Big Ten basketball: 10 burning B1G questions for 2024-25 season

The time has come, Big Ten basketball fans! With Halloween right behind, November is here in full swing, and that means college basketball has moved from on the horizon to right on your doorstep.

If you’re like me, the inevitable start of basketball comes through the front door like a wrecking ball in the middle of football season. Others have been waiting and watching with anticipation as 4 teams from the West Coast wait to see if they can handle B1G hoops on the regular.

No matter which group you reside in, we can finally re-add hoops action to our sports viewing pleasure. But before we get there, we have a few tasks to tackle.

Like, what are the major questions facing the B1G this season? Glad you asked!

We’ve tackled the biggest questions for a marquee season ahead, so look no further. Let’s get to it!

10. Can Mick Cronin bounce back while moving to the B1G?

Cronin’s tenure at UCLA began with a solid season unfortunately punctuated by the cancellation of the 2020 postseason. However, that gave way to 3 straight trips to the NCAA Tournament and a Final Four appearance in 2021.

The charge was led by Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Tyger Campbell, stalwarts for those Bruins under Cronin. So, how did UCLA respond without those veterans a season ago?

The Bruins came back down to earth, finishing under .500 overall for the 1st time since the 2015-16 season while going .500 in Pac-12 play for the 1st time in Cronin’s tenure. Now, Cronin faces the prospects of getting his team back to March Madness but having to go through the B1G to do so.

And, on the surface, there are still plenty of question marks for this roster.

In terms of high school recruiting, UCLA signed just 2 players, headlined by 4-star point guard Trent Perry, a top-50 player nationally. The major focus came via the transfer portal with 6 new additions, a group that ranked 9th in terms of transfer recruiting classes per 247 Sports.

It will be up to Cronin to prove that group can gel and that he and his staff made the right call in putting this roster together. That’s easier said than done in a deeper-than-ever B1G.

9. Who is the best newcomer in the league?

To erase any confusion, the “newcomer” referenced here is talking about teams, not a player. So that brings Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington to the forefront.

And, let’s be honest for a second: How they fared in the Pac-12 a season ago does carry some weight. But it’s not necessarily a major weight as it translates to the move to the B1G.

USC is even making the transition with a new head coach in Eric Musselman, but that could be a great sign. The Trojans finally pulled the plug on the hot-and-cold tenure of Andy Enfield after a sub-.500 record with a talented roster.

We’ve already touched on Cronin’s UCLA team, and whether he rebuilt the Bruins’ roster to resemble a typical UCLA-style team or crafted his group into one capable of competing in the B1G will determine how it fares this season.

Like USC, Washington is also moving forward with a new head coach. But similar to the Trojans, moving on from Mike Hopkins to hire Danny Sprinkle was likely a must for this move.

And while last year’s results don’t matter anymore, it’s also true that Oregon is the most stable program of the 4 at the time of this writing. The Ducks were 4th in the Pac-12 and captured the Pac-12 Tournament last year, and they have longtime head coach Dana Altman leading the charge once again.

Ultimately, no program is joining the B1G to settle for 2nd place. But it will be pertinent to see which West Coast school has an early leg up in the transition.

8. How will Dusty May fare in 1st season at Michigan?

Now that May is here, we can say it: The Juwan Howard experiment was a massive failure. And while I would love to dissect that further, now is not the time.

The main point? Dusty May has his work cut out for him.

The good news? May comes to Ann Arbor after turning FAU into an NCAA Tournament-caliber program, and his early work with the Wolverines seems promising.

Like any new coach these days, May panned the transfer portal aggressively, adding 6 players in a group that 247 Sports ranked as the 10th-best transfer class in the country. That group includes a solid mix of power program players and mid-major guys.

One of the key pieces is Vladislav Goldin, May’s towering 7-foot-1 center from his time at FAU. May also sought out help from the B1G and the SEC by adding small forward Sam Walters (Alabama), guard Roddy Gayle Jr. (Ohio State) and point guard Tre Donaldson (Auburn).

Each player in that quartet received a 4-star transfer ranking. Danny Wolf, a transfer from Yale and another 7-footer, also received a 4-star rating.

If May is to be successful out of the gate, look for that group to play a major role.

