Way-Too-Early Big Ten Basketball Power Rankings
With the transfer portal still open, here's where B1G teams rank after the national championship
If you’re reading this as soon as it hits your email inbox at 6:00 AM central the morning after the national title game, good morning you beautiful sicko. You’ve already been following along with how the Badgers are doing this off-season. How about the other 17 teams in this monstrosity of a league with a ‘10’ in its name?
One team was left celebrating after capping a fantastic NCAA Tournament with an incredible national championship game. While the Florida Gators still have time to enjoy their historic season, 360+ other teams are looking ahead.
Teams like the Wisconsin Badgers have added several players from the transfer portal. Other teams in the Big Ten have yet to make additions, but they still have plenty of time.
We are still seven months out from the 2025-26 college basketball season tipping off. But that does not mean it is too early to predict who will win the Big Ten. The title reads "way-too-early," but I will do it anyway.
Purdue Basketball Tops First Early 1-18 B1G Men's Basketball Rankings
1. Purdue Boilermakers
Every great series needs a proper trilogy, right? After sitting atop the preseason conference rankings the past two seasons, Purdue will be there again in October.
Matt Painter’s train keeps chugging in West Lafayette. Four of his five starters return from a Boilermakers team that won 13 conference games. You can place Braden Smith or Trey Kaufman-Renn as the preseason Big Ten Player of the Year, and it would be a good pick either way. Who knows? Maybe Fletcher Loyer will take the award in 2026. Purdue will be a force yet again.
2. Michigan State Spartans
Tom Izzo has yet to add a player in the portal after reserve guard Tre Holloman and big man Xavier Booker opted to transfer. Holloman is a tough piece to lose, but Booker has yet to live up to his recruiting pedigree of a top-15 player nationally in his class. Booker's departure makes way for a no-doubt dynamic frontcourt duo in Carson Cooper and Jaxon Kohler.
The Spartans' returners should develop into a dangerous team with a chance to win back-to-back conference titles. Jeremy Fears has an outside chance of being the 2026 Big Ten Player of the Year.
3. UCLA Bruins
Mick Cronin is doing things differently in Westwood. He has no incoming freshmen in the 2025 class and zero commits in the 2026 class. In place of teenage freshmen, he is bringing in experienced transfers. Booker transferred in conference from Michigan State to UCLA. Also joining the Bruins is former New Mexico Lobos star and 2025 Mountain West Conference Player of the Year Donovan Dent.
If Booker can be a reliable starting center (big “if), Cronin has succeeded in surrounding him with shooters. Skyy Clark, Tyler Bilodeau, and Eric Dailey each shot 37.8% or better from three last season. Dent shot 40% on fewer than two attempts per game while getting to the free-throw line at an impressive clip. The Bruins have a chance to make some real noise next season.
4. Oregon Ducks
Before the wheels fell off for a mid-season stretch where the Ducks lost six of seven, Dana Altman’s squad had one of the best resumes in the sport last season. Plus, it did not lose another game for over a month after that stretch and still earned a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Altman is doing his best to keep his roster together. Jackson Shelstad, who may challenge Braden Smith for the title of best point guard in the conference, is returning to Eugene. Seven-foot center Nate Bittle has entered the NBA Draft but is retaining his collegiate eligibility to return to Oregon alongside Kwame Evans in the frontcourt. This team should again be wearing home whites in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
5. Wisconsin Badgers
The Badgers are better when they have experience, and Greg Gard’s team just lost a lot of experience. Six seniors exhausted their NCAA eligibility last season. On the bright side, he brought in a pair of guards through the transfer portal ready to play their final year of eligibility in Madison in Andrew Rhode and Nick Boyd.
6. Michigan Wolverines
The Wolverines lost four of five starters from Dusty May’s first team in Ann Arbor that won the Big Ten Tournament. May’s portal additions have been impressive thus far, but he lacks a true center after running out a pair of seven-footers last season.
Michigan does have Yaxel Lendeborg, maybe. The two-time American Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year and back-to-back First-Team All-AAC honoree is committed to the Wolverines, provided he does not like what he hears in the NBA Draft process.
7. Illinois Fighting Illini
Pairing starting center Tomislav Ivisic with his twin brother, Zvonimir Ivisic, has my eyebrows raised at the Illini. The duo of seven-footers should fit nicely in Brad Underwood’s glass-crashing system.
8. Ohio State Buckeyes
The Buckeyes return four of five starters, add a top-100 freshman in guard Dorian Jones, and add top-50 freshman in forward A’Mare Bynum. Everything is right there for the Buckeyes to take a jump in the second full season under Jake Diebler.
9. USC Trojans
There was a new conference, a new coach, and every scholarship player but one was new to the Trojans last season. After Eric Musselman hit the portal hard for experienced talent a year ago, he has seven seniors headed out the door now. So, after finishing under .500, he gets to hit reset again.
