It’s still early, but it can be instructive to look at how Big Ten teams have performed relative to preseason expectations. With so few games of consequence being played this week, now is as good a time as any to pause and see how things have gone. Courtesy of the ever-useful kenpom.com, here’s how the rankings have evolved for Big Ten teams so far this season: The index on the x-axis is the game number from which the ranking was taken. The first ranking is taken from before the first game (i.e. the preseason ranking), the second ranking is taken

As most of the Big Ten pauses for finals, it seems a fitting time to evaluate how the first semester went for the conference’s freshmen. We’ve got a third of the season under our belts, so it feels like we can finally take an initial peek at the numbers. The following table lists every Big Ten freshman that has played at least 10 percent of his team’s minutes, sorted by usage rate. Player Team %Min Ortg %Poss OR% DR% DefensiveSOS Rank Bryson Scott Purdue 44.8 111.1 29.0 4.2 10.2 310 Stanford Robinson Indiana 24.3 94.8 25.1 4.0 16.8 332 Noah

It’s hard to believe, but nearly a third of the 2013-14 regular season is already in the books. There’s still a lot we don’t know about the Big Ten, but certain trends and qualities have emerged. With preparation for final exams taking precedence over meaningful basketball games this week, let’s take this opportunity to pause and evaluate what we’ve seen. LaQuinton Ross Has Emerged In our Ohio State preview, we compared LaQuinton Ross’ sophomore conference season to that of Deshaun Thomas with the following table: Poss% Shot% eFG% 3PA/FGA Free Throw Rate Assist% TO% ORtg Deshaun Thomas, sophomore 20 25