Basketball CBS Sports reveals way-too-early Big Ten predictions for 2026-27
- Thread starter Richie O
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I’m cautiously optimistic that we end up towards the middle of the pack in the conference.
With the transfer portal basically every team has tons of uncertainties- however I like that we retained a lot of talent which will only help throughout the year.
With the transfer portal basically every team has tons of uncertainties- however I like that we retained a lot of talent which will only help throughout the year.
It seems highly likely the players Rutgers brought in via the Portal are significantly better than the players that left via the Portal.
Combine that with the expected improvement of the younger returning players and it seems a near certainty that this team will be quite a bit better than last years.
Yet this "expert" is downgrading Rutgers from 14th (where they finished last year) to 16th this year.
Seems like a good example of how people being predisposed to an opinion or view of a program based on past results affects their "predictions" for the future.
Combine that with the expected improvement of the younger returning players and it seems a near certainty that this team will be quite a bit better than last years.
Yet this "expert" is downgrading Rutgers from 14th (where they finished last year) to 16th this year.
Seems like a good example of how people being predisposed to an opinion or view of a program based on past results affects their "predictions" for the future.
Seems like you are ignoring what other programs have done this off season
One thing we can agree on - these pieces are meaningless. Reporters need to create content and interest. The "way too early" prediction piece is guaranteed to do that. I admit, I open these articles even though the content is a poor predictor of what will actually happen.
The Big Ten got a hell of a lot better this offseason. Just look at the Transfer Portal rankings alone.
- No. 3 USC
- No. 6 Indiana
- No. 8 UCLA
- No. 16 Nebraska
- No. 22 Maryland
- No. 30 Oregon
- No. 38 Ohio State
- No. 42 Penn State
- No. 46 Minnesota
- No. 51 Northwestern
- No. 52 Wisconsin
- No. 58 Illinois
- No. 63 Rutgers
There is some truth to this, but at the same time, the name on the jersey still matters. It impacts the value of transfers. Every year, Nebraska's transfers are considered the next great thing. We are still waiting for them to be the next great thing. The same goes for Maryland. If you want the whole truth, you really have to do your own research.
Seems we did better than 5 B1G teams in the portal plus we brought back our best player and at least 2 other occasional starters, which you’d think would put us at 13 or 14 instead of 16th in this prediction.
Sure these teams are bringing in better net transfers but this ranking ignores the incredible amount of talent that either graduated or left for the draft. Below is the team in reverse B1G standings order and Torvik PRPG! rating of players that aren't returning. Anything 2.5 or higher is considered good. Cameron Boozer had the highest with 7.6:
18. Penn State - Josh Reed (3.0), Freddie Dilione (2.9), Kayden Mingo (2.9)
17. Maryland - David Coit (3.1)
16. Oregon - Nate Bittle (3.7), Kwame Evans (3.4), Jackson Shelstad (3.3)
15. Northwestern - Nick Martinelli (6.0)
14. Rutgers - Dylan Grant (1.6) <- Highest
13. Washington - Hannes Steinbach (5.6), Zoom Diallo (3.7)
12. USC - Chad Baker-Mazara (3.8), Ezra Ausar (3.3)
11. Minnesota - Cade Tyson (5.3)
10. Indiana - Lamar Wilkerson (5.0), Tucker DeVries (3.2), Sam Alexis (3.1), Reed Bailey (2.7)
9. Iowa - Bennett Stirtz (6.2), Tavion Banks (2.8), Alvaro Folgueiras (2.7)
8. Ohio State - Bruce Thornton (7.2), Devin Royal (3.5), Christoph Tilly (3.0)
7. UCLA - Tyler Bilodeau (4.9), Donovan Dent (3.8), Sky Clark (3.2)
6. Purdue - Braden Smith (5.3), Oscar Cluff (5.0), Trey Kaufman-Renn (4.6), Fletcher Loyer (4.6)
5. Wisconsin - Nick Boyd (5.8), John Blackwell (4.9)
4. Illinois - Keaton Wagler (6.5), Kylan Boswell (4.4)
3. Michigan State - Kaxon Kohler (3.7), Carson Cooper (3.2)
2. Nebraska - Sam Hoiberg (3.8), Reink Mast (3.3)
1. Michigan - Yaxel Landeborg (5.8), Morez Johnson Jr. (4.3), Aday Mara (3.4)
Great listing!
