Green Street | Show of strength

Welcome to "Green Street," your dose of women's college basketball news from Illini beat writer and AP Top 25 voter Joe Vozzelli. He'll offer up insight on Shauna Green's Illini team and the women's game at large every week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

How good might the Big Ten be this season in women's basketball?

"There's no question anymore of whether the Big Ten is one of the deepest conferences in the country," former Michigan standout and current BTN analyst Shimmy Miller said last week during Big Ten media day in Rosemont. "It is the deepest conference in the country."

But how deep?

Deep enough perhaps to have more than half of the 18 teams in the Big Ten reach the NCAA tournament next March. ESPN.com bracketologist Charlie Creme had 10 Big Ten teams in his preseason field of 68, second only to the SEC (11) with the ACC also possessing 10 NCAA-caliber teams, according to Creme. Creme thinks Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio State, Southern Cal and UCLA could all see their team names appear on Selection Sunday.

Beyond the higher-profile additions of UCLA and USC, new Big Ten additions Oregon and Washington are also two intriguing teams with the Ducks trying to return to their previous heights under coach Kelly Graves with a key transfer in Deja Kelly and the Huskies on the upswing with a veteran roster.

The top-five teams in the media and coaches Big Ten preseason poll (of note: voters could only list their top five) featured USC at No. 1 followed by UCLA at 2, Ohio State at 3, Maryland at 4 and Indiana at 5.

"People have asked me often, what does that mean for the Big Ten?" Iowa coach Jan Jensen said last week of the conference's newcomers. "I said, well, it means it gets a whole lot tougher to win the Big Ten championship, but also makes it a whole lot more fun. I think all of us in the Big Ten, what we love about it is, you know, there's not a cupcake in the Big Ten."