7. Can Musselman deliver a March moment for USC?

While Enfield delivered 3 straight NCAA Tournament appearances before his fateful final season, consistent March success has eluded the Trojans. To rectify that, USC landed a man who built his reputation on getting the most out of his team in March with Musselman.

That should be viewed as a strong hire, though expectations should be tempered a bit. After back-to-back Elite Eight appearances in 2021 and 2022, Musselman’s Arkansas program heavily regressed in the final 2 seasons of his tenure, save for a glorious upset of Kansas in the 2023 NCAA Tournament.

The good news is Musselman knows how to dial up a game plan in the Big Dance. The question mark is whether or not he can build USC into a program capable of handling the rigors of a full B1G schedule.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but like the other 1st-year coaches mentioned in this piece, Musselman went to the transfer portal to overhaul his roster. It resulted in the Trojans landing 11 transfer players, a group that ranked 18th nationally per 247 Sports.

Musselman did pull guys from power programs like Wesley Yates III (Washington), Terrance Williams II (Michigan) and Desmond Claude (Xavier), but he didn’t stop there. Kevin Patton Jr. (San Diego), Chibuzo Agbo (Boise State) and Matt Knowling (Yale) are just a few of the mid-major stars to join the Trojans for the 2024-25 season.

And with that amount of turnover, it makes USC one of the biggest question marks in all of college basketball this season.

If the Trojans gel, and Musselman gets the kind of guard play he traditionally developed with the Razorbacks, fans might be surprised to see the Trojans hang around late in the season.

6. Is Mike Woodson’s IU breakthrough coming?

Things for IU have certainly been better under Woodson than they were under Archie Miller. But it’s no secret you do not come to Indiana to simply be better than your predecessor. (Especially considering that was not a terribly difficult bar to eclipse.)

Woodson does have a 2nd-place finish in the B1G from the 2022-23 season, and that counts for something. However, the Hoosiers wound up tied with Northwestern of all programs that season, and they finished 3 games off the lead of Purdue when it was all said and done.

And for all the positivity of that performance and an NCAA Tournament victory, Woodson followed it up by being back on the outside of March Madness looking in. That’s unacceptable.

Add everything together, and it’s clear Woodson is still looking for the breakthrough to get the Hoosiers back to consistently playing at a high level. He needs to make sure that happens this year, because it will not be a great offseason if IU misses the Big Dance again.

5. What is the expectation at Ohio State?

Ohio State traditionally had some high expectations under Chris Holtmann after reviving the program from the tail end of the Thad Matta era. However, it all eventually collapsed in on itself after a sub-.500 performance in 2022-23 and a midseason firing a year ago.

To make matters worse for Holtmann, interim head coach Jake Diebler took that same team and rattled off an 8-3 record down the stretch. To no surprise, Diebler was given the permanent job.

For as great as last year’s story was, it’s fair to wonder if a full-time B1G job is the right fit for a 38-year-old coach without any prior head coaching experience. But expectations are still high in Columbus.

In fact, at least 1 voter felt strongly enough about the Buckeyes to award OSU a 1st-place vote in the preseason media poll. And Ohio State checked in at 8th overall from the new 18-team league.

Considering the makeup of the league, that would probably be a major win for Diebler’s 1st full season at the helm.

4. Is Braden Smith the obvious choice for B1G POTY?

We’re about to find out a lot about Smith and Purdue’s chances without Zach Edey in the middle. Heading into the season, the star point guard for the Boilermakers was the heavy favorite for preseason Player of the Year, and it’s understandable … based on last year’s numbers.

As a sophomore, Smith averaged 12 points, a B1G-leading 7.5 assists, 5.8 rebounds and 1.6 steals while shooting better than 43 percent from 3-point range. If he does that again or improves on those numbers anywhere, he should win the award.

There’s just 1 potential problem: Edey is not around to help him out. Smith also ended the year with a pair of rough outings in Purdue’s trip to the Final Four.

Recent history also says to fade the point guard. So if forced to choose, I would take the field over Smith.

In the past 10 seasons, just 1 point guard has captured the B1G’s top honor, and that was Michigan State’s Cassius Winston in 2019. Across that same time period, the award was won by a big man 6 times.

Two players to keep an eye on are Indiana’s Oumar Ballo and Rutgers’ Ace Bailey. Both received votes in the preseason poll, so some folks have the duo on their radars.

