There Is No Bottom a Big Ten Story

If anyone is unfortunate enough to follow Jon Rothstein on Twitter, you’re deluged nightly with his idiotic tweets. The other night, Penn State got off the shneid and won its first game in league play against fellow bottom rung team, Northwestern which lead to a Rothstein-bit where he said the league has no bottom. Such a claim is idiotic like most things he says.

Let’s begin by making one thing clear, the Big Ten stands as the top league in the nation. It has 4 teams in the KenPom top 11 and 6 in the top 25. All 14 teams in the 10 team league are in the KenPom top 100. It’s a tough league.

But let’s not kid ourselves. Penn State is projected to finish 4-16. That’s what we call the bottom. Rutgers and Northwestern are both projected to finish 6-14. That’s bad. Losses to those 3 teams will not help a bubble team. Nebraska and Illinois are both projected at 7-13. Given the Cornhuskers bad luck with injuries, they’re likely to get worse. Illinois is trending up.

There is a soft midsection. Minnesota, Ohio State and Indiana are all bubbly but given their inconsistencies over the last month, they are not the same caliber team as the ones at the top of the league. Hierarchy exists.

Jon Rothstein is terrible. And almost always wrong