Giving a Blue Ribbon to the Big Ten: Three Teams Make Blue Ribbon Preseason Top 25

To many inside college basketball, the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook is the crème de la crème of preseason magazines and polls. So much so that when they release their Top-25 and preseason award choices, it creates a buzz (and some not so fun arguments) among the fan bases.

Like many preseason polls, it seems that the college basketball bible loves the ACC (seven total teams ranked in the Top-25) and the SEC (right behind them with six). Blue Ribbon also — unfortunately — believes the Big Ten is going to be somewhat down this season. Their preseason Top-25 only features what I will be calling from here on out, the “Big B1G 3” in Michigan State (No. 10), Purdue (No. 19) and Michigan (No. 23).

Of course, these things are extremely fluid and if you like coach speak, it’s not about where you start, but where you finish. With teams like Nebraska and Indiana already knocking on the door and if teams like Iowa, Maryland, Ohio State and Wisconsin can become more competitive than they were last season, the Big Ten could easily push their way into wide spread national relevance come conference play.

Or so we hope.

Here is the rest of the Blue Ribbon Top-25:

1. Kentucky
2. Kansas
3. Gonzaga
4. Duke
5. Tennessee
6. Nevada
7. Virginia
8. Auburn
9. Oregon
10. Michigan State
11. Mississippi State
12. North Carolina
13. Kansas State
14. UCLA
15. Florida State
16. West Virginia
17. Clemson
18. LSU
19. Purdue
20. Florida
21. Villanova
22. Syracuse
23. Michigan
24. Virginia Tech
25. TCU