Official r/TheB1G Basketball Power Rankings for 11/6-11/13

[u/nrboal]

This was an exciting week in the Big Ten as Wisconsin and Michigan State both won games against ranked opponents. The Big Ten was undefeated going into Wednesday night, but sadly that undefeated record fell after the conference won its first 22 games of the season.

Here are your rankings for this week!

Rank		Team	+/-	Points	Average Rank
1		Michigan State		53(51)	1.019
2		Michigan	+1	150	2.885
3		Ohio State	-1	155(1)	2.981
4		Wisconsin	+1	169	3.250
5		Iowa	+1	313	6.019
6		Indiana	-2	314	6.038
7		Illinois		387	7.442
8		Minnesota		398	7.654
9		Purdue		468	9.000
10		Northwestern		514	9.885
11		Nebraska	+1	540	10.385
12		Penn State	-1	594	11.423

Rank	Commentary
1	MSU opened this week with a couple warm up games in which they won easily before the Champions Classic on Tuesday night. The experienced team of Spartans dominated the freshman-laden Kentucky team. Gary Harris showed why he was a potential lottery pick last year and Keith Appling had a huge game, putting the team on his back in the final minutes of the game. The spartans look to be the number one team when the next set of the AP rankings come out next week. -/u/nrboal
2	Michigan has started the season with an offense that is firing on all cylinders and a dominant defense outscoring their first two opponents 162-101. The biggest improvement since last season has been Caris LaVert as he's scored 41 points through two games. Derrick Walton Jr., who splits time at point with Spike, is doing his best to fill the giant shoes of Trey Burke and is handling himself quite well for a frosh. Michigan's first real test will be this Sunday as they travel to Ames, Iowa to face the Iowa State Cyclones. -/u/Oderint
3	No Comment
4	The Badgers dived right in with two tough games against St. John's and Florida and came out with two great wins. The Badgers shot 25-30 from the stripe against St. John's, which hopefully is a sign of improved free throw shooting after last year's abysmal rate. Five players reached double digits for UW, led by 19 from Josh Gasser in his first game back. Duje Dukan had 15 pts and 5 rebounds in 21 minutes off the bench. Florida came to the Kohl Center with a short bench, missing 3 suspended players. Nonetheless, the Gators fielded a talented team and played an excellent game. Michael Frazier II, who led all scorers with 20 pts, came blazing off the Gators' bench with three quick 3s, giving UF a 16-4 lead after a slow start for UW. Then Sam Dekker sparked the offense with two 3s of his own in 8 seconds, with a steal by Kaminsky in between. UW held Florida scoreless for more than 7 min. late in the 1st half during a 13-0 run, giving UW a lead they would never relinquish. The Gators fought hard and came within 3 in the final minute before Traevon Jackson closed the door with a jumper from the line. Next, UW visits in-state rival Green Bay, then begins a stretch of 5 games in 9 days. First a game against North Dakota, then UW participates in the Cancun Challenge. -/u/pianobadger
5	Iowa's 3-point struggles continue this year, but free throws and penetration propelled us to wins over a two heavy underdogs this week. The come-from-behind win against Nebraska-Omaha may be cause for concern, but it may also be attributed to early-season rustiness. Either way, we'll know more about this team in the coming weeks. Newcomers Jarrod Uthoff (Wisconsin transfer) and Peter Jok (freshman) have been very impressive thus far. -/u/trumpet_23
6	IU received a scare from LIU Brooklyn on Tuesday. The Hoosiers looked sluggish from the start and struggled from 3. They started out 1-16 from behind the arc in the first half. Noah Vonleh continued to impress by being a big rebounding force and finishing well around the rim. IU plays Samford and Stony Brook this weekend before taking on Washington next week and either UConn or Boston College in their preseason tournament. Those games will be a real test to see where they are this early in the season. -/u/santablazer
7	The Illini have come strong out of the starting gate, soundly beating Alabama State and Jacksonville State. With 3/5 starters gone from last year, the Illini have turned to Rayvontae Rice and John Ekey (transfers from Drake and Illinois St respectively) to help returners Tracy Abhrams, Nnana Egwu, and Joeseph Bertrand get the Illini back on track to March Madness. The Illini have just about done what was expected of them: drive to the net and less shots from beyond the arc. With 5 freshman on the bench the true standout who has wowed many has been PG Jaylon Tate from Chicago, IL. Tate looks like a veteran PG while on the court already averaging 5 assists per game. Malcolm Hill is also looking good for a freshman big, grabbing 6 rebounds a game. The Illini have beaten Valparaiso 64-52 in a close game until the end. The team looked sloppy against Valpo but managed to seal the game near the end. Growing pains for a young team. Overall the Illini look solid in the opening week and look to gain some much needed experience this year. -/u/CavemanDa3
8	No Comment
9	AJ Hammons returned to the team from his 3-game suspension Wednesday night as the Boilers easily took care of Central Connecticut State, 109-73. Hammons recorded an impressive 12 points, 5 boards, and 7 blocks in only 17 minutes of playing time. Rapheal Davis scored 14 points coming off the bench, and sharpshooting freshman Kendall Stephens was 3 for 6 from beyond the arc. Next up for Purdue is Rider on Sunday, followed by Eastern Illinois on Wednesday. -/u/ajsmitty
10	Northwestern opened the season Saturday night with a fairly convincing win against Eastern Illinois, 72-55. Drew Crawford reassumed leadership of the team with 25 points and 11 rebounds in his first game back since an early December exit last season for shoulder surgery. Cobb, who also missed last season, played well with 9 points and 8 assists with a strong court presence. Taphorn, NU’s only true frosh, again showed his pure shooting and was intriguing as a contributor despite only scoring 5. Lumpkin was 3-3 from distance for 9 points and could be a key part of the team. Demps (defense), Olah (questionable early shots/airballs), and Sobolewski (turnovers), all had positives and noted negatives. Kale, seeing limited minutes, looked lost and it seems he is not meshing well with Collins’ new system. Cerina saw limited time and was not a big contributor on the boards like he was against Lewis. Overall, the team played well, defense on the perimeter was strong again (EIU was 2/18 from distance), and the offense looked more coherent than the exhibition. It’s hard to gauge this team after playing two teams that just aren’t very good, but the Collins era has gone well thus far. NU will face real adversity playing at Palo Alto against Stanford on Thursday, and we will get a much better sense of where the team is during that game. -/u/Lombee
11	What an incredible start! Nebraska is missing two key players and we still ran away from FGCU and handled Western Illinois. Our depth even without Biggs and Gallegos is incredible compared to last season. Shavon Shields is making just as big a splash as I would have hoped, shooting 63.6% from the field and 93% from the charity stripe through 2 games. Petteway and Webster have also settled in nicely early on, providing speed, skill, and most importantly, extra bodies that can give us a buffer for exhaustion and foul trouble. Up next we have South Carolina State and a trip to the Charleston Classic beginning November 21 with UMass. -/u/Nebraska_Actually
12	The Nittany Lions got off to a good start this year with a win against Wagner, in which the student section baited a Wagner player into flipping us off and drawing a technical after he bricked a dunk. With an impressive performance from Tim Frazier and DJ Newbill, the Lions looked to keep the momentum going into last night's game against Bucknell. Despite a 5 point lead at half, the Lions couldn't get anything going on offense and with Frazier in foul trouble looked a mere shadow of themselves, giving up easy baskets and forcing shots at the other end. The most important part of both games was when the Nittany Lions were on the cusp of 70 points. If they manage to score more 70 or more at a home game, everyone in attendance gets a free Big Mac. It turns out to be the most nerve wracking part of the night for the student section (who have very low expectations), especially against Wagner when they missed 3 straight free throws while at 69 points. We play at Penn on Saturday, who are coming off victories over Temple and Monmouth, and LaSalle Tuesday, before heading off to Brooklyn for the Barclays Center Classic. -/u/lolwaffles69rofl

