Big Ten Basketball Power Rankings: Week 11 edition

After an eventful Week 10 of Big Ten basketball filled with upsets, here are the Week 11 conference power rankings.

Another week has come and passed and there’s a new No. 1 in the Big Ten basketball power rankings. Purdue was the top team in the conference, in my opinion, until the Iowa Hawkeyes took the Boilermakers down last week.

However, they could still make a case to be the conference’s best team in the coming weeks but for now, there’s a new top dog in town.

Where does Michigan State stand in all of this? The Spartans opened the week with an impressive 18-point victory over Minnesota but it concluded with a loss at winless Ohio State. The Buckeyes were 0-4 in conference play and eked out a victory over the Spartans.

Let’s take a look at who tops this week’s power rankings and where the Spartans rank.

Rutgers has been the opposite of good this season. Therefore, they’ve been bad. I mean, really bad. The Scarlet Knights have, however, surpassed last year’s win total of just seven games. It took the Scarlet Knights all season long to win a conference game, but did so in the finale against Minnesota to avoid an 0-18 Big Ten record. Will they be able to avoid that this season? The jury is still out. They lost to Indiana and Northwestern last week to fall to 0-6 in conference play.

Ohio State hasn’t been much better than Rutgers in conference action. The Buckeyes did record their first Big Ten win of the season, avoiding their worst start in 19 years by beating Michigan State in Columbus on Sunday. Why do they remain at No. 13 in the power rankings then? The 23-point loss early in the week against Wisconsin was just that poor of a showing. Ohio State needs to figure out how to win with basically no depth.