B1G football/basketball 2015-16 Power Rankings
Let’s be honest. Most bragging rights come from the football and basketball programs.
Sure, you can have a dominant hockey team or your school can be a powerhouse in volleyball — Nebraska and Penn State know about that — but athletic success is often measured by how the two biggest revenue sport teams perform.
With March Madness upon us, schools like Kansas,Virginia and Villanova are the powers when just a few short months ago, they were afterthoughts in the college football world. Places like Indiana, Maryland and Purdue are known as basketball schools, which hurts their case in the “we have better sports than you do” argument.
So instead of breaking down who has the best athletics — that could get complicated in a hurry — let’s take a look at which B1G schools are the top basketball football/combination programs right now.
(CBS sports football ranking + KenPom basketball ranking)
14. Rutgers (386)
It’s never good when you combine for two conference wins and both of your head coaches get fired. The good news is, it can’t get much worse for Rutgers than it was in 2015-16.
13. Minnesota (279)
This is more a reflection of the basketball team, which managed just eight wins. If not for the football team winning its first bowl game in a decade, the Gophers would’ve cracked the 300s.
12. Illinois (201)
No bowl game and no postseason basketball tournament usually doesn’t mean it was a good year at a Power Five school. We already saw athletic director Josh Whitman pull a quick trigger on Bill Cubit, and there are many who think John Groce could be next after his third straight NCAA Tournament-less season.
11. Penn State (190)
The Lions showed more progress on the basketball court than they did on the football field. There certainly appears to be more patience with Pat Chambers than James Franklin even though the basketball team missed the NCAA Tournament for the fifth straight year.
10. Nebraska (159)
At this time two years ago, the Huskers could’ve possibly been in the top four in this category. But a six-win football season coupled with a sub-.500 basketball season didn’t make 2015-16 a year to remember for the two programs.
9. Purdue (115)
The least amount of balance from any two programs on this list came from Purdue. The football team’s No. 105-ranking weighed down the basketball team’s No. 10 spot, which it earned after losing in the B1G Tournament Championship. You don’t have to tell anybody in West Lafayette that the football program has some catching up to do.
8. Maryland (114)
Speaking of unbalanced programs, Maryland is right there with Purdue. A preseason top-five ranking got Maryland fans through a rough football season, but even that hasn’t been what many hoped it would be. The team many in College Park said was the best since the Juan Dixon days struggled down the stretch and was dealt a five-seed — in the same regional as top overall team Kansas — in the NCAA Tournament.
7. Northwestern (101)
The Wildcats had a couple of frustrating endings to seasons that started with great promise. The football program cracked the Associated Press top 13 but suffered a blowout loss in the Outback Bowl. The basketball team started off 13-1 with only a respectable neutral site loss to eventual-No. 1 seed North Carolina, only to once again fall short of its first NCAA Tournament berth. Even worse, the Wildcats’ season ended after an apparent missed travel in the B1G Tournament in which Chris Collins complained Northwestern didn’t have “the brand” to get that call. Ouch.
6. Indiana (85)
For the first time in the last eight years, people were talking about IU football in December. Rarely, if ever, does that even happen in November. Even crazier was the fact that it came in a year in which the IU basketball team was in the preseason top 15. A bowl game and an outright B1G basketball title add up to a solid year for the two programs, regardless of whether or not IU can get past the Sweet 16 for the first time in 14 years.
5. Ohio State (75)
In a way, the football and basketball teams were polar opposites. With all of the NFL prospects the defending champion Buckeyes had, it was repeat or bust. The basketball team, however, was full of youth and had more preseason questions than expectations. An NIT team they were, but coupled with the football team’s top-five finish, the Buckeyes would likely still rank among the top 20 combo schools in 2015-16.
4. Michigan (68)
There are a lot of people that are probably saying the difference between Michigan and Ohio State on the football field was greater than the one on the basketball court. While that may be true, the Wolverines made a nice B1G Tournament run and cracked the NCAA field to move ahead of their rivals in KenPom’s pre-NCAA Tournament rankings. They were also one of nine top-25 football programs do make the NCAA Tournament.
3. Wisconsin (55)
In the last 10 years, Wisconsin and Michigan State seem to always be the cream of the crop in this conversation. Despite rough starts for both programs, 2015-16 was no different. It produced another double-digit win season for the football program and another NCAA berth for the basketball program. There aren’t too many schools that can claim five combined conference titles in the last five years, either.
Oh, and this:
#Wisconsin has played in a bowl game AND made the NCAA men’s hoops tourney every year since 02-03–the longest FB-hoops run in NCAA history.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) March 14, 2016
2. Iowa (29)
If the Hawkeyes had met preseason expectations in both sports, they probably would’ve been fifth or sixth on this list. Instead, both overachieved. Even though both programs struggled down the stretch, they spent time ranked in the Associated Press top five. Michigan State and Oklahoma are the only other two schools that can claim such a feat. That’s impressive any way you draw it up.
1. Michigan State (9)
In case you haven’t figured it out by now, it’s been quite the year in East Lansing. A B1G Championship Game victory in football and a B1G Tournament title in basketball added some nice hardware to the trophy case. After the school’s first College Football Playoff berth, the Spartan basketball team responded by winning the B1G Tournament. Despite their No. 1-seed snub, many are picking MSU to win it all. That would obviously solidify MSU’s combined-program ranking atop the country. As MSU athletic director Mark Hollis said after the B1G Championship win against Iowa, “We’ve got it going right now in East Lansing.”