Going to go with tiers.
Tier 1: Purdue and MSU
Tier 2: Wisconsin, Maryland, Illinois,
Tier 3: Northwestern, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio St
Tier 4: Rutgers, Minnesota, Michigan, penn st, Nebraska.
I don’t really like the big ten this year. Felt like they lost a lot in the portal and didn’t bring much in. I think tiers 1 & 2 make the NCAA. 1 or 2 from tier 3 make it. I don’t love Indiana, they do have 2 good guards and a stud freshman, but rest is underwhelming to me
For the gophers, I think they finish ahead of Michigan and penn st. I think they can finish ahead of Rutgers and Nebraska.
If everything went right, I think the gophers could be a bubble team. What does that look like? Probably means Mitchell and Hawkins don’t take a step back considering they’re moving up. Payne improves (fewer TOs and better FT%), JOJ improves (better rebounding, FT% and fewer defensive lapses) Carrington improves (healthy and shoot it like he did the last 5 games), Betts and Christie need to be somewhere between Payne and Carrington as freshmen. Minnesota really needs a 2/3 still but options are slim at this point.
Not a bad list but I think you maybe selling some teams short.
Penthouse group: Purdue, Sparty and Indiana. I know, I know, people pick Indy all the time but they got some good recruits coming in and a 5* transfer at center.
Will out talent those beneath them: Maryland, Illinois, OSU and dare I say it, Northwestern. The wildcats have just enough coming back to win the guard battle and I think y’all know what happens if your guards suck!
I cannot explain how they do it: Wisconsin and Iowa. God knows I’d like to see them fail but they will some how win in completely opposite ways and continue to annoy.
It ain’t football, but they aren’t going to let the Gophers get by them: Michigan - don’t see how these guys can suck as bad as us.
Stuck in a Rutgers - these guys are going to clearly be better than what’s left to talk about.
No telling how bad/good they will be: Nebraska, Penn Stare and your Golden Gophers. Nebby hit the portal pretty hard and It’s tough to see if Hoiberg can gel the recruits he got into something decent. He didn’t get a Royce White. Penn State - Coloradoan effort in the portal! Tough to say if these pieces will make a good machine. Guess they are betting on coaching these guys up.
Which brings us to the Gophers!
Let’s compare the positions to last year!
PG: better. They now have two guys who can dribble, pass and shoot the three. That’s better right there! Question is how these guys can fair with the B1G bodies they will face.
SG: better. Playing one of the PGs here will help and there’s Carrington part 2 and Christie. So this position appears deep.
SF: worse. Say what you want about Battle being inefficient, he was our second best player. Don’t see anyone you can pencil in to be as offensively productive. Good news is most of the guys who can play here are probably better defenders! This is the biggest question mark.
PF: same. Just hope Garcia stays healthy or this is going to be a shit show position. Decent backups but no one can fill Garcia’s shoes.
C: better? Payne I feel confident in. Will Ben actually start him finally? Last year Bens reluctance to start him made me feel like Ben was so far out to lunch he couldn’t figure out Thanos would eventually lose.
Paper thin backup here in a very thick replacement for TT.
Coaching: ain’t up to snuff. Can he coach? Two years in and I don’t think we know. Let’s hope he does better this year.
All said, I give us a win range between 2 and 6. Hopefully the new coach will be able to retain some of these players.
I won't say which one so I got 14 chances 
