Tournament week officially begins for the Big Ten on Wednesday afternoon, and with it, a new opportunity for each team to write their own ticket to the NCAA Tournament. Some teams are already guaranteed an at-large bid and are playing for seeding; some sit squarely on the bubble and are playing for entry into the field; and some are trying to make history as the first team lower than a #6 seed to win this tournament. In this analysis we will describe what certain teams aim to accomplish this week in Chicago — and to save both time and sanity, this will only address the eight teams that have a realistic chance at an at-large bid. Enjoy!

• Illinois: The Illini really put themselves in a deep hole when they blew a big lead and lost at Purdue on Saturday. That defeat dropped them to an #8 seed in the Big Ten Tournament  (BTT) and guaranteed Illinois a quarterfinal matchup against Wisconsin. That loss and the resultant placement in this week’s bracket effectively ended the Illini’s potential for a deep conference tournament run. The realistic team goal for Illinois is to beat Michigan on Thursday and hope for early exits from several other bubble teams — Indiana among them. Then pray they can sneak into the field’s First Four.
• Indiana: The Hoosiers have a singular goal to get themselves off the bubble and into the at-large field. To do that, they’ll need to start with a win over Northwestern. That alone may not be enough, though, which means they probably also need a win against Maryland in the quarterfinals on Friday. Adding a top 10 RPI win to Indiana’s resume will all but assure that the Hoosiers will hear their name called on Selection Sunday.
• Iowa: The Hawkeyes appear to be safely in the field and are now playing to improve their NCAA Tournament seed line. Most pundits list Iowa as a #7 seed so the Hawkeyes’ main goal should be to avoid losing its opening Big Ten Tournament game against either Penn State or Nebraska. A bad loss to their resume at this point could result in a dreaded #8 seed.

• Maryland: The goal for the second-best team in the league should be to win the Big Ten Tournament, but this won’t be an easy task. Maryland will likely meet a very hungry Indiana team in its first game and would probably need to beat Michigan State for the third time this year in order to move to the championship game. If the Terrapins can get through those two battles, they’ll have to find a way to repeat their biggest win of the season when they’ll almost certainly face Wisconsin on Sunday.
• Michigan State: The Spartans have turned their season around from a midseason trouble period when it seemed like Tom Izzo’s club might miss its first NCAA Tournament since 1997. They are now clearly in the field and projected by many bracketologists as a #7 seed in the NCAA Tournament. A loss to Ohio State on Friday might push Sparty back to a #8 seed, so Michigan State’s specific goal should be to beat the Buckeyes for the second time this year.
• Ohio State: The Buckeyes are in a precarious spot this week as many bracketologists project them as a #8 seed in the NCAA Tournament. You can make a reasonable argument that it would be more advantageous for Ohio State to lose its opening round game to either Rutgers or Minnesota in the hopes that the bad loss drops them down to the #10 seed line. But Thad Matta won’t allow that to happen, so the realistic goal for this team is to get past the Spartans and hope their overall profile improves to that of a #7 seed.
• Purdue: From my perspective, the Boilermakers should be safely in the field, but many bracketologists project the team as a shaky #11 seed. The goal then for Purdue is to alleviate any possible anxiety on Selection Sunday by winning its first game of the Big Ten Tournament, most likely against Iowa. That should shore up its resume to the point of inclusion, if nothing else.
• Wisconsin: Winning the Big Ten Tournament and letting the chips for a #1 seed fall where they may is the only acceptable goal for the Badgers. A championship game against Maryland seems to be the only legitimate obstacle in their path.

Alex Moscoso (170 Posts)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2015 at 1:15 pm by Alex Moscoso and is filed under big ten, microsites. Tagged: feature, illinois, indiana, iowa, maryland, michigan state, ohio state, purdue, wisconsin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.