Welcome to Midweek Madness! Here is a breakdown of what to expect in the third-ish iteration of my weekly CBB newsletter as well as All-Big Ten Teams & Preseason Power Rankings
by Jordan Beckley
Hello! Welcome back if you were a reader last year or the half year I kinda did at the launch of The Floor Slap. Thanks for following. If you’re new here let me introduce myself.
My name’s Jordan. I was raised a Purdue basketball fan, have been my whole life and still am. I was there when they lost to no.16 FDU in Columbus two years ago, I was there when they beat NC State in the Final Four last year, and I was there when Zach Edey played his final collegiate game in a loss to UConn in the National Championship.
I grew up in the greater Indianapolis area and attended Ohio State. I founded this blog with a college friend after graduation because of my love for College Basketball and his for College Football. We have full time jobs outside of this and truly do it for the love of College sports and the Big Ten. If any of this is similar to your story this blog is for you.
So, what’s Midweek Madness?
Midweek Madness is my passion project. It’s my weekly newsletter of sorts with various rotating categories that I may or may not opt to write each week. I focus on Big Ten ball mainly but try to cover the sport nationally too with any of the top teams who matter.
“That sounds great! I love CBB content.”
Awesome. I think so too. Make sure you follow us @thefloorslap on X so you never miss a post. If Twitter isn’t your thing post-Elon Musk then just bookmark and check our website … every Midweek.
With the boring bio, plugs & small talk done. Let’s shift into what you can expect in version 2.5 of Midweek Madness. If you don’t care and just want the All-Big Ten Teams and Power Rankings scroll til you see a picture!
The ISO
Part of the genesis of this column was to write about every Big Ten team and try to cover them equally with one feature on a new Big Ten team each week.
That was possible with 14 Big Ten teams but not 18. I would have to feature a team week 1 when I haven’t learned anything yet and write about a team week 18 when that team is most likely well defined as either in the tournament or out of the tournament (unless I hazard a great bubble team guess 17 weeks before I write about them).
So, I may still wave off my teammates and iso my defender to go mano a mano about a Big Ten team a couple times this year but this will not be the headliner of each post.
Instead…
The Big Three
The headliner in most weeks will be me recapping three big things from the prior weekend of Basketball and/or any big Tuesday games.
These three things can be anything. A player on a hot streak, refs costing a team a game, a problem I see emerging on a team, a breakdown of a Big Ten title defining game, shoutouts to other teams across the country, a fan doing something on the TV, literally anything!
I’ll write some words that will be part recap and part opinion. You might agree, you might not. But in case I can’t hit everything I will also write about…
Good Game Bad Game
I try to highlight a player or two who had a good game or who had a bad game. I might also take some liberty here and take shots or give praise to refs, student sections, coaches, anything that did good or bad in CBB that week.
Award Winning Wings
Affectionately named after how every restaurant has “award winning wings”, this mild-sauce pun intended section will be a recurring one filled with superlatives like player of the week, coach of the week, etc. but also might be a tracker for different teams or players.
Last year, I had an Ethan Morton three point tracker (he made __ threes) and a “Did Louisville win a game this week” update. Both of those are technically on the table this year with Morton at Colorado State and Louisville expecting to win a lot more under Coach Pat Kelsey, but I might have to write some new material here. Stay Tuned.
The Look Ahead
The hard part about writing a weekly CBB article and trying to incorporate betting is that the lines aren’t posted well in advance like Football.
So, I scrapped that last year. This year, I am going to try and write at least something about the big games coming up and give a little bit of a preview and potentially moneyline picks if I can’t incorporate spreads.
This part is still under construction so be cognizant of that.
No Explanation Big Ten Power Rankings
Finally, all Midweek Madness articles end with the secret ballot of the No Explanation Committee and their undercover rankings for the Big Ten that week.
Luckily thru my great media presence I am able to be a courier for their brave ratings of the programs in the Big Ten conference. However, if you don’t like their ratings I am just the messenger and shooting the messenger is just in poor taste, dude.
With this preseason ‘splainer Midweek Madness intro basically wrapped up… I will end with some real content. My All-Big Ten Teams are written below with brief explanations for each squad. Then after that, I have my very own One Sentence Big Ten Preseason Power Rankings.
Hopefully this wets your whistle and you’re just as excited to take a timeout and read Midweek Madness as I am to write it for you.
My Preseason All-Big Ten Teams
Before I could make my All-Big Ten teams, I put together a list of 33 or so players from the now 18 teams in the Big Ten that could potentially make an All Big Ten team and I still guarantee you by season’s end one to two of the 15 selections will come from outside my long list. However, for a preseason selection process I had the players that you could reasonably expect to make it.
Now, I actually am sticking to the rule that an All-Conference team should be just 5 players unlike the AP preseason team that is 10 players long. My 10 players selected is also significantly different than their nominees as half of mine are different picks.
The least debatable pick is Purdue’s Braden Smith who was the AP’s preseason Big Ten POY and the only unanimous selection. The true Junior is going to be a monster this year as he takes over the offense from Zach Edey and the only debate with him will be whether or not he’s a first team All-American, not All-Big Ten. After Smith is where you can take creative liberties.
One left turn I made was to put Myles Rice on my first team. Rice was a first team All-Pac 12 selection last year and I envision him as the leader for Indiana (over Oumar Ballo) who will be one of the teams pushing for the Big Ten title. I feel confident that he will be on one of the first two teams and I’m going with the 1st team for his first year in the Big Ten.
Similarly, I went with Great Osobor as a proven commodity to make the 1st Team. The Washington big was the Mountain West Player of the Year at Utah State and even if year 1 of Danny Sprinkle in Seattle isn’t successful, I think Osobor will be undeniably one of the Big Ten’s best and will be the only big on the first team.
