The Big Ten was one of the strongest conferences in college basketball last year and the conference tournament is expected to be a good one, as Indiana and Ohio State hold the top two seeds over Michigan State and Wisconsin.
After a few losses at the end of the season, Michigan will open up with a game on Thursday against Penn State, while Illinois and Minnesota will be the first teams to play at 12:00 noon. Throughout the week the games will be aired on television from ESPN, ESPN2, the BTN and CBS Sports and the winner will be getting a locked bid to March Madness.
Last season Michigan State won the tournament and this year they are in a good position to do so again after going 13-5 in the conference last season. Iowa and Northwestern will play on Thursday as well as Purdue and Nebraska.
The predictions for each game include a win for Michigan over Penn State, giving Wisconsin and the Wolverines a matchup on Friday. Minnesota Will upset Illinois to face Indiana, while Iowa will defeat Northwestern to move on against Michigan State. Purdue will pull through and take down Nebraska to advance and face Ohio State.
Michigan is still reeling from a 72-71 last-second loss to Indiana and will be looking forward to putting it behind them. The team missed out on a first round by after the loss and now faces off against the Penn State team that has 20 losses, but one that upset the Wolverines a few weeks ago.
Michigan has one of the toughest roads to the championship, as they may have to play Wisconsin and Indiana, two teams that were the best in the conference and also defeated the Wolverines this year.
"Wherever we go in this tournament, we're just going to make the best of it," coach John Beilein said. "We've got a lot of things still to address. We're addressing them and doing them as fast as we can."
The standings include Indiana as the number one seed after winning the regular-season title outright, while Ohio State and Michigan State were second with 13-5 records. Wisconsin defeated Michigan and finished 12-6, the same record as the Wolverines, while Iowa was 9-9. Purdue, Illinois and Minnesota all were under .500 at 8-10, while Nebraska went 2-15, followed by Northwesters at 4-14 and Penn State at 2-16.
