Around the Big Ten

[entropy]

Rank School (first-place votes) 2011-12 record Points Last year's final ranking

1 Indiana (21) 27-9 761 13
2 Louisville (5) 30-10 738 4
3 Kentucky (5) 38-2 718 1
4 Ohio State 31-8 617 3
5 Michigan 24-10 605 22
6 North Carolina State 24-13 581 20
7 Kansas 32-7 563 2
8 Duke 27-7 516 14
9 Syracuse 34-3 502 5
10 Florida 26-11 422 9
11 Arizona 23-12 411 NR
12 North Carolina 32-6 401 6
13 UCLA 19-14 396 NR
14 Michigan State 29-8 391 7
15 Creighton 29-6 325 21
16 Memphis 26-9 307 NR
17 Missouri 30-5 289 11
18 Baylor 30-8 266 8
19 UNLV 26-9 203 NR
20 San Diego State 26-8 196 NR
21 Wisconsin 26-10 191 12
22 Gonzaga 26-7 166 NR
23 Notre Dame 22-12 122 NR
24 (tie) Florida State 25-10 61 15
24 (tie) Texas 20-14 61 NR

Others receiving votes: Saint Louis (26-8) 58; Virginia Commonwealth (29-7) 40; Cincinnati (26-11) 33; Murray State (31-2) 30; Kansas State (22-11) 13; Saint Mary's (27-6) 11; New Mexico (28-7) 10; Tennessee (19-15) 10; Minnesota (23-15) 9; Pittsburgh (22-17) 9; Marquette (27-8) 8; Stanford (26-11) 7; Butler (22-15) 6; Oklahoma State (15-18) 6; Colorado State (20-12) 4; Middle Tennessee (27-7) 3; Drexel (29-7) 2; Georgia (15-17) 2; Miami (Fla.) (20-13) 2; St. Joseph's (20-14) 2; Marshall (21-14) 1.

The USA TODAY Sports Board of Coaches is made up of 31 head coaches at Division I institutions. All are members of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. The board for the 2012-13 season: Tommy Amaker, Harvard; Tevester Anderson, Jackson State; Ronnie Arrow, South Alabama; Randy Bennett, Saint Mary's; Eddie Biedenbach, North Carolina-Asheville; Jim Boeheim, Syracuse; Rick Byrd, Belmont; Tim Cluess, Iona; Keith Dambrot, Akron; Steve Donahue, Boston College; Scott Drew, Baylor; Matt Driscoll, North Florida; Steve Fisher, San Diego State; Bruiser Flint, Drexel; Tim Floyd, Texas-El Paso; Mark Fox, Georgia; Ben Jacobsen, Northern Iowa; Rob Jeter, Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Mike McConathy, Northwestern State; Bob McKillop, Davidson; Ron "Fang" Mitchell, Coppin State; Matt Painter, Purdue; Dave Paulsen, Bucknell; Saul Phillips, North Dakota State; Steve Pikiell, Stony Brook; Randy Rahe, Weber State; Herb Sendek, Arizona State; Shaka Smart, Virginia Commonwealth; Andrew Toole, Robert Morris; DonVerlin, Idaho; Bob Williams, UC-Santa Barbara.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Penn State murdering Iowa, 24-0

[WM Wolverine]

Iowa as bad as I thought. PSU should be ranked, Wisky too.

[Rocky Bleier]

O'Brien is doing a heck of a job. BIG Coach of the Year.

[lineygoblue]

Hard to believe that Iowa took MSU to overtime and beat them, ... yet lost so badly AT HOME to Penn State.

Maybe Penn State is really that good, but just got off to a horrible start.

[The Oracle]

Well, Ohio isn't a bad team and their kicker single handedly lost the Virginia game(albeit, it was a walk on).

[THE_WIZARD_]

RE: Penn State

They have circled the wagon up there and are playing good old fashioned hard nosed football and their coach has them believing. That said...Iowa sucks and I actually thought they MIGHT be good after beating MSU. I was wrong. They suck. NW should have beat PSU in HV...and NW really isn't that good. Nebraska outyarded NW 2:1 and that was with going -3 in turnovers and committing a penalty on a NW muff punt so actually we were -4 in turnovers and still beat them at home. Fact is...as penishead Talent has pointed out...the B1G really sucks this year. Starting to look like maybe there are 4-5 average to slightly above average teams (OSU, M, NU, Wisky and PSU) and the rest are below average. Probably be Wisky vs. the NU-M winner next week. Thus my prediction of M-Wisky in Indy several weeks ago was and IS money.

Fools.

[WM Wolverine]

Pretty much what we thought pre-season except we had MSU in place of PSU. Top group was just terrible in OOC.

[hodgkal]

On Sat. night there were three simultaneous games of interest so I kept switching channels between, Miami-FSU, Tenn-Alabama, and Iowa-PSU. Those first two were like watching the NFL campared to watching a high school game in Iowa City. It was like those two B1G teams, esp. the Hawkeyes, were playing in slow motion.

I am amazed at the different levels of talent revealed in those comparisons.

[entropy]

iowa is a bad football team. I think PSU has improved, but I'm not sure by how much.

[entropy]

Big Ten players of the week

Quarterback Taylor Martinez, who helped rally Nebraska to a 29-28 road victory over Northwestern on Saturday, is the Big Ten's offensive player of the week, the conference announced this morning.

Martinez, a junior, accounted for 407 yards of total offense and four touchdowns. He orchestrated two TD drives in the fourth quarter to erase a 12-point deficit, tying the largest fourth-quarter comeback in school history. Martinez passed for 342 yards and three touchdowns and ran for 65 yards.

Other award winners:

Tackle Jordan Hill (Penn State), defensive player of the week

Kicker Brendan Gibbons (Michigan), special teams player of the week

Tight end Kyle Carter (Penn State), freshman of the week

[lineygoblue]

Iowa is at a dangerous spot on our schedule. They are the last home game before we head to the snake pit.

[lineygoblue]

Quarterback Taylor Martinez, who helped rally Nebraska to a 29-28 road victory over Northwestern on Saturday, is the Big Ten's offensive player of the week, the conference announced this morning.

Right on time.

I still have Nebraska at +4 over Michigan.

[entropy]

liney... you're way to nice to us.

[lineygoblue]

Call it respect, Ent.

There's still a lot of pride in the Husker program. I would never underestimate what they can do, when they are completely focused.

I expect their best game of the season on Saturday.