The Big Ten regular season was rather strange.
Every night it seemed there was some sort of upset or strange ending. The league certainly didn't have the quality at the top it has in year's past, but there was no shortage of drama this season across the conference.
It should make for quite the weekend in Washington D.C. for the Big Ten tournament as the conference takes its annual event to the nation's capital for the very first time. The full bracket can be seen below.
What follows is a full breakdown of what to watch for during this year's Big Ten tournament:
The favorites
A couple of the top-four seeds in this tournament weren't projected to be such by many at the beginning of the season. Maryland lost four starters — and started three freshmen all season — while Minnesota was just 2-16 in the Big Ten last season. Both, however, had great seasons and finished as the No. 3 and 4 seeds.
As the calendar turned to February, it started to become clear Purdue was the best team in this conference. The Boilermakers proved that by winning the league outright by two full games. If you're betting on one team, Purdue seems like the obvious choice if there is such a thing in this league.
Wisconsin was a team many thought was the best in the league before a stretch in mid-February saw the Badgers lose five of six games. Still, Wisconsin grabbed the No. 2 seed and starts four seniors in addition to a first-team All-Big Ten performer in Ethan Happ. It would be crazy to count the Badgers out.
Potential Sleepers
This season's Big Ten tournament feels as wide open as any in recent years, but outside of the top-four seeds, who are a couple of teams that have potential to make deep runs?
Two teams come to mind as potential sleeper picks: Indiana and Michigan. The Hoosiers are the No. 10 seed while the Wolverines are seeded eighth. Both have potential to be bounced in their first game — Indiana faces Iowa; Michigan plays Illinois — but the style of each gives both an excellent chance to advance in the tournament.
The Hoosiers and Wolverines are two of the Big Ten's best and most efficient offenses, and while each struggled at times this season at the defensive end of the floor, tournament settings often provide an opportunity for a team that gets hot to find success. If it's just one of those weeks for either Michigan or Indiana, don't be surprised to see one playing into the weekend.
Ohio State's Path
In order to avoid missing the NCAA tournament for the second-straight season, Ohio State is going to have to win the Big Ten tournament which means the Buckeyes need five victories in five days.
That's a pretty tall order for a team that didn't win three-straight Big Ten games all season. Nonetheless, Ohio State got a rather favorable draw as the No. 11 seed.
Assuming the Buckeyes get past 14th-seeded Rutgers — you shouldn't assume anything with this team, but we will in this instance — they'd match up with No. 6 seed Northwestern on Thursday. These two teams played just once this season and the Wildcats won in Columbus, 74-72, in a fairly evenly-played game back on Jan. 22.
Both teams obviously look a bit different now nearly six weeks later, and Northwestern enters the Big Ten tournament having lost three of its last four games. The Wildcats aren't exactly playing their best ball of the season, so this seems like a winnable game for Ohio State if it plays well.
Should the Buckeyes upset the Wildcats, they'd draw third-seeded Maryland in the quarterfinals. This would be a rather tough matchup as the Terps own a pair of victories over Ohio State this season — a six-point win in Columbus on Jan. 31 and a nine-point victory in College Park on Feb. 11.
Also in the bottom half of the bracket is second-seeded Wisconsin, a team the Buckeyes split with during the regular season. Ohio State knocked off the Badgers 83-73 recently on Feb. 23.
Predictions
Attempting to guess what's going to happen this season in the Big Ten has been a near-impossible task, but I'll attempt to do my best here to predict what figures to be a wild and wacky weekend in Washington D.C. While I don't think the quality of play in the Big Ten has been all that great this season, the league has featured plenty of close games and I'd expect more of the same in the conference tournament.
So, here are a couple of guesses as to how things unfold in the nation's capital:
Ohio State's tournament: I think the Buckeyes have a shot to win a couple of games as I think Northwestern was a pretty good draw in the second round. But Ohio State doesn't match up all that well with Maryland so I think that's where the Buckeyes are going to bow out after victories of Rutgers and Northwestern.
Semifinal predictions: Maryland over Indiana; Purdue over Minnesota
Final: Maryland 74, Purdue 71
