The Big Ten men’s basketball tournament is set as 15 teams will head to Indianapolis with hopes of winning a title. First round action will begin on Wednesday with the championship game tipping off Sunday evening and finishing just before the NCAA Tournament bracket is revealed.
Tom Izzo’s red hot Michigan State Spartans enter as the clear favorite, but outside of them, this year's tournament is wide open. Here are three teams who could make some noise and that MSU, along with the other top teams, will not want to see in the Big Ten tournament.
We know the talent is there with this team and what better time to put it all together than in the conference tournament. They will have two of the top players that will take the court all week in Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper who have been dominant in Big Ten play and will be hungry to be remembered as college players for something other than an extremely disappointing season.
With their overtime win on Sunday, Rutgers earned the No. 11 seed which I consider a very favorable draw in this bracket. If they can get past USC in round one, they would then play Purdue who although just beat them by 29 points, has been struggling as of late. An upset there would then put them up against Michigan who may be the only Big Ten team who struggled more than the Boilermakers down the final stretch of the season.
Obviously a run to the finals would include some big upsets, but a team with the talent that the Scarlet Knights have and who will be playing with nothing to lose is one you do not want to see in March.
Dana Altman and the Oregon Ducks may be the most underrated team in March as they have the most wins in the month in college basketball since 2010-2011. Altman is also no stranger to conference tournament runs winning the Pac-12 event four times at Oregon and six times in the MVC with Creighton.
This is a very good team who is coming in on a seven game win streak and playing their best ball right now. The one negative for Oregon heading into Indianapolis is that their first two games would be 12 p.m. ET (9 a.m. local) tips.
Nate Bittle has been a nightmare matchup all season long and could take over this tournament alongside Jackson Shelstad who is averaging 15.3 ppg in conference play. In my opinion the Spartans got the worst draw of any team with a double bye as they will take on the winner of Indiana and Oregon, who held a 14 point lead at half over Sparty earlier in the season.
No team ended the regular season better than Illinois scoring 87.3 ppg in their last three and picking up wins over ranked Michigan and Purdue. This is a team that is built for tournament play due to the fact that if they can get hot shooting over a four day stretch, they can compete with anyone in the country. This team has also been banged up for most of the season and will have almost a full week of rest before their first game in Indy.
They are led by freshman Kasparas Jakucionis, but have multiple guys who can score 20+ on any given night. Despite being the No. 7 seed, the Illini have the fourth best odds to win it and for good reason.