Express Word: Preseason Big Ten and more

The Weekly Word is GoldandBlack.com’s weekly opinion column, written by Brian Neubert. In today’s edition, we discuss Purdue basketball preseason polling, football and more.

ON PURDUE AND PRESEASON POLLING

It’s your favorite time of year, Preseason Polls SZN, for October rankings to be etched into stone based on the opinions and sometimes inattentive whims of people who cover one team about 17 others.

Michigan is the Big Ten’s shiny new toy and its nouveau riche, as it made everyone well aware in the spring, and will get some contrarian preseason-favorite attention, but Purdue has and shoul run away with the pole-sitter status, for whatever it’s worth. Braden Smith has already claimed preseason player-of-the-year,

In the spirit of transparency, here is the ballot I submitted to both the Big Ten and for the conference beat writers’ unofficial poll.

Standings (1 through 18)
1. Purdue
2. Michigan
3. Illinois
4. UCLA
5. Michigan State
6. Oregon
7. Washington
8. Wisconsin
9. Ohio State
10. Maryland
11. Iowa
12. USC
13. Indiana
14. Northwestern
15. Nebraska
16. Minnesota
17. Penn State
18. Rutgers

Five-man first-team all-league 
Braden Smith, Purdue
Trey Kaufman-Renn, Purdue
Bruce Thornton, Ohio State
Donoven Dent, UCLA
Bennett Stirtz, Iowa

Five-man second-team all-league
Tyler Bilodeau, UCLA
John Blackwell, Wisconsin
Desmond Claude, Washington
Yaxel Lendeborg, Michigan
Nick Martinelli, Northwestern

Freshman of the year
Mihailo Petrovic, Illinois
I guess?

Player of the year
Braden Smith, Purdue
POY isn’t just stats and wins, but influence, too, and don’t take Smith’s influence for granted just because he’s been around forever.

Transfer of the year
Bennett Stirtz, Iowa
He and Tucker DeVries at Indiana might have two of the greenest lights in the history of Big Ten basketball. Donoven Dent is going to have a say in this as is Yaxel Landeborg, based on what everyone is out here saying. Oscar Cluff at Purdue will be hard pressed to win this, but I’m not sure there’s a more important need-filler among this year’s crop of transfers.

NOW THE WEST IS FUN

An interesting undercurrent to this season to come: The West’s outlook.

UCLA might be awesome this year, Oregon has two of the best returnees in the league and Washington one of the league’s best rosters.

They might all be very good. But, can they win enough road games outside their regions to really factor into the conference title race. The guess here is no. It’s not just travel, but the reality that it’s really hard winning at Purdue and Michigan State and Indiana and, yes, Nebraska.

What they can do is influence the race by knocking off contenders at home.

Purdue’s Jan. 20 game in Pauley Pavilion might be its most daunting assignment on its conference schedule. The Boilermakers had better not suffer any of the travel hangovers that plagued the league last season because a home game with Illinois and trips to Indiana and Maryland are waiting.

Still, it seems like an OK schedule for Purdue. There’s no Ohio State turnaround jumping right off the page now like there was last season.

I haven’t looked at everyone’s schedule, but the Big Ten needed to learn from last season about how to give TV what it’s paying for with competitively compromising anyone, especially its best teams.

ON PURDUE AND MINNESOTA

Another game for Purdue against the Big Ten’s middle and another look at what Purdue is striving to be. Under manic P.J. Fleck, Minnesota has been stable, disciplined, good at home and just a hard out. They’ve preyed on teams that beat themselves. That’s where upward mobility in a suffocating conference begins.

I didn’t think Fleck would have longevity wherever he went after Western Michigan. I didn’t think his schtick would age well, but he’s really elevated that program back to where Jerry Kill had it and seems like he can keep in there.

The Purdue and Minnesota jobs are different but tiered similarly in the college football ecosystem. If it can be done at Minnesota, It can be done at Purdue, not that it hasn’t been before,