Busting Brackets
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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) /
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ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN – JANUARY 03: Lamar Stevens #11 of the Penn State Nittany Lions reacts in the second half while playing the Michigan Wolverines (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN – JANUARY 03: Lamar Stevens #11 of the Penn State Nittany Lions reacts in the second half while playing the Michigan Wolverines (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /

2. Steal a road win or two

Here is where the numbers are something else. I’m not going to go around to each conference figuring out road wins in conference play. But I would have to guess they don’t look like what the Big Ten shows. I already told you the three teams with three road wins. Maryland, Illinois and Penn State top the standings. All three are 3-3 in true Big Ten road games this season. So when a fan base goes out of control over a horrible loss or two like at Purdue and at Minnesota, just tell them that no one has success on the road this season.

All 12 teams have at least one road win, but most of them have come to Nebraska or Northwestern. The Cornhuskers have six overall wins and the Wildcats have seven. Iowa, Rutgers, Michigan and Indiana only have road wins over the Cornhuskers. Minnesota has just one road win, but that was to Ohio State. In fact, The Gophers, Illinois and Wisconsin are the only teams who do not own road wins against the bottom two teams.

Illinois’ quality of road wins is the best in the Big Ten. They’ve knocked off the Badgers, Boilermakers and the Wolverines. Two out of those three have really hard home courts this season. The Illini still has Northwestern on the road, but they go to the RAC, Penn State and Ohio State still.

Michigan still has the opportunity to turn their 1-4 road record around. Besides at Northwestern, they have Purdue, Rutgers, Ohio State and Maryland. If they want to gain ground on the Buckeyes and the Boilermakers, winning those two would certainly help. Indiana is a bubble team and they have four quality road wins left. The Hoosiers would benefit greatly by splitting those games. One is at Mackey where they want to do to Purdue what they did to them. There are ways for teams to separate themselves on the bubble and winning Big Ten road games is a good place to start.

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