I think it is undeniable that the Big Ten lacks a team that screams "Final Four threat" ... even Purdue. In that sense, it certainly seems like the conference is down at the top. However, I would argue it's very hard to tell just how "good" the Big Ten is. While you probably won't catch even the biggest B1G homer saying we are as good as the Big XII or anything, we seem on par with just about everyone else. We performed quite well in the non-conference, and our teams did not start to tumble out of the rankings until conference play started ... and can you really hold that against our conference if we are losing to our own teams?
I think the now-cliche line about the Big Ten is pretty damn accurate - we are an incredibly deep and competitive conference, but we lack truly "elite" teams. What's exciting and frustrating is that this team has that potential on paper, we just need to bring it every night.