The Big Ten tournament is underway and already a few upsets have been avoided.
In what has been a rollercoaster of a season for most Big Ten teams, the strength of the conference cannot be questioned, yet they continue to do internal damage to themselves.
Indiana's big upset at the hands of the Minnesota Golden Gophers can finally be forgotten as the Gophers fell to Illinois 51-49 in the opening round of the Big Ten tournament setting up a meeting between the No. 1 seeded Hoosiers and the No. 8 seed Fighting Illini.
Michigan shook the cobwebs out of their heads as they avoided a repeat of the last time they faced off against the Penn State Nittany Lions. The Wolverines hammered the Nittany Lions 83-66, virtually erasing the Feb. 27 beating they suffered against the same team.
Tonight, No. 6 seed Iowa Hawkeyes will take on the No. 11 seeded Northwestern Wildcats and the No. 7 seed Purdue Boilermakers will try to hold off the No. 10 seeded Nebraska Cornhuskers. The winners of those games will tip-off against the No. 3 seed Michigan State team and the No. 2 seed Ohio State Buckeyes, respectively.
Tomorrow the Michigan Wolverines will look to defeat the Badgers of Wisconsin in a battle of the 5 and 4 seeds, respectively. Look for Burke to showcase his ball handling skills against the Badgers in an attempt to erase the memory of yet another Big Ten conference game loss the last time these two teams met.
It will be truly surprising if the Wolverines and the Hoosiers don't meet in the semi finals of the Big Ten tournament this year, but the real toss-up is who will be squaring off to meet the winner in the finals.
Michigan State and Ohio State should be easy winners and meet in the semi finals, but the two teams split their regular season showdowns. Both teams won by slim margins, but the Ohio State Buckeyes are on a five-game winning streak whereas the Spartans were 2-3 in the final stretch. Edge: Ohio State.
The final match-up should be Indiana taking on Ohio State. If that is the case, look for Zeller and Oladipo of the Hoosiers to finish what they started and take home the Big Ten tournament title. If Michigan is able to pull off the upset, all bets are off.
Final Prediction: Indiana Hoosiers stave off all challengers and take home the Big Ten tournament trophy.
Live Streaming
All the match-ups are slated to be available on WatchESPN, where available, as well as on ESPN2 with Nebraska-Purdue starting at 6:30 p.m. EDT and Northwestern-Iowa at 9 p.m. EDT.
WatchESPN can be found at this link.
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