. The starting five is still very solid and could do some damage. I would say the ceiling is probably seventh. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find them falling here instead. There are still parts of the top-25 team of last season that could do some damage but I'm not sure how they piece together.


11. Northwestern

Positives: Northwestern only lose two major contributors from last year in Pat Spencer and A.J. Turner. The rest of the team comes back and they were all young last year. There's a big possibility for improvement from most of them. Boo Buie was a guard that screamed of potential, Ryan Young was a decent center with room to improve, Miller Kopp had a great three-point percentage. There's pieces here that could really improve and have the potential to improve in the Big Ten.

Negatives: I would say the negatives are the same as the positives. There's potential here. But it's unknown if it'll be tapped. There's no great recruit to save them and the team is still young. Northwestern was able to hang in with a lot of teams before completely imploding down the stretch. This is all mental stuff that may be improved with an extra year but may simply be a staple of the team. When the returning team is thirteenth in offensive and defensive efficiency last season, it's hard to imagine what can be improved. I'd have to see the team play to be sure but this team can go a lot of ways.

Outlook: Northwestern is probably stuck in the bottom five of the conference. There's not enough here to be competitive yet. They had pretty good three-point shooting last year so that may keep them in more games than they have a right to be. If Chris Collins is able to develop some of these talents, it may pay off over the next few years. If he can't, well it can't get much worse than last year.


12. Minnesota - Note: I'm assuming Daniel Oturu stays in the draft and Marcus Carr comes back.

Positives: Marcus Carr is one of the best point guards in the conference and is a great guy to run an offense through. Gabe Kalscheur is set to return and is a solid guard. This backcourt should be able to go up against most Big Ten teams.

Negatives: Depth. There's no depth here. It says a lot when your best frontcourt option is a guy who hasn't played in a year and a half due to injury. Daniel Oturu was massive for Minnesota and without him there's no one to facilitate to. It also says a lot that Minnesota was seventh in both offensive and defensive efficiency in conference play last year and still ended up twelfth. And that was with a second round draft pick in Oturu. Without him, it's going to be bad at Minnesota.

Outlook: There's no way I see this team getting better. None. They lose Oturu and gain nothing of note and are relying on mid-major transfers and freshmen to replace that production. Maybe they surprise but I doubt it. They're not getting out of the bottom four.

13. Maryland

Positives: Four of their six rotation players from last year are back for next season. The trio of Eric Ayala, Aaron Wiggins and Darrell Morsell should be good in theory. Um. That's kinda it.

Negatives: Oh where to begin. How the mighty have fallen over at Maryland. Anthony Cowan and Jalen Smith did pretty much everything for Maryland last season and both are gone. Of the four remaining players of that six-man rotation, the trio I mentioned above all had offensive ratings under 100. As role players. That's bad. Add to that the fact that the only frontcourt presences are an unproven sophomore who suffered an injury last year and a turnover prone transfer from Alabama and there's serious cause to worry about the state of Maryland basketball.

Outlook: Maryland is going to be bad next season, there's no way around it. Unless Turgeon scrapes up another big from somewhere, there's no reason to believe this is a good team. And Turgeon has been missing on every transfer so I'm not holding my breath. I'm betting a +/- on five conference games before Maryland fans start calling for Mark Turgeon's head.


14. Nebraska

Positives: .....Is complete roster turnover a positive? Fred Hoiberg was able to keep two players from last year's roster on for the next season but that's about it. He has three transfers who become eligible but are from mid-majors. Kobe King comes in from Wisconsin and should be able to compete in the Big Ten right away.

Negatives: There's not a lot of proven Big Ten players on this roster. Three of them are from mid-majors, one is from Division II, one is from JUCO. That doesn't necessarily scream production. If that's the case, it's hard to see Nebraska getting better than their last place finish from last year.

Outlook: Nebraska is the unknown quantity in the Big Ten, which makes it very easy to put them here. With little Big Ten talent on this roster, I don't see Nebraska improving this year. If Hoiberg can keep the players this season and next season, it could get interesting. Until then though, there's nothing for Nebraska fans to look forward to.