Big Ten Season Predictions

Big Ten conference play starts tomorrow, including a couple of surprisingly important games (Northwestern at Penn State, Michigan State at Minnesota). Time to get our picks in for the record.

Before I do that, an aside. Before the season I had two bold predictions: (1) Michigan State would be a bubble team, and (2) Wisconsin would win the Big Ten by at least three games. I feel pretty good about one of those. A guy can dream for the other.

Now let's take a look at what T-Rank is saying:

Rk	Team	Rec
10	Purdue	14-4
12	Wisconsin	13-5
17	Indiana	12-6
29	Michigan	11-7
32	Minnesota	11-7
40	Northwestern	10-8
43	Ohio St.	9-9
55	Illinois	8-10
68	Maryland	8-10
67	Michigan St.	7-11
83	Iowa	7-11
86	Penn St.	6-12
93	Nebraska	6-12
95	Rutgers	6-12

If that came to pass, we have the top six Big Ten teams in the tournament, with Ohio State, Illinois, and Maryland on the bubble, and Michigan St. on the outside looking in. You can also see the (relative) strength of the bottom of the conference this year, with even Rutgers projected to win 6 games.

Here are the T-Rank title odds:

And here is the T-Rank WinMatrix™

Finally, my subjective predictions:

Wisconsin	14–4
Purdue	13–5
Indiana	12–6
Michigan St.	11–7
Michigan	10–8
Northwestern	10–8
Ohio St.	10–8
Minnesota	9–9
Maryland	9–9
Illinois	8–10
Iowa	7–11
Penn St.	5–13
Nebraska	4–14
Rutgers	4–14