Five Questions As Big Ten Play Resumes

Big Ten Conference Play has resumed. Five questions for Big Ten fans as conference play gets underway.

Big Ten play resumes. Big Ten questions are the biggest as December comes to a close.

Purdue is 12-0 and has won all their games this season. The team is loaded with experience and talent. Matt Painter is a proven head coach.

Purdue is 12-0 and the top team in the country. The team has four wins over top 30 teams, including Duke and Gonzaga. However, the team's form has faded recently. The early wins against Duke, Gonzagawa and Davidson don't look as good as they did before.

Purdue is the favorite to win the Big Ten title. Illinois, Maryland, Wisconsin and Indiana are the other teams that could challenge Purdue.

Purdue is the favorite in the Big Ten. The highest rated team outside of Purdue is Ohio State, who is five spots ahead of the Hoosiers. KenPom projects Maryland, Ohio, Rutgers, and Wisconsin to finish the regular season with 12-8 conference records and Indiana at 11-9.

Zach Edey is averaging 22.9 points and 13. 9 rebounds per game this season. KenPom ranks Edy as the nation's best player.

Edey is the frontrunner for Big Ten Player of the Year. Terrence Shannon and Michigan’s Hunter Dickinson will make some noise, but neither has shown the monster potential of Edey this year.

The Big Ten is in four tiers for purposes of the NCAA Tournament. The top tier is highly likely to make the tournament. Everyone after that has major work to do.

Tier 1 is Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Purdue, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan State and Northwestern. Tier 2 is Michigan, Northwestern, Penn State or Rutgers, and Tier 3 is Iowa, Iowa and Michigan.

There are 17 games between the seven middle-tier teams in the next month. The winner of the group will be the team that protects home court and wins the winnable road games. The games are: 12/29 - Iowa at Nebraska, 1/1 - Penn State at Iowa, 4/4 - Michigan at Michigan State, 7/7 - Rutgers at Rutgers, 12-12 - Northwestern at Illinois, 15/15 - Wisconsin at Wisconsin, 18/18 - Nebraska at Northwestern, 21/21 -

The Big Ten's performance on Selection Sunday is determined by how the league's best teams perform against its worst. Last year Rutgers didn't make it to the First Four because of losses to Maryland, Minnesota and Northwestern. Michigan narrowly avoided the cutoff because the Wolverines avoided repeated missteps against the Big League's lesser teams.

Minnesota is the only team that has been objectively awful this season. The Gophers are currently ranked 197th on KenPom. Minnesota's remaining games are potential resume bombs. Top teams should avoid playing them in let down situations or early on. Nebraska can pose challenges for the league's top teams. They should hope for late season games when the roster might have checked out. It's possible that the team will have tanked its season by March.