Big 10 Tourney Time
While things are starting to wind down with the basketball season for my nieces and nephews, in the world of university basketball, things are just starting to heat up. The regular season came to a close this past weekend now many of the power conferences are in the midst of their respective tournaments. The uninitiated may feel like these games are just a formality, but some of them can have some pretty big implications for the national tournament that starts at the end of next week.
I was kind of annoyed to find out that the first two rounds of the Big Ten tournament are only being broadcast on the Peacock Network. It's one of the few streaming services that I don't actually subscribe to. I used to have a trial subscription for it, but I decided to let it lapse when the free portion of it was over.
Due to whatever deal they have worked out, several of the Michigan State games this season were streamed exclusively on Peacock. I'm sorry, but I just couldn't bring myself to pay for the service simply to watch something that should be readily available to everyone in the state of Michigan.
I think it is pretty ridiculous that all of these streaming services have these exclusive deals like this. I almost think it's better to give up television all together. Don't quote me on that though!
The Big Ten Tournament started yesterday with a handful of teams getting into the action. If you don't know, there are something like 18 teams in the Big Ten conference now. The bottom three teams were left out of the running to play in the conference tournament. Those three teams being Washington, Nebraska, and Penn State. I think the one that surprises me the most in that list is Penn State. Washington is too new for me to care, Nebraska is heartbreaking for sure, but Penn State is a shocker.
The action kicked off with a bang yesterday as we saw 15 seed Iowa take down 10 seed Ohio State 77 to 70. We also had a more mild upset with 13 seed Northwestern ousting 12 seed Minnesota 72 to 64. In the later game, 14 seed USC took down 11 seed Rutgers in double overtime 97 to 89.
If you are keeping track, that's three games with three upset wins. As you can see, teams know this conference tournament is an important step to the national tournament and they are playing like their lives depend on it.
Today we have four more games (that I won't be able to watch) with 9 seed Indiana facing 8 seed Oregon, Northwestern continues on to face 5 seed Wisconsin, Iowa takes on 7 seed Illinois, and USC faces a 6 seed Purdue team.
Meanwhile, 1 seed Michigan state, 2 seed Maryland, 3 seed Michigan, and 4 seed UCLA have another day of byes before the action starts for them tomorrow.
The way it is sitting right now, Michigan State will be facing either Indiana or Oregon. In the regular season, Indiana just barely beat Michigan State and Oregon fell to the Spartans, so I am not really sure which way I want this to go. I think State has a good chance of beating either team, but it will depend on how ready they are to play and how much the other team has their sights set on the big dance...
Early projections say that Oregon is for sure going to make it into the tournament, but Indiana is a bubble team right now, so they need the win more than Oregon does. We will see how that all plays out.
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I watched that State game versus Michigan.. State looked unbeatable if they continue to bring that energy
Unfortunately for State, they don't always seem to do that. I agree they look good when they are "on", but they still struggle with turnovers and other teams aren't going to be as forgiving.