The following Big Ten games take place this week, with the Vegas odds in parentheses.
Wisconsin at Maryland (UMD by 5.0)
Northwestern at Nebraska (NU by 2.5) ... the REAL NU, I will never respect the Big Eight tradition of "U of N" = "NU"
Indiana at Minnesota (IND by 10.5)
Iowa at Michigan State (MSU by 3.0)
#1 Purdue at Michigan (PUR by 5.0)
I actually feel like all of those games will go "as planned," so let's assume they do ... these would be the standings on Saturday as a slate of games kicks off:
Purdue: 9-1
Rutgers: 6-3
Michigan State: 6-4
Illinois: 5-4
Indiana: 5-4
Michigan: 5-4
Northwestern: 4-4
Iowa: 4-5
Maryland: 4-5
Penn State: 4-5
Wisconsin: 4-5
Ohio State: 3-6
Nebraska: 3-7
Minnesota: 1-8
Then the following games take place over the weekend:
Illinois (5-4) at Wisconsin (4-5)
Minnesota (1-8) at Northwestern (4-4)
Nebraska (3-7) at Maryland (4-5)
Ohio State (3-6) at Indiana (5-4)
Michigan (5-4) at Penn State (4-5)
Michigan State (6-4) at Purdue (9-1)
Rutgers (6-3) at Iowa (4-5)
I have probably given up on catching Purdue (though they are REALLY playing with fire and you wonder if they might start to lose some of these!), but we could realistically play ourselves into the #2 seed in the BTT and eventually a very good NCAAT seed ... I mean, it's not unrealistic at all when looking at those games to imagine us in second place with Rutgers on Sunday night.
This conference is nuts this year, and someone has to emerge to the top with Purdue ... let it be us!