Another Big Ten Tournament will soon be entirely in the books, and with it 7 NCAA Tournament bids from the conference. Yes 7! And the only way that could have happened is…with the exact scenarios that did transpire.
The final college basketball tournament bracket S-Curve, what Joe Lunardi uses for bracketology, has that Big Ten muddled mush of middle (Illinois Fighting Illini, Michigan Wolverines, Michigan State Spartans and Penn State Nittany Lions) all in the mid 40s when it comes to their overall seed.
-No clear favorite for BTT MOP, but candidates include Talor Battle, Juice Thompson and Jared Sullinger. Juice is only on that list because he set a tourney record with 35 points on Thursday.
-Please use these hashtags today #PennState #BigTenTourney #TalorBattleforWoodenAward #TalorBattleforNaismithAward
By Paul M. Banks
-Somebody to follow on Twitter: NotEd DeChellis He’s really lazy though, and doesn’t near enough at key moments. I think I like the idea of this account more than the actual tweets.
-Yes I know Battle really only had one good game out of his three, but…no one here is rooting for the Ohio State Buckeyes, their winning ways, coupled with Jim Tressel and Terrelle Pryor’s cheating, are making them the Miami Heat of the NCAA.
Notable Quotables:
DeChellis on his team’s place in bracketology
“I mean, our strength of schedule was 5, RPI was 42. I mean, what else do you want us to do? We just beat Indiana, we beat Wisconsin, a Top 15 team, we just beat Michigan State. We’ve done the things that we needed to do. You know, we’re going to play hard tomorrow and see what happens, but whatever happens, I don’t — we need to be in the tournament. I mean, we’ve done the things that people said we needed to do, and our RPI is great, our strength of schedule is in the Top 7 in the country.
I don’t know who else you want us to play. But we’ve done all the things that people have asked us to do. Play a great schedule, we’re 7, RPI of 43, it will go down or decrease after this one today. I don’t know what else we’re supposed to do”.
Great back and forth between the reporter from the Minnesota student daily paper and Wisconsin Badgers Coach Bo Ryan. The kid was obviously bored and trying to find real story angles after his Gophers got eliminated in the very first game, and he was still here till Sunday. And Bo’s “Grinchiness” in his responses (you would be a Grinchy-Poo as well after your team lost and scored a whopping 33 points) made for an entertaining back and forth.
Q. Not necessarily related to the game, but you just had two Minnesota kids up there. Can you talk about what it means to the program to be able to thrive with kids from a bordering rival?
COACH RYAN: Say again?
Q. Just tell me what it means for your program to have kids from a border battle state help your team —
COACH RYAN: Penn State is not on our border.
Q. No, I said Minnesota.
COACH RYAN: I didn’t hear that.
Q. You’ve got Jordan, Jon, and Mike from Minnesota. What does it mean from your program to be able to build around kids that you take from a rival state? They’re your leaders, you know.
COACH RYAN: I don’t — they’re guys that wanted to be at Wisconsin, and they’re playing at Wisconsin. I don’t know what — I don’t read anything into anybody playing anywhere else or anybody playing for us. We just play. I don’t understand the question.
-Change of pace link love: the YouTube results of the SEO Rapper! Greatest thing ever.
-Unfortunate trending keyword phrase of the weekend: 36-33
-Penn State is now 2-0 in the modern eraย for games in which they score in the 30s. That abomination Friday night was easily the worst game of the tourney, and has now somewhat erased the 38-33 win at Illinois in 2009 from our memories- kind of.
-I love how the Indiana Hoosiers yet again printed a postseason media guide. For the one postgame they play- and lose every year.
-The Hoosiers being so down for so long, and Purdue’s general tendency to look pathetic in the BTT have hurt attendance for the tourney in Indianapolis. People are buying tickets and coming out, but not like they do in Chicago. So word is, after next year, when the contract expires, this is coming back to the Chi.
-In the words of Kanye “I’m coming home again.”
Written by Paul M. Banks, President and CEO of The Sports Bank.net, a Midwest webzine. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, the Tribune’s blog network, Walter Football, Yardbarker Network, and Fox Sports
He does a weekly radio segment on Chicagoland Sports Radio.com and Cleveland.com
You can follow him on Twitter @thesportsbank
