Big Ten Standings Update: 1/21/2011

By Christopher Pullins Jan 21, 2011, 1:28pm CST

Big Ten Conference Standings

(updated 1.21.2011 at 2:21 AM CST)

Teams	Conf		Overall
	W	L	W	L
Ohio St. Buckeyes	6	0	19	0
Purdue Boilermakers	5	1	16	3
Wisconsin Badgers	4	2	14	4
Illinois Fighting Illini	4	2	14	5
Michigan St. Spartans	4	2	12	6
Minnesota Golden Gophers	3	3	14	4
Northwestern Wildcats	3	4	13	5
Penn St. Nittany Lions	3	4	10	8
Michigan Wolverines	1	5	11	8
Indiana Hoosiers	1	5	10	9
Iowa Hawkeyes	0	6	7	11

**Saturday's BIG Games:**

This is a huge weekend as far as the conference title race is concerned. On Saturday, we have two huge games. One will be highlighted in CBS, while ESPN's College Gameday will attend the other.

#1 Ohio State at #22 Illinois on CBS at 12:00pm ET

ESPN COLLEGE GAMEDAY GAME: #18 Michigan State at #13 Purdue on ESPN at 9:00pm ET

Analysis after the jump

Big Ten Standings Analysis

Ohio State is is sole possession of first place, as they remain undefeated. They will look to continue their trend with a win at Illinois on Saturday in a very important game for the conference.

Purdue is sole possession of second place. They play Michigan State on Saturday at home for the ESPN College GameDay game. After that they play Ohio State in Columbus. If Purdue wins on Saturday and Ohio State loses, that game becomes a battle for sole possession of the conference.

Third place is where it gets complicated. Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan State are all 4-2 in the conference, all tied up. This is why this weekend's game become so much more important Illinois plays Ohio State, Wisconsin plays at Northwestern and Michigan State plays at Purdue. Maybe there will be more separation on Monday.

Minnesota plays Michigan on Saturday, they are alone right now, with only three loses. They must win that game to stay in Big Ten title contention.

Northwestern and some what surprise team, Penn State are tied at 3-4, Northwestern hosts Wisconsin and Penn State takes the weekend off. Penn State needs to come back next week, ready to compete once again, they can make the NCAA Tournament this year and so can Northwestern, I am guessing one of these teams could get in, but only one, not both.

Michigan, Indiana and Iowa. The bottom of the conference, I would have thought Michigan would have done a little better, but they prove otherwise. Iowa has yet to get a win, and Indiana beat Michigan for their only Big Ten win. Battle it out for 9th, 10th & 11th guys!