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Well this is the part where we see which bloggers are worth their weight. Before the season started I interviewed bloggers and writers from each school to participate in a preview interview that included a predicted record.

Optimism was rampart, considering that the overall predicted record for the 10 other conference schools was 101-79. The season didn’t go quite as well as expected for a number of teams in the conference. A league that was predicted to get as many as 7 or 8 tournament bids has turned into a 4 bid league — three of which go to co-champions Ohio State, Purdue, and Michigan State.

So now is the time to see who was on the right track and who wasn’t close.

KJ from The Only Colors (MSU) and the folks at Boiled Sports (Purdue) were right on point, both hitting their conference record perfectly. Bob Baptist (OSU) wasn’t quite as confident in the Buckeyes, going with 13-5, and imagine how that prediction would have changed if you told him Turner would miss a few Big Ten games.

Hoops Marinara (Wisconsin) fell for the same trap that non-Wisconsin fans fall for every year: underestimating the Badgers. Wisconsin finished 3 games ahead of Phil’s predicted 10-8 record. When will we learn?

Paint the Town Orange was just a little too confident in the Illini, giving them the one more win they probably needed to make the tournament. Minnesota has to be the home of the most disappointed blogger (well, ok, the second most disappointed Big Ten hoops blogger). Jonathan predicted a 12-6 record for the Gophers and they came in three wins short at 9-9.

As I predicted at the time, the bottom of the conference would be worse than originally predicted. I don’t think I could have seen a Talor Battle led Penn State team winning 3 conference games though so I can’t blame Eric from Battle Does It Again (PSU).

Perhaps the most ridiculous part of the interview was the question the interviewees nominated “most feared player”. Manny Harris recieved the most votes with 4 while Evan Turner notched 3. Lucas (2) and Moore (1) shared the final three votes. If you were to give this survey now I would fully expect Turner to win unanimously. There’s a reason that he looks to be a shoe-in to win National Player of the Year.

Then you have Michigan. I didn’t provide a prediction but I did say that I predicted Michigan to end up with a winning record. My basic arithmetic skills tell me that 7-11 isn’t quite a winning record. Michigan’s season was painfully disappointing on a number of levels and there will be plenty of time to discuss them, beginning with my postmortem thoughts on the debacle in East Lansing, but I had a couple respects to wrap up this feature and thought it’d be interesting.

Thanks to all the writers who participated in the preview series (teams are linked to their previews below). Now here are the Big Ten standings as they have predicted:

Judging by the records that various bloggers predicted for their teams, Michigan is looking at an 0-22 conference season. This obviously isn’t possible but it speaks for the widespread optimism across the conference.

Looking at the returning minutes numbers across the Big Ten, there is reason for optimism almost across the board. Last year’s entire All-Conference team is back and three teams who didn’t have a player on the All-Conference team bring in top 25 recruiting classes. The talent in the league appears to be at it’s highest level in years.

The problem with all of these predictions is that conference wins are a zero sum game. In a vacuum several teams look poised to make a big jump up the standings, but universal improvement doesn’t help the situation. If everyone gets better, the conference will win some out of conference games but essentially be running in place when it comes to the standings.

The only bloggers who predicted fewer wins than last year’s tally are Michigan State (-1) and Penn State (-2). On the other hand, writers from Purdue (+3), Ohio State (+3), Minnesota (+3), Northwestern (+1) and Indiana (+5) all predicted improvement in the win column.

As someone that expects Michigan to post a winning conference record for the first time since 2003, this puts an even bigger crunch on the win totals.

This leaves the question, where will the wins come from? Looking down the list, I think that most of the projections are closer to ceilings than likely outcomes. I have a hard time seeing these teams winning more games than predicted.

I also think we will have a much clearer basement in the standings. Iowa is not going to be a good team, they are far more likely to win one or two games than five. Indiana will be improved but six wins might be a stretch.

At the end of the day there are around seven teams who are legit candidates to finish in the top 3. The problem is that one of them is going to finish seventh as well.

Most Feared Player

I asked every interviewee who was the “most feared player” in the conference. This question was pretty open ended and people tackled the question in different ways. Some chose a player that always kills them (E’Twaun Moore and Northwestern) while others just looked at the most talented.

Manny Harris won the poll with four votes which was surprising to me. I fully expected Evan Turner to take this one down but I guess there is a similar level of respect for Manny Harris. I thought it was interesting that Manny hasn’t fared particularly well against schools like Illinois and Wisconsin but they chose to go with him anyways.

If I was voting in this one I would go with Kalin Lucas. As KJ has well documented, Lucas can play fast or slow and play to score or setup his teammates. He might not be known as a shooter but he can hit the big shots. Lucas also knows how to step up on the big stage as we learned during last year’s NCAA tournament.

