Big Ten basketball power poll

Michigan State (22-5, 9-5 Big Ten): The Spartans are certainly the conference's steadiest team at the moment, winning six of their past seven games.

Wisconsin (16-10, 8-5): The Badgers might be teetering on the NCAA tournament bubble, but they look like one of the best teams in the conference right now.

Indiana (21-6, 11-3): The Hoosiers aren't exactly the beacon of consistency, yet they are sitting at the top of the league standings.

Purdue (21-6, 9-5): A.J. Hammons has finished with double-doubles, including 18 points or more, in three of the Boilermakers' past five games.

Iowa (20-6, 11-3): In the past three games — two losses and a poor performance vs. the Gophers — Jarrod Uthoff and Peter Jok have combined to score a whopping 58.7 percent of Iowa's points.

Maryland (22-5, 10-4): According to analyst Ken Pomeroy's website, Thursday's loss to the Gophers was statistically the worst the Terrapins have suffered since … well, since Kenpom.com started tracking these things in 2002.

Ohio State (19-8, 9-5): When the talent on the Buckeyes roster finally comes together, it could be scary.

Penn State (13-13, 4-9): It's been a good two weeks in State College, with the Nittany Lions downing two of the league's leaders in Indiana and Iowa at home.

Nebraska (14-13, 6-8): Without Shavon Shields in the lineup, the Huskers haven't made it to the 65-point threshold.

Northwestern (17-10, 5-9): The Wildcats are 5-1 against the conference's bottom half and 0-8 against the top half.

Illinois (12-14, 4-9): Things just keep getting uglier in Champaign, where injured forward Leron Black was arrested for pulling a knife on a bouncer at a nightclub.

Gophers (7-19, 1-13): The Gophers shook off the winless shackles in style, besting a top-10 team at Williams Arena for the first court-rushing of the Richard Pitino era.