The players that teams lost should obviously be taken into account. Most telling is how low rated Dylan Grant was. Although he was nowhere near as effective in Big Ten play as he was in OOC, he was still one of the better scorers.
Given who Rutgers kept, who Rutgers lost, and who Rutgers got, Rutgers is likely one of the most improved teams. Hopefully, that will result in more wins. The general prediction is 3 more wins so this team will still need to overachieve to get into the NCAAs.
The only Big Ten team that I don’t think will do better this season than last season is Michigan since it’s pretty darn hard to improve on national champion.
I actually think a lot, maybe even most, B1G teams are less talented this year. Although that doesn't mean that they'll finish behind Rutgers because they had a lot of ground to make up.
Great list! Is this information available for returning players too?
Here's all the returning players for each team. As you can see, not a lot of high end talent coming back.
And do with this what you will, but if you filter the schedule to only show the games after Mark's 3PT cold streak ended, his rating would be 2.0.
18. Penn State - Ivan Juric (2.0)
17. Maryland - Pharrel Payne (4.4), Andre Mills (2.4), George Turkson (-0.3), Guillermo Del Pino (-0.6)
16. Oregon - Sean Stewart (1.2), Luke Johnson (0.0)
15. Northwestern - Angelo Ciaravino (1.7), Jake West (0.9), Phoenix Gill (-0.2)
14. Rutgers - Tariq Francis (4.2), Jamichael Davis (1.7), Darren Buchanan (1.0), Lino Mark (0.6), Kaden Powers (0.5), Gevonte Ware (-1.4)
13. Washington - Wesley Yates III (1.7), Jasir Rencher (1.0), Bryson Tucker (0.8), Lathan Sommerville (0.5), Nikola Dzepina (0.4)
12. USC - Rodney Rice (4.2), Jacob Cofie (1.8), Alijah Arenas (1.6)
11. Minnesota - Bobby Durkin (2.5), Jaylen Crocker-Johnson (2.0), Isaac Asuma (1.5), Grayson Grove (1.1), Kai Shinholster (-0.1)
10. Indiana - Trent Sisley (0.6), Ian Stephens (0.4), Drew Snively (-0.2)
9. Iowa - Cooper Koch (2.9), Cam Manyawu (2.4), Tate Sage (2.0), Kael Combs (1.4), Isaia Howard (1.2), Trevin Jirak (0.5), Joey Matteoni (0.3)
8. Ohio State - John Mobley Jr. (4.0), Amare Bynum (2.3), Ivan Njegovan (0.9),
7. UCLA - Trent Perry (3.7), Eric Dailey (2.6), Xavier Booker (2.2), Brandon Williams (0.6), Eric Freeny (0.2)
6. Purdue - CJ Cox (3.2), Daniel Jacobsen (1.7), Jack Benter (1.6), Gicarri Harris (1.5), Omer Mayer (0.9), Jace Rayl (-0.6), Jack Lusk (-0.7)
5. Wisconsin - Nolan Winter (4.6), Austin Rapp (2.6), Will Garlock (0.3), Zach Kinziger (0.2), Hayden Jones (0.2), Jack Janicki (-0.1)
4. Illinois - David Mirkovic (4.4), Andrej Stojakovic (3.7), Tomislav Ivisic (3.3), Jake Davis (3.0), Zvonimir Ivisic (2.1), Jason Jakstys (1.1), Blake Fagbemi (-0.4)
3. Michigan State - Jeremy Fears (5.9), Coen Carr (2.6), Jordan Scott (1.4), Kur Teng (1.3), Cameron Ward (0.8), Jesse McCulloch (0.7), Trey Fort (0.5), Colin Walton (0.5), Brennan Walton (0.0)
2. Nebraska - Pryce Sandfort (5.1), Braden Frager (2.7), Cale Jacobsen (1.1), Leo Curtis (0.4)
1. Michigan - Elliot Cadeau (3.0), Trey McKenney (2.7), LJ Cason (1.9), Oscar Goodman (0.1)
Here's how I would rank the returning talent. (EDIT) Probably better to put them in tiers since a lot of these are very close:
Tier 1
1. Illinois
2. Michigan State
3. Nebraska
Tier 2
4. UCLA
Tier 3
5. Michigan (Forgot Cason out for the year so drops them from Tier 2 to Tier 3)
6. Ohio State
7. Purdue
8. Iowa
Tier 4
9. Rutgers
10. Wisconsin
11. USC
12. Maryland
Tier 5
13. Minnesota
14. Washington
15. Northwestern
Tier 6
16. Penn State
17. Oregon
18. Indiana
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It’s hard for me to take these ratings seriously, when Jaylen Crocker-Johnson is considered only “slightly” better than J Mike. They play different positions and maybe I just wish we had a veteran 4 on our roster, but come on.
