Michigan Basketball: Predicting UM’s finish in 2020-21 Big Ten standings

14-10

The dumpster fire that is Northwestern is burning brightest in the Big Ten. The Wildcats managed three conference wins and eight total wins during the 2019-20 campaign, and yet they will get worse next season.  Recruiting hasn’t helped this squad and there is no end to the misery in sight.

Fred Hoiberg is making moves quickly after an awful inaugural season as the Cornhuskers head coach. While he hasn’t exactly attracted five-stars, Fred managed to draw in some young prospects and he added in some intriguing transfers.

Nebraska is one of those teams that could end up anywhere from No. 14 to well within the top ten.

For the Gophers in 2019, Daniel Oturu averaged 20 points and 11 rebounds. For someone like that to return, Minnesota could be a top eight-ish team. However, Oturu is gone and Minnesota will not be able to make up for the loss of production.

Then again, Jamal Mashburn Jr is coming in and the Gophers are supposed to have three transfers (two still pending appeal). The season will depend on the play of Jamal and whoever is the big man down low. One of the transfers is a 7-footer named Liam Robbins, who averaged 14 points and 7 rebounds last season for Drake.

Penn State without Lamar Stevens is not good. Penn State without Stevens and a recruiting class outside of the top 70 is even worse. Last year would have been phenomenal for bringing in top prospects if the Nittany Lions could have made a deep run in both the conference and NCAA tournament – which they were primed to do just that. It didn’t happen and PSU will regress to mediocrity.

Illinois lost the one-two punch of Kofi Cockburn and Ayo Dosunmu, their two best players from 2019, and Andres Feliz, who’s third in team scoring, is also gone. The Fighting Illini will still be a team to keep an eye on, but victories will still be few and far between.