Busting Brackets
Fansided

Big Ten Basketball: What the top 12 teams need to do to get a 2020 tourney bid

By Austin Walther

COLLEGE PARK, MARYLAND - JANUARY 30: Anthony Cowan Jr. #1 of the Maryland Terrapins in action against the Iowa Hawkeyes during at Xfinity Center on January 30, 2020 in College Park, Maryland. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
COLLEGE PARK, MARYLAND - JANUARY 30: Anthony Cowan Jr. #1 of the Maryland Terrapins in action against the Iowa Hawkeyes during at Xfinity Center on January 30, 2020 in College Park, Maryland. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 5
Next
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – FEBRUARY 01: Jacob Young #42 of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – FEBRUARY 01: Jacob Young #42 of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images) /

1. Protect home court

The first two are going to be a bit awkward but stay with me. Teams are going to be aiming for road wins since they are so rare and the committee favors winning away from home. It’s crunch time. No team has an over .500 road Big Ten record. The committee doesn’t include conference records, but from here until the end, every team is a quality win with the exception of two. Teams are going to be gunning for a win at your place, but you can’t let them.

Winning, in general, is obviously what you need to do to move up the standings and prevent yourself from falling. But it’s basically a given that over 75 percent of the Big Ten is going to have an under .500 road record. So why not just pick up the wins at home and work yourself up the standings for a good seed in the Big Ten Tournament. Plus losing at home just looks worse on your NCAA Tournament resume.

So many of the arenas are proving to be really tough this year. Assembly Hall and Mackey are the two that stick out that are always hard to play at. Both are in the state of Indiana. The two in the state of Michigan is never a great place to play either. Rutgers, Iowa, Penn State and Illinois are drawing a record number of fans this season. Every once in a while, the Kohl Center in Madison gets pretty loud. The Barn is just a cool name to say for a home court and obviously, Ohio State and Maryland fans get loud when their teams are playing good basketball.

11 Big Ten teams have 10 or more overall home wins this season. Rutgers at the RAC and Maryland in College Park are undefeated. That means both teams have avoided some bad losses because they know how to win at home. And that is why both are pretty much locks for the NCAA Tournament. The only team of the 12 competing for bids under 10 wins is Michigan and they’re 8-4 at home. But the Wolverines did all their damage in Atlantis. Either way, home teams have a lot of success in the Big Ten and that needs to continue if teams want in.

Home/Big Ten