Big Ten Power Rankings To Start 2022
A lot of movement from the preseason, except for the bottom feeders
Happy New Year everyone. With conference play ramping up and the top two teams sorting out the No. 1 spot yesterday, it felt like a good time to re-rank the Big Ten as we head into the back half of the regular season.
1.) Indiana
Record: 11-2 (3-0 Big Ten) | Preseason Rank: 2
The Hoosiers have been what I expected and more early on in the season, winning 11 of 13 games, including all three against Big Ten foes. Those three wins were not against easy competition either, with two victories coming against Ohio State and, most recently, Maryland.
As expected, the Hoosiers have an outstanding starting five with not a ton of depth outside of that, so as long as they stay healthy, it should be enough. All five starters are averaging at least 10 points per game, with Mackenzie Holmes (18.1 PPG) and Grace Berger (14.3 PPG) leading the charge.
Holmes especially has been superb this year, averaging 8.2 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per contest while shooting 62.0 percent from the field, including making half of her 10 three attempts. This is a dangerous team that can beat you with team basketball and outstanding defense, and the OT win over the Terps proved that the Hoosiers are the current team to beat.
2.) Maryland
Record: 10-4 (2-1) | Preseason Rank: 1
And here are those Terps, who are still an excellent team finally getting fully healthy after missing key members for much of this early season.
All four of Maryland’s losses are to great teams (NC State, Stanford, South Carolina, Indiana), and again, two of the worse-looking losses were due to a lack of depth.
It is certainly not time to panic for Maryland, especially after mounting a very impressive late comeback against Indiana to force overtime in the first place. Like the Hoosiers, the Terps have five starters averaging double-digit points, and Angel Reese has become the star she was expected to be out of high school.
The top two is the same for now, and if Diamond Miller returns to form soon, this Maryland team will be as dangerous as any in the country.
3.) Michigan
Record: 12-1 (3-0) | Preseason Rank: 4
Aside from one embarrassing blowout defeat to a good Louisville team, the Wolverines have been firing on all cylinders, even without starting point guard Amy Dilk.
Yes, a lot of that is due to reigning conference Player of the Year Naz Hillmon (20.9 PPG, 9.2 RPG), but where Michigan has improved is past Hillmon, and even past Leigha Brown, who is also having another great year (15.5 PPG).
This is a deeper roster than last season, with strong contributions from Emily Kiser, Laila Phelia, Maddie Nolan and Danielle Rauch, all of which are averaging 6.6 PPG or more thus far. Phelia has been especially huge, with the true freshman coming into her own as a starter and making big strides as the season progresses.
The overtime win over Baylor feels like a huge momentum swing, as it proved that the Wolverines are not simply the same good team we have seen recently. That win led into a 19-point thumping of Ohio State, and I’m excited to see just how hot this Wolverines team is as conference play continues on.
4.) Nebraska
Record: 12-1 (1-1) | Preseason Rank: 7
Yeah.
Nebraska finally lost for the first time all season with a three-point defeat to Michigan State, nearly overcoming a slow start and 11-point halftime deficit. This Cornhuskers group is legit, even if it hasn’t faced a ton of legit competition yet.
As is the theme with the teams at the top of the conference, Nebraska has depth. Like, so much depth. The whole damn roster plays, and no one plays over 30 minutes per game, which makes them so hard to completely contain over 40 minutes.
Jaz Shelley is the primary scorer (13.8 PPG), but is complemented very well by all-around excellent guard Sam Haiby, as well as Isabelle Bourne, the two other Nebraska scorers in double figures.
Amy Williams has gotten Nebraska off to a scorching hot start, but now a four game stretch of Michigan, Indiana and Iowa twice begins. We will learn a whole lot about this team in the next few weeks.
5.) Iowa
Record: 7-3 (1-0) | Preseason Rank: 3
It has not been the start Iowa was hoping for in multiple ways. Firstly, five of its games have been canceled or postponed, which has certainly hurt the Hawkeyes get any sorts of momentum early on.
But even with that in mind, three losses through this portion of the schedule feels underwhelming. The Duke and Iowa State losses, in hindsight, are very reasonable, but that IUPUI one shouldn’t happen. Caitlin Clark is having a good year, certainly (24.2 PPG, 8.6 RPG, 6.8 APG), but has not been as efficient from deep (25.3 3PT%), where she shoots nearly half of her 19.3 attempts per game.
The bright side is that Clark scored a career-high 44 in her most recent outing, and did so efficiently, hitting 18 of 26 from the field. Monika Czinano has also been as solid a second option as ever with 17.9 PPG on 63.6-percent shooting.
Hopefully, the early season woes are behind the Hawkeyes, but there are still kinks to be worked out heading into Big Ten play.
6.) Northwestern
Record: 9-3 (1-0) | Preseason Rank: 5
Veronica Burton is willing her team into the top half of these rankings, and is my current pick for Big Ten Player of the Year. Her offensive production has been impressive (17.6 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 5.9 APG), but as always with Burton, those don’t tell the full story.
She is averaging 3.7 steals and 1.3 blocks per game. She has 5.1 win shares per Her Hoops Stats, which is the sixth-most of any player in the country. The team has now won five in a row after a slow start, doing it, of course, with defense more than offense.
The Wildcats have an identity and have stuck to it, and again find themselves in a place to make the NCAA Tournament with continued play like this.
7.) Ohio State
Record: 9-3 (1-2) | Preseason Rank: 6
The Buckeyes have played nine bad teams, one OK one and two good ones. They are 9-0 against the bad ones and 0-3 against anyone else.