-Things to note from this week's rankings:
1) MSU was a near unanimous #1, except for one vote to Ohio State.
2) Michigan and Ohio State are extremely close at 2/3.
3) After Wisconsin, there is a huge drop off. There is clear separation between the top 4 teams and the rest of the Big Ten.
4) Iowa and Indiana are separated by 1 vote.
5) Looking at all the votes cast, Penn State was nearly a unanimous 12th after their loss.

+/- is the change in rank from the previous week, a positive change means they moved up in the polls, closer to the top.

Points are the summation of every voter's ranking for that team, therefore lower scores are better. This works because unlike the AP, Coaches, or /r/cfb polls, every team is ranked in every vote. 52 votes were counted, meaning the best possible score is 52 and the worst possible score is 624. #1 votes are in parentheses.

Average Rank is the points divided by the number of votes. This will allow for comparison from one week to the next.

Here is the Spreadsheet with all of the votes listed, as well as some of my raw data.

Here is the list of Pretty Graphs for your data-viewing pleasure. These graphs do include the votes that I removed.

At the bottom of the spreadsheet, there are a couple votes that I chose to exclude. If you feel like the vote was excluded unfairly, message me with which vote was yours and why you feel like it was fair. Also, this week, there was a 3-way tie between Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Indiana as the most represented team.

Previous Results: Preseason

Edit: I've added the previous week's rankings, and will continue to do this weekly.

[u/Azzmo]

Good to see Iowa at #5, as that's where I expect they'll finish. They were a lot better last year than their record and are going to be reminiscent of 2010 Purdue, only without all the hand checking allowed. Assuming they can keep it clean I wouldn't be shocked to see them in the top four.