Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
As usual, the Big Ten will be one of the best conference in college basketball in the 2013-14 season. However, will the Wisconsin Badgers be a top five team?
You better believe it. In a recent power ranking of the conference ESPN has them ranked No. 4.
That is pretty fair since the team is losing Jared Berggren, who averaged 11 points and 6.9 rebounds per game this past season. At the same time, leading scorer Ben Brust will be back, along with rising star Sam Dekker.
Dekker is going to be a star this year and there is nothing the rest of the Big Ten or any team in the nation can do to stop that. His 9.6 points per game were great last season, especially since he only played 22.3 minutes per game. Not to mention, he shot at a very high rate, making 39.1 percent of his shots from behind the arc.
Bo Ryan is a great head coach. That is the bottom, top and any other line possible. With him, Wisconsin always competes and that will be no different in the 2013-14 season.
The Badgers may come in at No. 4 in a recent power ranking by ESPN, but you better believe that it will challenge Michigan State, Michigan and Ohio State for a conference title–three teams ranked above Wisconsin in power ranking.
You can expect a great defensive effort from this team once again and you can also expect the Badgers to make the 2014 NCAA Tournament. However, they may have some extra hardware entering the tourney as a result of winning a conference title.
So yeah, they are definitely a top five team in the conference.
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