9 players who can help their team advance in the Big Ten Tournament

Conference tournament season marks the unofficial beginning of the college basketball season and one of the most exciting stints in all of sports. The NCAA Tournament beckons in just a week’s time, though there’s still plenty of entertaining basketball before Selection Sunday. While some conference tournaments have already come and gone, the biggest ones are only just getting started, including in the Big Ten.

Purdue clawed their way to an outright Big Ten title yet again and certainly sit in a comfortable position in Minneapolis. Still, there are thirteen other teams in this conference all wanting a piece of that glory and conference tournament season is certainly the time of year where we can expect the unexpected.

While those Boilermakers will be the overwhelming favorite, there’s no guarantee that Purdue wins a second-straight tournament crown. Upsets are a frequent happening in these kinds of league tournaments; after all Penn State was in the Big Ten title game just last year as the 10-seed.

Part of the reason for that success last season was that the Nittany Lions were led by an All-American player in Jalen Pickett. There isn’t that same type of player on most teams in the Big Ten, but there are plenty of talented athletes in this league who can have a similar type of impact.

We’ll be focusing on a number of players from this league who can have a major impact on this tournament, specifically in helping their teams overcome their opponents and perhaps go on a run of their own. We’ll be examining a variety of talent from the Big Ten, but limiting our scope to just one player per team. We’ll proceed alphabetically.