In theory - if there’s any truth to the rankings they should correlate to the price tag. Crocker-Johnson probably costs double what J Mike is costing us. 6-8 240 lb forward who averaged 13 pt / 7 rebounds / 2 assists.
Yeah there's going to be some issues when you're relying solely on stats. And I believe that rating might only be an offensive rating so it's limited. The formula is pretty complicated but basically takes the unadjusted O-Rating and accounts for usage rate and opponent. So Crocker-Johnson really isn't the most efficient shooter and his OR rate and assist rate are low so his O-Rating isn't going to be great. But it does get boosted since his Usage Rate is high.
They do have a Defensive-PRPG rating but no total PRPG rating so I don't have time to add everything together. But in terms of these two, Davis would be 4.1 (2.4 D-PRPG) and Crocker-Johnson 5.7 (3.7 D-PRPG).
Looking at "returning players" and "transfers" and "HS recruits" in vacuums is pointless.
Last I checked the games aren't played "Returning players v. Returning players".
Last I checked the games aren't played "Returning players v. Returning players".
Returning talent wont matter when schools have way better incoming talent coming in
I agree. I was showing that just looking at the net transfer ranking and saying the B1G got much better is ignoring that they lost some elite talent. A lot of teams, while still better than Rutgers on paper, got worse this year.
You may be right, and lord knows I’ve been down on Pike the last two years, but he has always played MSU tough, and in general despite total talent, team chemistry is going to be especially key when so many players are together for the first time throughout the conference.
I’m going to assume the B1G will be about as strong as last year, because even with all the movement, it doesn’t seem like it will be as strong as last year.
We have definitely upgraded our center and I have to think we have upgraded our forwards with Smith and Sydnor. All our important guards are back and we added Rasheed Jones
I have to think we move up about 2-4 spots in the B1G.
We have definitely upgraded our center and I have to think we have upgraded our forwards with Smith and Sydnor. All our important guards are back and we added Rasheed Jones
I have to think we move up about 2-4 spots in the B1G.
Our talent level is definitely below most of the other teams in the conference. I also think it’s close enough to a bunch of them that Pike has the opportunity to right the ship and finish in a respectable position this year and has the opportunity to make the tournament, even if the odds wouldn’t necessarily be in his favor.
Agreed. I don’t think we’ve ever had a talent level that’s been at the top of the conference (that’s not a knock on Ron, Geo, Caleb, et al). Pikes teams have (almost) always been greater than the sum of their parts - even last year, it’s hard to argue that team didn’t outperform their talent level.
Seems a lot of posters are setting themselves up for big time Jan/Feb 2027 disappointment. Typical.
Absolutely. The recent article with the grades does a much better comparative job, but also is flawed since it was supposedly graded on a curve.
Usually the player rating data that feeds new video game releases is announced well in advance of the game. Isn’t 2K supposed to come out in Jan 27? The relative player and strength metrics used for that game (if released before the season starts) might be the best info like this we could get (basically the grade analysis stripping out the curve for certain teams having a bigger budget to work with etc.