College Basketball On the Horizon!

No, not IN the Horizon! Does that league even exist anymore? Valparaiso fans?

Anyway, my ever-alert mom sent me a link to the Daily Northwestern's preseason Big Ten power rankings, which you can read for yourself here. They've got Purdue and MSU 1-2 but a few surprises after that. Minnesota is at 3, ahead of Ohio State and Illinois, and Northwestern (hope springs eternal, but it is Kevin "Big Bird" Coble's senior year after all) at 7, ahead of Wisconsin. Also Indiana at 10, which is no surprise.

A lot of people are expecting Northwestern to get that elusive first NCAA bid this year. Pat Forde even put coach Bill Carmody into his "Five coaches who need to get something done" section of his preseason Forde Minutes. Quoted below:

Bill Carmody (34), Northwestern. When he needs it: all season long. At some point, even a basketball-indifferent school like this one has to care about advancing to the NCAA tournament, right? At least once? In school history? Especially since fellow egghead schools Duke, Stanford and Vanderbilt have made it look relatively easy to succeed in power conferences. This is Carmody's 10th year, so it's not like he hasn't been given every conceivable chance.

It's worth noting that Carmody has done much better in those ten years than any of his predecessors at NU since before the days of the NCAA tourney, which is why he's hung around so long.

Anyway, I'm interested to see if the Wildcats can handle a bit of expectations. Certainly something new for the program!

And yes, I will have much more on Indiana Hoosiers b-ball as the season approaches. Don't worry.