Purdue Picked 9th in Way Too Early Rankings

The Boiling Point: Ann Arbor columnist ranks Purdue men’s basketball team 9th in way too early rankings

Michael Rothstein of AnnArbor.com has ranked Purdue 9th in his off season Big Ten power rankings. His top 4, I wouldn’t disagree with at all. The Big Ten is way down next year and teams 2-5 could finish in any order. Ohio St is the far and away favorite especially with Sullinger coming back. His first problem, besides making rankings two weeks after the season is over, is it doesn’t use much logic.

Rothstein says if there is a team that can compete with O$U, it’s Michigan, even WITHOUT Darius Morris. I think Michigan is going to be good next year and Belein has them going in the right direction, but without Morris, that is a completely different team. For Michigan St and Wisconsin he admits they lose a lot but you can never discount them for being towards the top of the league. Well Rothstein, with that logic how do you have Purdue 9th?! They only have a two time Big Ten pre-season player of the year coming back in Robbie Hummel! Here is what he has to say about it:

"The Boilermakers lose more than any team in the Big Ten. JaJuan Johnson and E’Twaun Moore helped rebuild the Purdue program. Now, there are more questions than stars. Will Robbie Hummel, off back-to-back torn ACLs, be able to play at 100 percent? Can two of Ryne Smith, Kelsey Barlow and Terone Johnson become reliable scorers? How will the defense look without JaJuan Johnson’s dynamic shot-blocking ability? Purdue may be better than ninth, but right now there are too many unknowns."

So let me get this straight, every other team can have unknowns in Rothstein’s rankings and they’ll battle through them, but Purdue who has a 3 time Big Ten COY and has finished in the top 3 of the Big Ten the last 3 years can’t? I’m pretty sure every single team in the Big Ten has unknowns since the previous season just ended. Purdue will not finish below Northwestern, Indiana, and Iowa. Northwestern will be down and Iowa will be better than last year; McCaffry has them on right track, but they aren’t that good. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Northwestern finish in the bottom 3. Indiana 7th?! Did he forget that they finished last in the Big Ten the past 3 years? One player in Zeller does not make them 7th. You have to have a coach that can coach to do that.

Rothstein needs to take off the Michigan colored glasses, do some actual analysis of the teams before ranking them, and then put it off until right before the season because this is terrible. To top it off he doesn’t even think anything is wrong. A reader commented asking if these were a joke. He responded with what issues are there with it? This just adds to the notion of pre-season rankings, especially like these, are ridiculous.