Purdue

Despite Michigan State and Purdue looking like they will be among the nation’s best teams this season, it appears that it’s a down year coming up for the Big Ten.  Additionally, talent-wise the league doesn’t have the boatloads of “superstar” prospects the other BCS conferences do.  Because of this, a freshman has snuck his way into number one on this list.

BIG TEN FIVE-YEAR STANDINGS

This ranking tries to answer a simple question: Who has been the best team in the Big Ten over the last five years?

Clip of the Day

Thanks to the genius of YouTube, the world has access to thousands of great college basketball videos to keep us busy every second of every day.  We'll be featuring daily movies to whet your college basketball appetite. Even if you've seen them before, some clips are just too good not to watch again and again.

Unlike the NBA, where most starting lineups are set in stone weeks before the season, NCAA starting fives are highly unsettled and constantly in flux. Going through the BCS leagues this week, I'll be projecting the starting fives for each team. Also included is the team's most important bench option, and some notes on other possible lineups.

NEW YORK - The 16-team field for the 2008 Dick's Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off Tournament was announced today by C.M. Newton, chair of the NIT Selection Committee.

"Once again, the NIT Season Tip-Off Tournament features an outstanding field and we look forward to another exciting start to college basketball," commented Newton.

The 2008 NIT Season Tip-Off teams and brackets are as follows:

Like civilizations, all great basketball programs eventually fall.. replaced by an upstart newcomer. In this week's Rise & Fall series, we'll take a look at which BCS programs are rising, falling, or merely treading water. Up today, the:

BIG TEN

CollegeHoops.net Coach of the Year: Keno Davis (Drake)

Live from Washington DC, CHN's Jon Teitel is covering the NCAA Tournament pod featuring Xavier/Georgia, Baylor/Purdue, West Virginia/Arizona, and Belmont/Duke. He'll be checking in periodically with player & coach interviews as well as news updates from the Verizon Center.