Big Ten Bracketology: ALL-FIVE SEEDS LIIIIIIIVES

Sorry this has been on a brief hiatus—turns out writing for my actual job is a “priority” or something. We’ve missed a wild couple weeks in Big Ten basketball—Iowa clinging to a five-seed for a long time while escaping teams (Northwestern, Rutgers) who barely have a pulse, for example.

I’ve got nothing witty to tell you, save for that all these bracketology projections are a couple days old. Maybe I’ll round ‘em up again over the weekend. Hit it:

B1G Talking Points:

• Kentucky has pretty soundly jumped Michigan State onto the 1-line...the Spartans and Michigan are locked pretty neatly into their 2-lines, barring conference tournament shenanigans.
• Meanwhile, both wisconsin and Maryland missed their chances to move out of a pack in the low 4s and upper 5s. I’d expect the next round of bracketology to have Florida State and Kansas State moving above the Terps and badgers.
• Iowa as a 7-seed seems most accurate; we’ll have to see what kind of tumbles their ass-kicking at the Schott leads to. But be honest—an Iowa-Oklahoma showdown in Anaheim would be pretty awesome for a few of our Hawkeye friends. And that O/U would be...what, about 155?
• Speaking of, the kinda-crazy-smart logic behind Ohio State to juuuuust enough to stay on a 10-line? It actually looks reasonable! Minus the first-round matchup with Villanova. But a flawed Baylor or Iowa State team in Round 1? Yeah, I’d be interested in the Buckeyes’ chances.
• Just...how the fuck are the Minnesota Golden Gophers still in this?
• Nebraska as the only NIT team, and a 5-seed at that.
• We’re still pulling for the Rutgers Scarlet Knights to make the CBI...it’s not unrealistic to think that the Knights (13-14) could go 2-1 in their last three (at Iowa, vs. PSU, at IU), then hold off a Northwestern or whomever and stay at .500 in the Big Ten Tournament. Hell yeah. Sign me up.