While this year is not exactly exemplary as far as top to bottom teams in the Big 10, two teams remain unbeaten in conference play in Indiana and Wisconsin. The Hoosiers, who eeked out a victory at home against surprisingly futile Illinois, and the Badgers are both 3-0 in conference play. They have won 10 in a row. They’ll try to run it to 4-0 this week–the last time they started out that well? 2001-02, when they went to the national championship game.

Michigan State, after being embarrassed by Iowa and scoring only 36 points, fell to 11th. The Badgers are currently ranked 17th–a surprise considering that I truly believe Wisconsin could mop the floor with Butler and could handle Marquette, two teams ranked ahead of the Badgers. Perhaps the fact that the Badgers seem to always do well in the conference play but rarely delivers in NCAA play may be leading to some waning confidence in the team.

Minnesota remains one of the conference’s bigger surprises, standing at 12-3 overall, although I doubt many people thought Tubby Smith wouldn’t get the program back on its feet pretty quickly. How quickly remains to be seen as they take on both the Hoosiers and Spartans this week–it’s definitely go time.