Big Ten Basketball: 5 takeaways from the 2018 Big Ten/ACC Challenge
By Adam Childs
The Big Ten is back
Not that the Big Ten was completely gone but last year was a horrible year for the conference. Michigan did make it to the National Championship game and Penn State got hot late and won the NIT but overall it was a mess of a conference.
The Big Ten has taken heat for not winning a title since Michigan State in 2000, but it was still widely considered one of the best basketball conferences in the country. After last year many had to wonder if the SEC was going to pass them and could they even fall back behind the PAC-12. All those arguments were warranted but the start of this year brought a renewed hope as the middle of the pack teams and even some bad teams from last year (Iowa) were winning big games against power conference schools.
That was great but the big question was how would the perform against arguably the best conference in America. The last three days showed that the Big Ten was just as good as the ACC. Duke still may have a big gap before everyone else, but besides the Blue Devils, the Big Ten looks like they could compete with any other team. Virginia is also very good, but Maryland hung with them throughout most of the game before losing by just five.
The conference still needs Iowa, Wisconsin, and Indiana to keep their upward climb the whole year to prove that the conference deserves to be considered one of the best. But for three nights they showed they belonged.