Mini-Bullets

• Per Jeff Goodman, Michigan’s “secret scrimmage” will be November 1st at Eastern Michigan. Eastern likely won’t provide quite the same level of competition as Kent State over the last two years but it’ll still be Michigan’s first chance to play against a division 1 team.
• Mike Rothstein profiles Ben Cronin with quotes from his high school and AAU coaches.
• Dana O’Neil looks at potential NCAA basketball recruiting reform.
• An updated Crisler Arena seating chart including the expanded student section.
• John Gasaway spoke with the guys over at Inside the Hall about the Big Ten.

Previously: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Wisconsin

And we made it. All 10 Big Ten teams besides Michigan previewed before we even get to exhibition games. Scott Miller, of the Daily Iowan, graciously agreed to take time away from an exciting football season to talk Hawkeye hoops. Now that we are done with the rest of the conference, I want to take the time to thank all the writers who contributed. I’ll put together a summary post reviewing all the previews (and their wonderful optimism) later this wekk.

By my eyes, Iowa looks like they are headed to a dreadful season. Are there any reasons for optimism?

Not too many by my estimation. Head coach Todd Lickliter seems to like his returning nucleus of Matt Gatens, Jarryd Cole, Anthony Tucker, Devan Bawinkel, and Aaron Fuller, but beyond that, the team lacks a lot of depth. When you lose your leading scorer, assist man, and rebounder to either transfer or graduation, it’s never a good sign for the next year.

Jake Kelly is one of the many players who left the Iowa program this off-season

Can you go over the transfers and graduations from last year’s team?

It was confusing for me, too. Jake Kelly (leading scorer), Jeff Peterson (leading assist man), Jermain Davis, and David Palmer all transferred from the program a few weeks after the team’s embarrassing performance in the Big Ten Tournament. Cyrus Tate (leading rebounder) graduated, along with J.R. Angle, who was a non-factor during his career in Iowa City.

Continue reading ‘Around the Big Ten ‘09: Iowa’

Previously: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin

Next up, Purdue. Boiled Sports agreed to answer some questions about the Boilermakers upcoming season, Robbie Hummel, and whether a rivalry is brewing between Michigan and Purdue. Football season hasn’t been to kind to the guys over at Boiled Sports so they were glad to lend a helping hand.

On an unrelated note, be sure to check out the live chat with DeShawn Sims today at 1PM on MGoBlue.com.

Last year’s Purdue team won the Big Ten tournament and made the second weekend of the NCAA tournament but you just get the feeling that Robbie Hummel’s back kept Purdue from reaching their ceiling. What are your expectations for the Boilers this year?

A lot more than just skill seems to go into a team making the final four…and as Purdue fans, we don’t really think ourselves as lucky.  But, another step forward for this talented bunch is expected by us as we see Purdue going to the round of eight in March.

Robbie Hummel has put together a tremendous career thus far, but how good can he be?

To me, Hummel’s game is a lot like many of the European players that have had great success in the college ranks and in the pros.  Like them, he thinks the game very well, never stops moving and can shoot- in fact, it seems even his bad shots almost go down because he always seems to square his shoulders regardless of his balance.  He doesn’t jump particularly well, but he’s in the right place at the right time so often because of his understanding of the game.  If he stays healthy all season, we think he’ll be an All-American.  Much of the media loves him, that never hurts…and he’s surrounded by players who compliment him well…also helpful.

Continue reading ‘Around the Big Ten ‘09: Purdue’

Previously: Illinois, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin

Next up in the seemingly never ending series of Big Ten previews, the Indiana Hoosiers. Indiana was absolutely terrible last year, so bad that they didn’t even fall on most efficiency charts. Tom Crean is no newcomer to coaching though, and improvement seems likely in Bloomington. Alex from Inside the Hall, one of the best team specific hoops blogs on the internet, agreed to answer some questions about this year’s Hoosier team. You can also find a series of player profiles over at Inside the Hall.

Last year was beyond awful (losing 21 of last 22) in Bloomington but as a Michigan fan we are familiar with how fast a turnaround can happen. What are the expectations for the Hoosiers this year? I assume they will be better but by how much?

Expectations are still fairly modest because it’s year two of a substantial rebuilding process. I’m not quite sure anyone understood how bad last season was going to be until it was said and done, but it was one of the low points, in terms of wins and losses, in Indiana history. Tom Crean has seven new faces that he’ll piece together with a couple of key returnees and the Hoosiers should finish out close games that were losses a season ago.

Kyle Taber was the only graduating senior, was there any other attrition of note?

There were two transfers that most are viewing as addition by subtraction. Nick Williams (8.9ppg) moved on to Mississippi and Malik Story (5.9 ppg) is now at Nevada. While both logged significant minutes as freshmen, neither guy figured to see as much time with the recruiting class that has arrived. It also helped answer a few questions about the scholarship situation, which is still a bit of a logjam.

Continue reading ‘Around the Big Ten ‘09: Indiana’