And so it begins Tuesday, a Big Ten conference season like we’ve never seen. Look at all the traditional matchups on the first night. Northwestern at Iowa, Michigan at Wisconsin. Oh, and nothing says Big Ten basketball like Washington at UCLA.
Football has already shown us the new world. On a stage where the SEC normally steals all the scenes, the College Football Playoff bracket will likely be one-third Big Ten. The Big Ten Championship Game Saturday will have Penn State and Oregon, one school that has been in the league for 35 years and the other that has been around for four months. This motif of newness will continue during the winter because these basketball folks are strangers.
UCLA will play at Nebraska for the first time since 1955, Indiana for the first time since 1956 and Northwestern for the first time since 1962. Purdue will be at Washington for the first time since 1967. USC has never played at Indiana before and they haven’t met anywhere since 1974. Washington has never faced Maryland, Rutgers or Penn State but will now. Purdue and Oregon might be among the conference favorites but they haven’t crossed paths in 36 years. Oregon and Indiana won the first two NCAA tournaments in 1939 and ‘40, but they haven’t seen one another since 1978.
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The league begins play with its NCAA tournament history greatly enhanced. Conference membership once owned 11 national championships and now can claim 23 (thanks, UCLA). The new Big Ten can say its teams have made 81 Final Four appearances and had at least one team in the 37 of the 85 past national championship games. Five of those 37 had both teams who are now lodge members. The wave from the West brings 57 past consensus All-Americans to add to the legacy.
This new creation is having a big non-conference season so far. The Big Eighteen are 111-26 overall, and 87-4 at home. Purdue has slipped into the Associated Press top-10, with Oregon and Wisconsin on the cusp. League play can start to fill in some of the blanks, such as what it means…
That Illinois leads the nation in rebound margin and is 6-1 despite returning just 2.9 percent of its points from last season. The new Illini starting lineup has five faces who were playing for Arizona, Evansville, Louisville, Montenegro and Barcelona in 2023-24.
That Indiana has gone from second pick in the preseason Big Ten poll to 13th in the conference on the KenPom ratings. This after an ugly trip to the Battle 4 Atlantis when the Hoosiers led for only 33 total seconds in losses to Louisville and Gonzaga, and trailed the Cardinals by 38 points and the Zags by 23.
That Penn State clocks in at No. 4 in the nation in scoring and has been held under 85 points only once.
And UCLA leads the nation in scoring defense and has held five of seven opponents to 50 or under.
And Maryland is third in the nation in scoring margin at 28.1 points and has pummeled five opponents by at least 30.
And six of Michigan’s top eight scorers are shooting 50 percent.
And six of Minnesota’s nine games have been one possession in the final minute.
And Ohio State is third in the nation in 3-point shooting and also eighth in total field goal percentage defense.
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And two of the top four scorers in the conference right now play for Northwestern, who to hardly anyone’s notice has won more Big Ten games the past two seasons than anyone except Purdue and Illinois.
And USC actually lost a game to Saint Mary’s 71-36, missing all 12 tries from the 3-point line. Eight games so far for the Trojans, and seven different starting lineups as they look for answers.
The conference will find out if the 3-pointers ever start falling for Michigan State. At the moment, the Spartans are 364th in the nation — that’s dead last — with a 22.4 percentage. They’re averaging only 4.5 3-pointers a game as a team which is less than national leader Anthony Roy from Green Bay averages by himself. None of that, however, stopped Michigan State from scoring 94 points to beat North Carolina in Maui and go 6-2. “For all the fans back at home that are mad at me about our 3-point shooting, it was in the 30s (percentage) yesterday and we lost,” Tom Izzo said after that game. “So thank God we got it back down into the 20s and won because that’s what it’s all about is winning games, not how pretty you win them, not any other way you win them, you’ve just got to win them.”
The league season will show how far teenagers can take Rutgers. Only three freshmen in the nation are averaging more than 18 points a game, and two of them play for the Scarlet Knights. If it wasn’t Dylan Harper throwing 36 points at Notre Dame and 37 at Alabama in Las Vegas, it was Ace Bailey scoring 24 against Texas A&M.
The Big Ten will discover that Washington actually has a player named Great. Great Osobor, third in the nation in steals, 12th in rebounds and just was named MVP of the Acrisure Invitational. And that Iowa has its Splash Brothers. Senior Payton and sophomore Pryce Sandfort each have contributed 15 3-pointers to the cause.
It will show if Nebraska’s dominance at home — 17 wins in a row and counting — can stand up to Jan. 4 when UCLA stops by for an enormous study in contrast that shows how far-flung this league is now, even in March pedigree. One Big Ten program with 115 NCAA tournament victories, playing another Big Ten program that has none.
It will get to know this Purdue guy named Trey Kaufman-Renn, who averaged an often invisible 5.5 points the past two seasons as role player in the Zach Edey Show. A mere 6-9 — one of the smaller trees in the Purdue forest — he just put 26 points on Alabama, 22 on North Carolina State and 25 points with 13 rebounds on Ole Miss. And the Edey-less Boilers roll on.
It’ll find out if Oregon catches a break in the basketball schedule like it did in football. Ohio State had to go to Eugene to play the Ducks in the fall. This winter, Purdue, Indiana and Illinois all must long-haul there.
The Big Ten will likely learn not to foul Wisconsin. The Badgers don’t miss many free throws, their 86.4 percentage (making 165 of 191) leading the nation. Know what they’ve done even less than brick free throws? Lose.
At 8-0, they and Oregon are the last Big Ten unbeatens. Nine more teams have only one loss. Ten are in KenPom’s top 38. All the numbers seem bigger in the Big Ten, as the new era begins.