Madness is rapidly approaching and the women's field is wide open. No. 1 Texas, No. 2 USC, No. 3 UConn, No. 4 UCLA, No. 5 South Carolina and No. 6 Notre Dame have emerged as

Here are the final USA TODAY Sports Big Ten women's basketball power rankings before the conference tournament begins on Wednesday.

Given how much I respect my colleague Sabreena Merchant’s knowledge of women’s basketball, even I had to take a step back this weekend and wonder if it were truly happenstance that she handed off the power rankings to me (a person who has acknowledged that my respect for the ACC was potentially not strong enough early on this season,