John Shoop long has admired Purdue’s offensive tradition from afar. Now, he gets a chance to add to that tradition by pushing the buttons on the Boilermakers’ attack under first-year coach Darrell Hazell.

First-year coach Darrell Hazell has his work cut out for him, playing arguably the toughest schedule in the Big Ten. There is no more challenging non-conference schedule in the conference, with a trip to Big East co-champ Cincinnati and home games vs. Notre Dame (BCS title game) and Northern Illinois (Orange Bowl). Getting one Big Ten road victory may be a difficult proposition, too. Bottom line: A 1-6 start isn’t out of the question.

This time of year, it’s always fun to look at the rosters and try to pick out the conference’s breakout stars. A year ago, if you had your eye on, say, Venric Mark, Allen Robinson, Jake Ryan or Ryan Shazier, you hit it out of the park. It’s time to go out on a limb and offer my top five candidates for who will go from an under-the-radar player to a household name in 2013.

The Big Ten announced Tuesday its 2013 All-Big Ten teams and individual award winners. Big Ten champion Indiana was well represented, as it took home Pitcher of the Year (Aaron Slegers) and Coach of the Year (Tracy Smith). Illinois’ Justin Parr was named Player of the Year and Kevin Duchene earned Freshman of the Year honors. See the teams in this post.

The 2013 Big Ten baseball regular season came to a close Saturday, and Indiana, one night after wrapping up at least a share of the crown, wrapped up its first outright Big Ten title since 1932. It came in a commanding 8-1 victory at Ohio State. Get all of Saturday’s Big Ten scores, stats and video highlights in this post.