Outside of some great first and second round games, the semifinals and final of the Big 11 tournament proved to be a total snoozer. The Cheese's sleeper pick, Penn State, did make a run to the championship game and locked up a tourney bid. However, the Semifinal matchups and championship game were just awful. Here's some thoughts on each teams Big Ten tourney and how I see them faring in the NCAA tourney:
Ohio State was dominant after getting by Northwestern. They absolutely deserve the Overall Number 1 seed in the NCAA tournament that they were rewarded with and I think they are built to compete for a National Title. They are solid at all 5 starting positions, they have 2 big guys in Sullinger and Lauderdale who they can feed the ball to in the post and some great shooters in Buford and Diebler. They have great senior leadership in David Lighty and some dynamite freshmen in Craft and Thomas coming off the bench. While they are not a particularly deep team, they have the makeup of national champ and a coach who has been successful everywhere he has been leading numerous teams deep into the NCAA tournament. Prognosis: Final 4 bound
Purdue did not show up at all in this Big Ten tourney, MSU needed that win to secure a bid and they played like it. Purdue came out flat and were never able to equal the intensity that Statey had. Anyways, Purdue in front of the home crowd laid an egg. Now on to more important things, all signs point to a Purdue/Notre Dame Sweet 16 matchup. Scott Martin vs. his old buddies should be really interesting. The stories surrounding his transfer was he couldn't handle playing second fiddle to Hummel because in high school he was the BMOC. Well that changed as soon as the two hit campus, Hummel became Mr. Boilermaker and has been the backbone of Purdue's team every year up until getting injured before this season started. Purdue has a pretty good draw and I see them coasting to the Sweet 16. Their 2nd round matchup vs Georgetown more than likely is not as tough as it looks with Georgetown missing the backbone of their team in Chris Wright. Prognosis : an extremely close loss to the Irish in the round of sweet 16.
Wisconsin, in one of the most boring games ever played, lost to Penn State by 3 in their opening round game of the tournament. Just an absolutely unbearable game to watch. Their is nothing even to talk about when that game is considered. Now, Wisconsin got probably the toughest matchup of any team from the entire conference. Belmont was 30-4 this year and plays 11 players and 2 different groups of players. Apparently, they have an A squad and B squad and they do not skip a beat no matter which group is playing. Belmont played Tennessee twice this year, and while it was a down year for Tennessee they went into Knoxville twice and lost by 9 the first game and 1 pt the second game. Belmont won games by more than 10 points in 26 of their 30 games. Pretty impressive no matter what league you play in and who you play. Wisconsin drew a tough opponent, but Wisconsin and Bo Ryan always come ready to play. One dynamite guard and some big guys who can put it in the basket is a winning formula and with Jordan Taylor and big guys like Leuer and Nankovil I do not see Wiscy getting bounced early. Prognosis: In a relatively weak bracket in my opinion, I see Wiscy possibly making a run to the Elite 8 if not a trip to Houston and the Final 4. If they get past Belmont, I think they beat K-State handedly and they matchup with Pitt extremely well on the outside. Wiscy plays a similar game to ND who took Pittsburgh down at Pittsburgh. I could see it happening again and the bottom of that bracket is horribly weak with Florida being a terrible #2 seed.
Check Back Later for my prognosis for the rest of the teams from the Big Ten.
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