For the first time since an Ohio State team featuring the likes of Greg Oden, Mike Conley and Daequan Cook swept through the Big Ten en route to the National Championship game, the city of Chicago hosts the Big Ten Tournament starting Thursday at 11 a.m.
Indianapolis has served as host city to the tournament for the past five years, but the most loaded and lauded conference in the nation will play 11 games in four days in the house that Michael Jordan built — the United Center.
Indiana, who secured the No. 1 seed in the tournament and its first outright Big Ten regular season championship since 1993 in a win Sunday against Michigan, sits at the top of the bracket in a position to win the Big Ten Tournament for the first time in the program’s history. After the inception of the conference tournament in 1998, Indiana’s furthest run in the tournament was a runner-up appearance in 2001, and the Hoosiers overall tournament record is one of the worst among conference teams at 9-14.
If Indiana is to win that coveted first tournament championship, its path could travel through No. 5-seeded Michigan. The Wolverines were ranked in the top 10 for the majority of the year, but lost twice to the Hoosiers during regular season play. The storyline of that game might lie in the developing rivalry between the two teams, ignited by Indiana head coach Tom Crean berating Michigan assistant Jeff Meyer following the postgame handshakes in Sunday’s game.
“On the way to the plane, I talked to him on the telephone. We discussed a couple of things and I apologized,” Crean explained in a conference call Monday. “In retrospect, I wish I had never addressed anything after the heat of the battle in a game, but I did and we move on. End of story.”
Get The Daily Illini in your inbox!
On the bottom of the bracket at the No. 2 seed, Ohio State looms as the hottest team entering the tournament with five straight wins against its most formidable part of the conference schedule, including Michigan State, Minnesota, Illinois and Indiana.
If the Buckeyes claim the tournament title, it will be head coach Thad Matta’s fourth in the last seven years.
Residing in the bottom bracket and on the wrong side of the NCAA Tournament bubble is No. 6 Iowa. Bracket prognosticators have suggested that two wins — against Northwestern and Michigan State — would force the committee’s hand to give the Hawkeyes an at-large bid to the Big Dance, which would their first since 2006.
Thomas can be reached at [email protected] and @ThomasBruch.