I zagged on the media poll by taking Rutgers 5-star freshman Ace Bailey as a 1st team instead of Rutgers 5-star freshman Dylan Harper. More on Harper later, but I chose Bailey because he is the higher rated prospect and I think he will be right there with Osobor, Smith and others for leading the conference in scoring.
My hardest decision on 1st team was what guard to put in the final spot. Could Harper and Bailey make 1st team if they both average 18ppg but Rutgers finishes near the middle of the conference? Will Payton Sandfort and Iowa be good enough to warrant making the top team? Will Bruce Thornton do enough to be a 1st teamer or will OSU be more of a shared backcourt with Meechie Johnson?
Ultimately, I went with Jackson Shelstad from Oregon. Shelstad was great as a Freshman and has to be listed with all the other best guards in the conference even if we aren’t familiar with him yet as Big Ten fans. That unfamiliarity will be an advantage as Big Ten guards won’t be used to guarding him either. Expect a big sophomore bump and him to steal a 1st Team bid even if Oregon is just pretty good and not great.
Now for my second team…
Bruce Thornton was a quick selection for the first spot on team no. 2. Thornton will be near the top in assists, steals, and maybe points too for the conference. One of the best all-around players and now one of the most experienced is an obvious pick and really a snub from 1st team.
Harper slots in on 2nd team too as Rutgers is the only school with two selections. These two will be special. How special Rutgers will be is uh… up for debate, but if Harper and Bailey were on separate teams the POY debate would probably revolve around both of them. They aren’t so they cannibalize some opportunities and therefore some votes.
One of my biggest swings here is picking Wisconsin sophomore John Blackwell to make the 2nd team. Here’s my thinking… Wisconsin will win more games than they lose like they (almost) always do. Blackwell scored 8ppg as a bench piece Freshman last year. Someone is going to have to fill the holes from AJ Storr and Chucky Hepburn’s departure. Blackwell is the logical choice. I am predicting here more than most preseason lists that are more based on last year’s performance.
One of my safer picks is Vlad Goldin. Michigan will be running so many pick and rolls this year and Goldin is one of the most efficient bigs in College basketball. Dusty May’s prized big will be the main bright spot of the season most likely and in a down year for Bigs in the conference he makes my team.
My last spot was between a bunch of players. I passed on Iowa players Owen Freeman or Payton Sandfort. I decided to omit reigning Big Ten DPOY Ace Baldwin as I think Penn State will lose too much. I went with a wait and see approach with Illinois’ Kasparas Jakucionis, UCLA’s Dylan Andrews, and Maryland’s Ja’Kobi Gillespie. I couldn’t decide on any single Michigan State separating themselves.
My hardest cut was Brooks Barnhizer from Northwestern. He will no doubt be one of the best players in the Big Ten and he will do everything for them, but I couldn’t get there with his scoring to believe he will be one of the Top-10 players in an 18 team league as the best glue guy. Sorry.
My last pick is by far my wildest one in USC’s Saint Thomas. I am higher on USC than everyone else and I’ve been saying it all summer. People will start to catch on soon especially after the Trojans beat no.6 Gonzaga in an exhibition last week. Realistically, the safe choice is Xavier transfer Desmond Claude if I want to pick a USC player, but I have a feeling that Thomas’ incredible play at Northern Colorado is going to translate. Thomas’ per game numbers were vaunted but his underlying efficiency numbers show that he is anything but a good stats bad team guy. His body type will work in the Big Ten and he fills a hole in the forward position this year so congrats Mr. Thomas!
If I am horribly wrong on any of my 10 picks it will be this one, but I could be right and be the only one with him on my Preseason list. Might be worth the gamble.
Now, that I’ve given my preseason player predictions let’s hit Preseason Power Rankings.
One Sentence Big Ten Power Rankings
Disclaimer these are my own power rankings and are unrelated to the entirely separate No Explanation Power Rankings committee.
Remember no games have been played so if you hate where I put your favorite team you are probably right. Or maybe you’re wrong and they’re worse. We don’t know yet, because there’s no evidence to really evaluate any of these judgements, but hey power rankings are fun right?
- Purdue – No right answer for no.1…too soon for UCLA, IU needs to prove it, Boilers & Painter earned this spot for now.
- Indiana – IU has too much talent and it will be a Show-me-the-money season for Woodson
- UCLA – Need 1-2 players to join Dylan Andrews as All-Big Ten caliber players to win the league.
- Rutgers – The two best players in the league this season will be true freshman for the Scarlet Knights.
- Michigan State – Why are we off them when nobody has a big this year?
- Ohio State – A LOT of unknown, but might have the highest ceiling in the league if the talent pans out.
- Illinois – A ton of YOUNG talent with potentially no defense and Underwood is still a safe bet to outperform this ranking.
- Oregon – Ducks will be a disruptor but might be just too small.
- Wisconsin – Not sure they’ll miss Hepburn as much as people think.
- Iowa – Player development & 1-2 transfers is more profitable than 7+ transfers
- Michigan – Dusty May would have to be a helluva coach to make this team be a top half team.
- USC – Don’t count the Muss Bus out.
- Northwestern – I feel stupid having the Wildcats and Chris Collins this low and I hope they prove me wrong.
- Maryland – Weird roster and Kevin Willard needs to prove himself again to be higher.
- Nebraska – Hoiberg has a few longshots that if they hit the Huskers could make March Madness again.
- Minnesota – Gophers will be much more competitive than this ranking suggests.
- Penn State – Didn’t do enough this offseason to push up the table.
- Washington – Someone has to be last…the Huskies in year one under Danny Sprinkle are an easy pick.
Thanks for reading and I will see you back here next Wednesday for some Game 1 observations and/or overreactions!