Look back, look ahead: Big Ten

Minnesota’s Richard Pitino and Northwestern’s Chris Collins, a pair of first year coaches, gave a possible glimpse of what is to come. Pitino rejuvenated the Gophers in leading them to the NIT championship. Collins led the Wildcats to a pair of upsets over ranked teams in Wisconsin and Illinois.

Iowa and Minnesota are positioned to make a move into the league’s upper echelon, as both are expected to return key rotation players.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/98572/look-back-look-ahead-big-ten

Not sure I agree with Iowa taking the next step considering they are losing their best player among others.

I agree on Iowa taking a next step and how difficult that will be. They are horrible on defense and the coach continues to not play his best defensive players (Olaseni, Utthof) for people like Woodbury and Oglesby. This last year Marble made those end of game plays to eek out wins that in previous years they lost. I do not believe they will have that player next year. White is good but I am not sure he has the ball handling ability to make late game plays consistently the way Marble could.