Bracketology: YOU* DID IT!

Four teams left in the Big Ten Tournament! It’s Purdue and Indiana and, as we all predicted, Penn State and Ohio State.

So how has that affected NCAA Tournament projections?

B1G Bracketology

B1G Talking Points

• Through dint of doing...well, I’m not exactly sure what, Purdues has leapt back over UCLA onto the 1-seed line. Congratties, Boilers! Need to avoid serve being broken today and it’s a 1-seed in the Dance, probably?
• Indiana looks locked into a well-deserved 4-seed and probably the easiest matchup at that? I know little about the Ragin’ Cajuns, Hoop Edition, but Yale and the rest of the Ivy is no great shakes this year. Hoosiers would be close to a coinflip to making the Sweet Sixteen before a game’s even played.
• Let me say I like Jerry Palm a lot more than Joe Lunardi as far as the Northwestern Wildcats are concerned. (That was a heartbreaking loss to a team in Penn State that is, if you look at Kenpom’s metrics, basically Offense Northwestern—Top 20 on one side, outside the Top 100 on the other, glacial pace, bad non-con strength of schedule. Weirdly, all those metrics are also basically the Bill Carmody Era at Northwestern, right down to the lack of a true big man. Suddenly I like Penn State a lot.)
• Michigan State is in, which Jon Rothstein has no doubt reminded everyone means March Tom Izzo is upon us. I don’t know how much to make of Sparty this year. They’re dangerous, of course, but it feels like there’s understandably just too much going on to expect anything from MSU.
• When I first wrote this, I forgot to put anything down about Maryland. Feels apt.
• A big ol’ lol at Iowa, who are at this point exactly what we knew they were—a hot-headed, streaky offensive team of shrinking violets when any little thing goes the wrong way. That applies to the fanbase as well as it applies to the team.
• I don’t know if I will be taking Illinois as a 10-over-7 upset, or the first-round team to lose by the most.
• In a cruel twist of fate, we’ve received intelligence from the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee that in a break with precedent, Illinois will play Penn State in the first round. Our deepest condolences to Thumpasaurus.
• In more seriousness, a richly-earned congratulations to Micah Shrewsberry and Penn State, who have found their form at the right time and played their way into the Dance. I was impressed at how well the man I am now calling Shrewd-sberry managed the emotions and runs of the Northwestern game yesterday. A shootout between the Lions and Mizzou would be a great first-round matchup; Iowa State grab-balling the Lions on the perimeter would not.
• I don’t see it with Rutgers, but it ain’t my call. They won their play-in with Michigan and now should get another trip to Dayton.
• Big ups to Michigan and wisconsin for doing something only 16 teams in the whole country get to do: host a first-round NIT game. Well done!
• Looking forward to Ohio State earning a 14-seed. MAKE IT HAPPEN.
• Nebraska...we believed :( we all believed.

Let me know what I got wrong, and be sure to join today’s open thread of games and vote in our B1G Name of the Year tournament:

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