State of the Big Ten: Can Anyone Challenge the Spartans?

In the spirit of Jamal Mashburn's "State of the NBA" piece last night, let's take a look at one of college basketball's premier conferences—the Big Ten.

The race for the league title is well underway, with Michigan State holding a firm two game lead over the Wisconsin Badgers.

Without star big-man Jon Leuer, the Badgers will have to rely on its other prime-timers, Trevon Hughes and Jason Bohannon to get the job done. At this point, Bo Ryan's men can use all the help they can get—Keaton Nankivil and Jordan Taylor will have to rise to the occasion if the Badgers want to catch Michigan State. 

This is not an unattainable goal, but it's going to be an uphill battle.

Purdue has had its ups and downs. At one point they are No. 4 in the land and undefeated, then the next thing you know, the boom gets lowered on them.

JaJuan Johnson's slump, lack of punctuality—both are problems that coach Matt Painter has been forced to confront in the last week or so.

Robbie Hummel can't carry the Boilers, but he can sure try. Hummel is one of the best players in the conference—he averages 16 points per game and seven boards. Don't forget about All-Big Ten candidate E'Twuan Moore, he's one of the league's top scorers as well (17.5 ppg).

The Boilers are stacked with talent and their three-game slide appears to be a thing of the past.

The Illinois Fighting Illini are another talented squad.

Demetri McCamey, D.J. Richardson, Mike Tisdale, and Mike Davis all have the talent to lead the Illini into March.

The question is: Can they do it?

Mike Tisdale must come to play Sunday against Indiana if the Illini want to make a charge against the Spartans. Illinois is 5-3 in the Big Ten, three games behind Michigan State. A loss to the Hoosiers would be the nail in the Illini's coffin—they'd be lucky to finish second.

Losing three of its last four games certainly didn't help its cause either. 

Minnesota and Michigan are the league's underachievers.

Both teams were hyped up in the preseason, Michigan even earned a No. 15 preseason ranking.

The Golden Gophers gave the Spartans a run for their money, but in the end, Kalin Lucas crushed their upset dreams, he did the same against the Wolverines just two days ago.

One of the conference's burning questions is this: what happened to Michigan?!

The Wolverines have Big Ten Player of the Year candidate Manny Harris leading the way, but yet, the team just can't find its chemistry.

A heart breaking loss to bitter in-state rival Michigan State all but killed the Wolverines' tournament dreams.

Just over a week ago students stormed the floor of Crisler Arena celebrating the upset of UConn.

Michigan then followed up that win with three losses in a row. Granted, these losses came to the Big Ten's upper echelon teams (Wisconsin, Purdue, MSU), but that doesn't give John Beilein's crew a pass for mediocre play.

It will take nothing short of a miracle for Michigan to be invited to the big dance in March, and it's not looking so good right about now for DeShawn Sims and friends.

The race isn't over just yet, Spartans.

You still have Wisconsin hot on your tail.

The Spartans are eeking out close one after close one and have gotten off to an 8-0 start (best in school history).

Inconsistent free throw trips, up and down shooting trends (Chris Allen)—both causes for Tom Izzo to worry about his March Madness methodology.

The Spartans will face the conference's best of the best in early February (Wisconsin, Illinois, Purdue). They'll need to win, at a minimum, two of those games to really be comfortable in the driver's seat.

At this point, it looks like seven teams will be invited to dance in March: Michigan State, Wisconsin, Illinois, Purdue, Minnesota, Northwestern, and Ohio State.

It twists and turns and goes back and forth, and that's why we love Big Ten basketball.