Good news for Ohio State: It is really putting the absolute beat down on those bad teams, with six victories of at least 30 points and all nine wins coming by double digits. The bad news: every loss has been embarrassing, starting with a six-point defeat to a Syracuse team that had no business beating them, followed by a pair of blowout losses to Indiana and Michigan.
The Buckeyes have enough talent to compete with the top of the Big Ten, and Jacy Sheldon (19.3 PPG) and Taylor Mikesell (17.7 PPG) make up the most lethal three-point shooting duo in at least the Big Ten, maybe in the country. Those two are a combined 64 of 130 from deep this year, good for a disgusting 49.2 percent.
Ohio State desperately needs to lean into its strengths on offense, then maybe it can find any sort of strengths on defense. As it stands now, the team feels like its searching for answers despite a good record.
8.) Purdue
Record: 10-4 (1-2) | Preseason Rank: 12
The Boilermakers have been a pleasant surprise under first-year head coach Katie Geralds, and are currently riding a four-game winning streak thanks to some heroics by Jeanae Terry.
Terry has been a terrific addition for Purdue (7.8 PPG, 5.9 RPG, 5.1 APG), while Madison Layden continues to grow into her role as a primary scorer (12.7 PPG) in her second season.
So far, it has been the offense working under Geralds, and the Boilermakers should be a tricky team to face in the Big Ten, and might continue to get better as the year progresses. An NCAA Tournament in Geralds’ first year seems far less crazy than it did at the beginning of the season.
9.) Michigan State
Record: 8-6 (2-1) | Preseason Rank: 7
Someone please help Nia Clouden.
Clouden became the second player from a Michigan Big Ten school to score 50 points and lose in the past two seasons. She is averaging 22.5 points per game with tremendous efficiency, including shooting 90.4 percent from the free-throw line on 8.2 attempts per game. She has the most free throws made (104) and attempted (115) in the country.
There have been other players making impact, notably freshman Mathilda Ekh (10.1 PPG), who has shown an excellent stroke from three (43.1 percent) in the early goings of her college career.
This has not been the start of the year the Spartans were hoping for, and just five of their players have played all 14 games, so it’s not entirely the team’s fault. Still, the momentum could be turning after a gigantic win over Nebraska. It’s certainly not time to give up on Sparty yet.
10.) Penn State
Record: 7-5 (1-1) | Preseason Rank: 11
This has been primarily a Makenna Marisa show in her sophomore season, and for good reason: she’s been absolutely dominating with 21.1 PPG, 4.3 RPG and 4.8 RPG.
The Nittany Lions have been remarkably streaky, starting the year 4-1 before dropping four straight, and are now currently on a three-game winning streak. This is a young team led by an underclassmen star, so I suppose that’s not all that surprising.
That makes Penn State equal parts dangerous when it is clicking, and also equal parts susceptible to being truly not good on any given day.
11.) Minnesota
Record: 7-7 (0-2) | Preseason Rank: 9
The season could not have started worse for the Golden Gophers with an embarrassing loss to Jacksonville. I watched it, it was ugly.
Since then, Minnesota has six more losses, but to really strong competition, and has managed to snag some big upset wins over teams like Arizona State and Syracuse.
Sara Scalia (15.4 PPG) has taken over as the team’s top scorer thanks to some lights out deep ball shooting (44.4 percent), while Jasmine Powell has struggled from the field (13.1 PPG, 34.2 FG%). If Powell can return to form, Minnesota can move up from simply being OK to being a team to watch for in the second half of the campaign.
12.) Rutgers
Record: 7-8 (0-3) | Preseason Rank: 10
Rutgers has primarily been what I expected it to be: messy. This is a team Frankensteined together with transfers that is without their Hall of Fame head coach, so the Scarlet Knights dropping 6 of 7 after a 3-0 start is not all that surprising.
Things have looked better recently with a 3-1 stretch, but the wins were all against weak competition. Even without C. Vivian Stringer, the defense has remained great (55.3 PPG, 29th in the NCAA). The offense? Uhhh, it’s gross folks.
Rutgers is averaging 57.3 points per game, 280th in the NCAA. They shoot 40.1 percent from the field and 25.9 percent from three as a team, and leading scorer Osh Brown averages 8.2 points per game.
Rutgers is dragging teams into hell like it always does. The problem is that the Scarlet Knights are in their own hell on the other side of the floor.
13.) Illinois
Record: 5-7 (0-1) | Preseason Rank: 13
The bottom two teams remain the bottom two pretty easily to this point, but the Illini have certainly showed more life than the one at the bottom.
What is especially encouraging from Illinois is that it appears to have a pretty strong core of players that all have multiple years left to get better. Kendall Bostic has been a rebounding force (11.4 RPG), and Aaliyah Nye, De’Myla Brown, Jada Peebles and Adalia McKenzie are all averaging at least nine points per game.
This was never going to be the year that Illini puts it all together, but there are certainly signs of optimism moving forward.
14.) Wisconsin
Record: 3-9 (0-2) | Preseason Rank: 14
It has been a difficult start to the Marisa Moseley era, but it was always going to be with this roster.
The record looks bad, but it’s mostly justifiable. The Badgers have faced some strong competition early on, and have even earned a couple good wins against Boise State and Illinois State. The only loss that is, uh, not good at all was the overtime defeat to Chicago State. That is still Chicago State’s only win on the season.
Sydney Hilliard (14.5 PPG) and Julie Pospisilova (14.4 PPG) have made for a strong duo, but Katie Nelson, Moseley’s former player at Boston, has not made the impact I was expecting. She is averaging 5.4 PPG and eating up 37.7 minutes per game, 13th-most of any player in the country. With a struggling team looking for positive signs for upcoming seasons, maybe you should cut those minutes for a player in her final season not doing a whole lot with them anyway.
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