NCAA Tournament 2021: What happened to Big Ten Basketball?

The NCAA Tournament is dubbed March Madness for a reason. The single elimination format can see any team lose on any given night and the “madness” is what makes the tournament so exciting and interesting.

The pandemic has caused even more craziness surrounding college basketball, and all sports, this past year and that has created even more uncertainty around the Tournament. What was supposed to be certain, was that the Big Ten was going to impose its’ will and prove it is the best conference in college basketball; key words ‘supposed to.’

Nine Big Ten teams received bids to the NCAA Tournament, the most of any conference: Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Purdue, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Rutgers, Maryland, and Michigan State. Only Michigan advanced to the Sweet 16.

Now Michigan State was in one of the first play-in games and Rutgers and Maryland were both 10-seeds so those teams can get a pass. The top of the Big Ten though, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio State, and Purdue were all 1-4 seeds.

This means these five teams were all ranked in the top 16 teams in the country by the Selection Committee, including four of them in the top 8 (Michigan and Illinois are 1-seeds, and Ohio State and Iowa are 2-seeds).

The excuses are already coming out that the Big Ten beat each other up during the regular season or that opponents in the Tournament were improperly seeded. I have even heard that since the Big Ten Conference Tournament was in Indianapolis that the extended stay in a bubble-type atmosphere affected teams’ play and this justifies the early exits.

The truth is, the Big Ten was overrated all year. It shouldn’t matter if opponents are wrongly seeded or that you played a hard regular season. The fact remains your conference owned HALF of the 1 and two seeds and only one team of your nine bids in the Tournament made it out of the first weekend of play.

Purdue lost an inexcusable first round game to 13-seeded North Texas. Ohio State had the same fate with Oral Roberts, a 15-seed. Illinois and Iowa both had embarrassing second round routs by Loyola-Chicago and Oregon, respectively. The latter being a team that had some rust because its’ first round matchup with VCU was declared a no contest due to COVID protocols.

“Rout” is the correct word too for the Illinois and Iowa losses. It isn’t so much that these teams just lost, it is how they lost and the weakness reflected onto a conference that had such high expectations.

The Big Ten still has hope with Michigan advancing, but even their win over LSU on Monday night was not convincing by any means. Had they lost, the Big Ten would have tied the record for most Tournament losses by a conference prior to the Sweet 16 round.

That is not the kind of recognition the Big Ten was hoping or expecting to receive when heading to Indianapolis a couple of weeks ago.