Ballo was a 3-year star at Arizona who averaged a double-double and 1.3 blocks last season. Bailey is a versatile player on the wing at 6-foot-10 who was ranked the No. 2 overall player in the class of 2024 per the 247 Sports Composite.

I’m not down on what Smith can do. But history is history for a reason.

3. Forget the title drought; can the B1G look better in the AP Poll?

The B1G still sits on a major title drought, without a national champion since Michigan State won it all in 2000. That’s a problem, but a quick glance at the AP Poll sheds light on an even bigger problem.

Once viewed among the deepest leagues in the country on an annual basis, the B1G has been … not that in recent seasons. In each of the past 2 seasons, the B1G has ended the year with 2 ranked teams in the final AP Poll. (Spoiler alert: Purdue was 1 of those teams both seasons.)

To anyone who questions whether that’s a big deal, consider that the last time the B1G had fewer than 3 teams ranked at the end of the season in consecutive campaigns came from 2002-04. That’s 20 years ago.

And, at least at the start of the season, it doesn’t look likely to get better. The B1G had just 4 teams ranked in this year’s preseason AP Poll and none inside the top 10.

By comparison, the SEC claimed the No. 2 spot on the preseason poll (Alabama) and produced 9 teams in the top 25.

Can the B1G deliver a season to show the depth is once again alive and well, or will it be another lowly finish to the regular season?

2. Has Tom Izzo figured out the modern game of college basketball?

Izzo’s status as one of the greatest coaches of his generation has been solidified. However, he is not the 1st coach to struggle with the modern era of constant change with heavy transfer movement and NIL deals.

And when I say struggle, I do mean struggle. Izzo is an all-timer, don’t get it twisted, but criticism of his program post-2020 is more than valid.

Don’t take my word for it; just look at the numbers.

In 4 seasons since the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Tournament, Michigan State’s average seeding in the Big Dance has been 8.5. Twice, the Spartans have been seeded 9 or lower, and they have not been seeded higher than 7 in that span.

By comparison, MSU had an average seed just under 4 from the start of the 2011-12 season through the 2018-19 season. In those 8 seasons, the Spartans were seeded below the 4-line just twice, with 3 seasons as a 1 or a 2 seed.

Why has Michigan State struggled to keep up? Part of that is likely related to the transfer portal, where the Spartans have landed some key pieces but traditionally passed on 1-year players.

That has changed a bit this season, but a lot of pressure will be placed on Frankie Fidler (formerly at Omaha) to produce in a key role for the Spartans. That’s not to say Fidler can’t do that, but it’s an awkward outlook for Izzo’s group once again.

And remember what we’re talking about here. This isn’t a question of whether Michigan State can scrap into the NCAA Tournament and pull off an upset or 2. That has never been the expectation for Izzo’s Spartans.

Michigan State has not captured at least a share of the B1G title since the canceled postseason of 2020, and the Spartans have not won the B1G Tournament since 2019. Even more frustrating for fans, they know MSU can be dominant in the league after capturing a share of the league title for 3 straight seasons from 2018-20.

But things have changed, and if Izzo wants to get back to those regular-season successes, he needs to change, too.

1. Does the B1G still run through West Lafayette?

Purdue is looking for the ultra-rare outright 3-peat in the B1G. In fact, the Boilermakers were the last team to accomplish the feat, but it came all the way back in the mid-’90s under Gene Keady.

Heading into the season, the Boilermakers are the heavy favorite in the preseason media poll, but the question marks of life without Edey are certainly there. He was understandably the backbone of Purdue’s past 2 seasons, including an emphatic NCAA Tournament run until falling in the national final to UConn.

Indiana finished 2nd in the poll with 7 1st-place votes, while UCLA and Illinois (2 each) were the only other teams with multiple 1st-place votes. Michigan State and Ohio State each landed a lone vote.

So can any of those teams (or a surprise contender) step up and challenge Purdue? The short answer is yes, but for all the question marks Purdue has, the rest of the league has the same ones — and more.

No one should be stunned if the Boilermakers finish outside of 1st place, but Purdue has taken the league by a 3-game margin each of the past 2 seasons. Until someone steps up to change that, this is Matt Painter’s league.