He does so with incoming freshman Alijah Arenas. The 6-foot-6 wing should be an instant impact player, ranked top-10 nationally in his class. Musselman certainly would have liked to pair Arenas with Wesley Yates, but the guard who shot nearly 44% from three in his freshman campaign has entered the portal. If the Trojans can hang on to lead guard Desmond Claude, that should soften the blow and help take a lot of pressure off Arenas.
10. Northwestern Wildcats
The Wildcats have what they hope eventually becomes the Brooks Barnhizer replacement in top-100 freshman Tre Singleton coming this fall. The 6-foot-8 forward committed to NU over the Clemson Tigers, Xavier Musketeers, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Louisville Cardinals, and Purdue Boilermakers.
Nick Martinelli, last season's leading scorer in the Big Ten, should be alongside Singleton in the frontcourt unless Martinelli opts to remain in the NBA Draft. Adding Jayden Reid from the portal helps supplant the veteran presence lost by Ty Berry and Jalen Leach graduating. Reid led the South Florida Bulls in scoring, assists, and steals last season as a sophomore.
11. Maryland Terrapins
We have reached the first of a few teams in the league with a coaching change and a roster that will be unrecognizable in the fall.
Buzz Williams leaves Texas A&M, and he is bringing former Aggies center Pharrell Payne to anchor the frontcourt with him. Williams also nabbed Myles Rice from Indiana to run the point. The Terrapins are off to a good start but have a lot of roster spots left to fill following Kevin Willard’s departure for the Villanova Wildcats.
12. Iowa Hawkeyes
Hawkeyes basketball is going to be unrecognizable. With Fran McCaffery out and Ben McCollum in, Iowa will go from one of the most frenetic-paced teams in Division I to one of the most methodical. As McCollum brings a handful of players from Drake to Iowa City, including standout point guard Bennett Stirtz, they should at minimum make the conference tournament.
13. Indiana Hoosiers
How quickly can head coach Darien DeVries get it turned around in Bloomington? After only playing eight games due to an injury with his dad at West Virginia, Tucker DeVries should add a three-point shooting punch to the Hoosiers. Nabbing Atlantic 10 First-Team honoree Reed Bailey out of the portal from Davidson is nothing to scoff at either.
There is no way to know what this team will look like, though, as the Hoosiers turn over literally the entire roster.
14. Rutgers Scarlet Knights
Well, next season certainly could not be more disappointing than the last, right?
Former five-star phenoms Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey are off to the NBA. Jeremiah Williams is back in the transfer portal, searching for his third program in six seasons after a lackluster redshirt senior year.
Pikiell has added Darren Buchanan, who took a step back this past year in his redshirt sophomore season with the George Washington Revolutionaries. That may be partly due to an ankle injury, but the Scarlet Knights’ first transfer portal add left something to be desired.
If expectations start low, at least so is the chance for disappointment.
15. Nebraska Cornhuskers
The College Basketball Crown champs finally ended their season Saturday. Head coach Fred Hoiberg has been busy on and off the court.
Bringing in Pryce Sandfort, a 40% three-point shooter, to a Cornhuskers team that loves to shoot should be an easy transition. He should be a better fit than outgoing sophomore Gavin Griffiths. This team is losing a lot of experience with six outgoing seniors.
16. Minnesota Golden Gophers
After earning his keep with the Colorado State Rams, Niko Medved is the coach Minnesota has needed for quite a long time. Although Ben Johnson did not necessarily disappoint in Minneapolis, you cannot blame the Gophers if they wanted to avoid making the potential mistake that Indiana did.
The Hoosiers may have waited one year too long to part ways with Mike Woodson and missed their chance to get a standout coach and IU alum in Dusty May. Minnesota brings its home-grown coach in Medved back for a continued rebuild.
17. Washington Huskies
Rough (ruff?) first year in the conference for the Huskies. Tough first year in Seattle for head coach Danny Sprinkle. After Sprinkle coached three consecutive 25+ win teams, Washington ended the 2024-25 season in last place in the Big Ten by two games. The Huskies rattled off a six-game losing streak to round out the season, and it was not even their first six-game losing streak in the conference that year!
On the bright side, Sprinkle is bringing in a trio of four-star freshmen and already has four transfers committed. It is impossible to finish worse in the conference than he just did; it is only up from there.
18. Penn State Nittany Lions
Things have not been pretty for the Nittany Lions in the first two years under Mike Rhoades. With back-to-back Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year Ace Baldwin graduating, I doubt it will improve.
PSU does bring in a top-50 recruit at point guard in Kayden Mingo to replace Baldwin. Add in three/four-star prospect Mason Blackwood on the wing, and there’s some hope for the future. Just don’t expect it to materialize this season.