We’re down to three-and-a-half months to the start of the 2024-25 college basketball season.
And after completely overhauling their roster during the offseason, Indiana appears by almost all accounts to be a national top-25 caliber team and a Big Ten title contender.
But with so many teams, and rosters in flux across the league, it’s difficult to compare and contrast the programs. That’s especially true in the Big Ten, where Bart Torvik currently projects all 18 teams to fall within the No. 16 to N0. 74 spots nationally this upcoming season.
There doesn’t appear to be a strong conference favorite, and there isn’t much separating these teams top-to-bottom.
Count national college basketball voice Andy Katz as someone who believes the Hoosiers should be viewed as a team legitimately in the hunt for a Big Ten title.
In a video posted on X for the Big Ten, Katz breaks the now 18-team conference into four tiers.
Katz calls the top tier his Big Ten title favorites: Purdue, Indiana and Illinois.
There doesn’t appear to be anything controversial about that group. Some wonder how Purdue will fare without Zach Edey, whether Mike Woodson can put it all together at Indiana, and whether Illinois will take a step back after losing most of their key contributors from a year ago.
He then he refers to his next seven teams as contenders: Ohio State, UCLA, Rutgers, Oregon, Michigan State, Maryland and Wisconsin.
Ohio State and UCLA are the next two most common teams you see mentioned as contenders by national outlets, and then you start to get into teams that seem to have high ceilings, but also low floors.
Rutgers is entering a brave new world with two freshmen 5-stars expected to lead the way, Michigan State has frontcourt questions, and Wisconsin rarely has a bad season but has serious production to replace from last year’s squad.
Katz says there are four teams in tier three that are on the bubble: Northwestern, Penn State, Michigan and Iowa.
Michigan is probably the surprise team in this group, as the Wolverines certainly have talent, especially in the frontcourt. But it might take time for new head coach Dusty May to get things going. It feels generous to suggest the other three teams will be on the bubble.
And then he says there are a bottom four teams in rebuilding mode: Minnesota, USC, Nebraska and Washington.
USC is the surprise team in this group. Yes, the roster has completely turned over, but no coach in America is more experienced with that scenario than Eric Musselman. He has 10 transfers who averaged 9.8 or more points per game at their prior schools, and five with 15.9 or more.
If you want to take a team-by-team look at how rosters have changed in the Big Ten, GO HERE:
IU basketball: A team-by-team look at who’s coming and going in the Big Ten for 24-25
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