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BLOOMINGTON – Here goes nothing.
That’s how one esteemed voter in this year’s media-organized preseason Big Ten men’s basketball poll led into their ballot this fall. And with good reason.
Ballooned to 18 teams and chockablock with transfers and intriguing freshmen, I can’t remember a time when the conference was so hard to forecast. The schedule has never been more unbalanced. We have no idea what effects travel will have, or how styles might make fights with four Pac-12 teams in the door.
It is going to be a wild and whacky Big Ten basketball season. And I suspect we wouldn’t have it any other way.
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This year, I was honored to be asked by Adam Jardy of the Columbus Dispatch to help administer our annual media poll. Big Ten writers have been pulling this together since the conference itself lopped off order of finish some years ago, and we’re still at it no matter how big the crowd gets.
We’ve typically aimed for two voters per school (per beat, really), but the sheer size of the conference made that a little trickier this year. We managed to get at least one from all 18 teams, and finished with 33 participants out of a possible 36. The poll is officially bi-coastal.
Parsing this year’s ballot (which includes predicted order of finish, player, freshman and transfer of the year, and two all-conference teams) was no easy feat. The transfer portal has introduced a remarkable sense of the unknown into the discussion, an uncertainty only intensified by a deeply unbalanced schedule. Eight players received at least one vote for transfer of the year, while only three of the five players receiving at least one player-of-the-year vote competed in the Big Ten last season.
All of which builds to a reporter’s plea: We’re gonna get some of this wrong. Please don’t hold it against us.
The final results of our poll as follows, with two-time…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/big-ten-basketball-preseason-media-155819110.html
Author : IndyStar | The Indianapolis Star
Publish date : 2024-10-02 15:58:19
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