Bring On The Cats, a Kansas State Wildcats community

We recap the tail end of the Purdue Boilermakers' men's basketball regular season, and hand out traditional Big Ten awards (POY, 1st/2nd/3rd teams, 6th Man, DPOY, All-Freshman team), along with a few alternative awards (Doucher of the Year, Crankiest Coach, All-Fun team, All-Ugly Team, Goober of the Year). We also give our thoughts on both the NCAA Tournament and the CBI, previewing Purdue's matchup with Western Illinois.

The guys from Minnesota blog From The Barn invited me back for another preseason Big Ten basketball roundtable to discuss such things as who will be the surprise team this season, how the conference will shake out, and which players to watch -- including who the most feared player in the league is. UPDATE: Question #4 - Predicting the Big Ten's final standings

Despite the success of the team this fall that plays what Rodger would call "real football", the team with the best chance to take home a Big Ten title is still the men's soccer squad who took home the crown last season. The 'Cats are struggling for the first time this season with consecutive non-conference midweek losses sandwiching a sloppy Big Ten win over Michigan State to maintain a first place tie with Indiana. They have the weekend off of Big Ten play, but play the tenth ranked, Notre Dame Fightin' Irish Tuesday. See how I think the Wildcats will do and what's on tap for the rest of the Big Ten this weekend.

Big Ten soccer starts this weekend. See who has the necessary ingredients to win the conference based on my experiences and observations over the last five years. Northwestern and Indiana are the early front-runners.

We at Big Ten Powerhouse, a conference basketball blog, are dedicating this week to the Huskers. Come check us out a be sure to stop by later in the week.

Corn Nation (Nebraska's SB Nation blog) must have wrote an article critical of the B1G non-conference schedule. Purdue's coach wrote him an e-mail in response which really does a good job explaining the difficulties for the teams in the northern conferences when it comes to the sport. Read the post, he did a great job in arguing his points! (p.s. they are playing for 3-0 on the weekend right now, Boiler Up!!!)

The Big Ten and the Pac-12 have agreed to a league-wide non-conference scheduling arrangement, effective as of 2017. In addition to cementing the eight-game conference schedule (SEC, take note), doesn't this basically ensure that the tentatively-set 2020 and 2021 meetings between Georgia and Ohio State are virtually assured of not happening? Go 'Dawgs!

In addition to playing host, Wake Forest University is kind enough to stream this NCAA Women's College Cup 2nd round match, starting at 4pm Central.

The Newark Star-Ledger is reporting that prominent New Jersey politicians, including Governor Chris Christie and Senator Frank Lautenberg, have offered to lobby for Rutgers University athletics during the ongoing period of conference reshuffling. Those gestures are appreciated, and it may well make sense for RU to tap those resources behind the scenes. In public however, there is little value to making a public spectacle, making Rutgers savvy to request that local politicians stay in the background now. Rutgers's entire bid to join the ACC and Big Ten is centered around dignity, prudence, and good judgment. Rutgers is the academically-oriented athletic program where student athletes don't make headlines for the wrong reasons. Nothing makes a school or an athletic department look worse than in appearing to prostrate and beg through the media. What did Louisville and West Virginia get out of Mitch McConnell and Joe Manchin trading press releases besides negative publicity? In fact, WVU's suit against the Big East publicly cites the comments of UConn president Susan Herbst and CT Governor Dan Malloy. Rutgers is clearly making the right call in trying to stay low key, and maneuvering behind the scenes. Besides, nothing's going to happen until Missouri and Notre Dame move anyway. Wouldn't it just be perfect if ND jumps to the ACC, and Boston College ends up blocking UConn's bid for the ACC due to their inability to keep their collective mouths shut in 2003? That scenario could be very well in play at the moment, and would be the perfect validation for Rutgers and Tim Pernetti playing it cool and refusing to panic.