The big 10 will be stacked next year. There should be no one arguing that we are a weak conference, and we should be in consideration for the strongest conference in the country. Just taking a quick glance at the big 10 next year...
MSU - loses Suton and Walton, gets some good recruits and a talented core gets more experienced. I don't see much drop-off here.
Purdue - Loses no one, a very talented core gets older and more experienced. They improve.
Illinois - Loss of Frasier hurts, as evidenced in the NCAA tournament. Meacham was another big contributor. Their bigs were very young though, and they have a very good recruiting class coming in. Not much change.
Penn State - loses Cornley and Pringle. Battle will improve and Babb has talent. They'll drop though.
Ohio State - Lose a disappointing Mullens, but return the very talented combination of Turner, Diebler, Bufford and Lauderdale. They also get Lighty back. If Turner heads to the NBA, they'll drop significantly, otherwise they'll remain roughly the same, though they have a glut of talent on the wings, a mediocre point and only 1 good big.
Wisconsin - Lose Landry and Krabbenhoft. They should get better guard play, but their bigs take a step back and their wings are bad. They should be worse. But never underestimate the power of Bo Ryan's incessant whining to the refs.
Minnesota - Should improve significantly. We lose no real significant players. But our front court should be as good as any in the big 10. Our whole season depends on the improvement we get from our guard play. I have high expectations for Cobbs, and his addition as a backup point should allow Tubby a lot more flexibility with playing Devoe at shooting guard. If Devoe excels there the way I think he can, and Blake gets his shot back and Nolen pulls his head out of his ***, we should be a very good team.
Michigan - Should also take a big step up. They lose no one important, Sims and Manny Harris get another year older, and Lucas-Perry should improve going into his sophomore year. They also have a decent class coming in and another year acclimating to Belein's system. They showed both early and late in the season what they are capable of, they just need to avoid their mid-season swoon from t his year.
Northwestern - The loss of Craig Moore will hurt them a lot. Still, they lose no one else and should come into next season with more confidence than they have for a while. Overall they may slip off slightly, but not much.
Iowa - This program is a mess. They will be Indiana-esque next season.
Indiana - This team loses no one valuable. In fact, next year they won't lose anyone valuable either. They had a talented but young core carrying their program this year (can you call it carrying? still, the freshmen played well). Their incoming class is just as good as the one that kept them in a lot of games until the end this year. Expect this team to be much better, but they can only jump so far in 1 season.
Overall, a few teams stay roughly the same (MSU, Illinois, OSU, Northwestern. All of these teams were already decent)
Only 2 should take a real step back (Iowa, PSU, Northwestern may fall into this cat rather than the stay-the-same category.) None of these made the dance this year anyway.
Every other team should improve, some of them dramatically. I look for the Big 10 to again make a case for most bids in the tourney, and this time hopefully more higher seeds and fewer 9-12 seeds.
