After a season is done, it is always fun to look back to the preseason predictions and laugh at how far off those predictions ended up. This season, like any other season in the Big Ten, was fairly impossible to predict but again utterly entertaining and enjoyable to watch.
Back in late October, the Big Ten held its annual media day in Chicago; along with the welcome packets were the Big Ten coaches and media predictions for how the season would finish.
The Big Ten coaches picked Michigan State to grab the title with Indiana and Minnesota finishing second and third, respectively. Media voting went Michigan State, Indiana and Illinois.
Nowhere in those top three rankings were the Wisconsin Badgers, the Purdue Boilermakers or the Michigan Wolverines.
This was a year in which the perennial powerhouses were supposed to dominate the physical Big Ten; whoops, I guess the unlikely suspects once again flew under the radar and made this season a little more exciting than usual.
The surprise team of the early Big Ten season would have to be Michigan. After the team was told it could not take part in the NCAA tournament this year due to punishments stemming from actions of the Fab Five, the Wolverines started out the year with a pathetic 0-6 non-conference record.
Somehow, head coach Tommy Amaker, in only his second season with Michigan, found a way to light a fire under his team, and the Wolverines went on a 13-game winning streak, one of the longest in the nation.
Veteran senior LaVell Blanchard, with his 16.0 points and 6.9 rebounds per game, led his team on their surprise turnaround and started his team on top of the Big Ten at 6-0. The senior found key help from Big Ten Freshman of the Year Daniel Horton who ended Big Ten play averaging an impressive 15.7 points per game.
It was only a matter of time before the momentum ran out, as the team was only able to win four out of its last 10 games down the stretch, a record good enough for third place in the conference. Sure, a finish lower than the blue and yellow wanted, but at the same time, the team was not projected to finish any higher than seventh or eighth place and surprised most by overachieving.
Another team that experienced a surprisingly similar season to Michigan in the fact that they were overachievers was the Purdue Boilermakers. Most predicted Purdue to finish around eighth or ninth in the Big Ten due to the fact the team had only two seniors on its roster, and not many expected anything more from this season than last year’s disappointing 13-18 season.
Early-season wins against Louisville and at Indiana had the basketball world starting to take a second look at the Boilermakers.
Behind last year’s Big Ten leading scorer, Willie Deane, Purdue started out the Big Ten season red-hot, going 7-1. However, in the second half of conference play, the Boilermakers started to falter, as the team was unable to win on the road and lost five out of eight games; with the team’s only win on the road coming at Michigan last Saturday in the final game of the season.
Despite having First Team All-Big Ten player Deane, with his 18.3 points per game, and the Big Ten’s Defensive Player of the Year, Kenneth Lowe, the team was unable to finish the improbable task of winning the Big Ten after taking everyone by surprise to start the conference season.
It is inevitable that along with the surprise of overachieving teams, there have to be some teams that turned in less than stellar or even disappointing seasons. Falling into this boat would be Minnesota and Indiana.
While the coaches picked the Golden Gophers to finish third in Big Ten play, the team barely finished 8-8 in the conference, tying Indiana to take sixth in the conference. Minnesota was most definitely slow out of the gate, as the team lost three out of its first four games to Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan by an average margin of a tad over 11 points.
The team finally found its stride again after the loss to Michigan and went 7-1 through the middle of the Big Ten season, knocking off Michigan and Purdue. After posting such an impressive stretch, the team once again faltered against the premier teams in the league, finishing out the season 0-4 against the likes of Michigan State, Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois.
While Rickert’s numbers went up from 14.2 points per game last season to 16.8 points per game this season, many did not believe Rickert lived up to expectations from the beginning of the season. The sophomore was the only player to be selected unanimously to the preseason All-Conference team, and he was the coaches’ pick for preseason Player of the Year.
Similar to choosing where a team will finish, predications don’t usually mean much at the end of the season. Rickert was not even selected to the media’s end of the year First Team All-Big Ten but was still selected to the coaches’ First Team.
Like Purdue’s success was to Michigan’s success, Indiana’s play mimicked Minnesota’s disappointing performance, as the Hoosiers also finished a mediocre 8-8 in conference play.
Hopes were high for the Hoosiers, as they were coming off a second-place finish in the NCAA tournament last season, and they proceeded to beat Maryland, the team they lost to last March for the title, in early December in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.
Indiana started out the season winning five out of six before dropping their next four games. In the remainder of the season, the team scraped out four wins in its last seven games; however, the team was extremely inconsistent for most of the season, losing just about every other game.
Even though the team added a new gem this season in Bracey Wright, Tom Coverdale, the experienced senior point guard named to the preseason First Team All-Big Ten, had a disappointing season, barely being named Honorable Mention All-Big Ten.
Once again, it never ceases to amaze me how far off preseason predictions actually are. I even wonder why we still go through the trouble to make predictions. But hey, what the heck, what fun would it be to begin a season without speculating about the outcome?
