- Fresh off a record-setting season that saw four Big Ten teams reach the NCAA Sweet Sixteen and Indiana advance to its first Elite Eight since 1983, the Big Ten is ready to take the next step as the 41st season of Big Ten women’s basketball tips off Tuesday with a full slate of nine schools in action and all 14 schools making their season debuts by Wednesday evening. All but two Big Ten schools will start off at home, with Indiana opening at Butler and Purdue visiting Western Kentucky, both on Wednesday.
- The Big Ten shared top honors among all conferences with five Top 25 teams in both the Associated Press and Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA)/USA Today preseason polls. In the AP balloting, Maryland leads the Big Ten pack, coming in at No. 4, followed by No. 8 Indiana, No. 9 Iowa, No. 11 Michigan and No. 17 Ohio State, with Michigan State also receiving votes. In the WBCA/USA Today poll, Maryland was ranked fifth, Indiana was seventh, Michigan was 10th, Iowa was 11th and Ohio State was 25th, with Michigan State, Northwestern and Rutgers all receiving votes.
- This year’s AP preseason poll marks the first time the Big Ten has had three top-10 teams in that balloting at any time since Feb. 9, 2004, the first time there have been four Big Ten teams in the AP top 15 since Feb. 6, 2006, and the first time with five AP top 20 teams since the final 2013-14 poll. What’s more, the last time the Big Ten had three top-10 teams in the AP preseason poll was 1993-94 (the conference had never had four top-15 or five top-20 preseason AP schools before this year).
- The 2021-22 Big Ten season will feature nearly 70 percent (23) of last year’s first-, second-team and honorable mention all-conference honorees returning, including seven All-Americans — Indiana’s Grace Berger and Mackenzie Holmes, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark (also the reigning National Co-Freshman of the Year), Maryland’s Katie Benzan, Diamond Miller and Ashley Owusu and Michigan’s Naz Hillmon. Also expected to return are the two-time Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year Veronica Burton of Northwestern, along with reigning Big Ten Sixth Player of the Year Maddie Burke of Penn State.
- The WBCA and the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame recently announced the preseason watch lists for its national player of the year awards at the five traditional court positions. No fewer than 13 students representing six Big Ten schools were named to the preseason watch lists at all five positions. In addition, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark was named an AP Preseason All-American, with Maryland’s Ashley Owusu and Michigan’s Naz Hillmon also receiving votes for the honor from the national media.
- During the past two seasons, the Big Ten has gone a combined 167-42 (.799) in non-conference regular-season games, the best two-year stretch in conference history. Last year, Big Ten programs set a conference record for the best non-conference winning percentage in regular-season games for a single campaign at .846 (44-8), which was also the second-highest non-conference winning percentage by any conference last year.
- A season ago, the Big Ten delivered one of the most exciting brands of basketball in the country, with a conference-record six Big Ten schools averaging better than 75 points per game (Maryland, Iowa, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State and Rutgers, with Indiana knocking on the door at 74.4 ppg.). The Big Ten led the nation with seven teams in the top 35 in scoring, including the country’s two highest-scoring teams — Maryland (90.8 ppg.) and Iowa (86.1 ppg.), with the Terrapins the first Big Ten school ever to lead the country in scoring. It was the first time one conference had the top two scoring teams in the nation in the same season since 2012-13, when the old BIG EAST (pre-realignment) pulled off that feat with UConn and Notre Dame, respectively.
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