Big 10 Tournament Simulation - Michigan State vs. Illinois

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Big 10 Tournament

While many teams from other conferences are simply jockeying for seeding in the upcoming NCAA Tournament (March Madness Brackets Available Now), there are more teams sitting on the bubble in the Big 10 conference tourney than any other. Not only will the sports betting proceedings be tight, but at least six teams still have aspirations of going dancing with work to be done in this week’s tournament. Check out the BetUS Sportsbook’s simulation of the eleven-team tournament…

2009 Big 10 Tournament Simulation

Two of those bubble teams are the #8 Minnesota Golden Gophers (21-9, 11-13-1 ATS) and the #9 Northwestern Wildcats (17-12, 13-10-1 ATS). The Gophers likely only needed one more win to get into the field of 65, while Northwestern needed to make a nice run to go dancing. Minnesota ended up delivering the knockout blow to the Wildcats season with the 75-70 win.

Two other teams in bubble trouble took care of business in the first round of the Big Ten tourney, with the 7th ranked Michigan Wolverines (19-12, 14-10-1 ATS) knocking off the #10 Iowa Hawkeyes (15-16, 15-10 ATS) and the #6 Penn State Nittany Lions (21-10, 13-10-1 ATS) taking out the lowly #11 Indiana Hoosiers (6-24, 12-12 ATS).

The second round of the Big 10 tourney featured a four-pack of very intriguing contests. Though they likely locked up a spot in the dance with the win over Northwestern, a win for the Gophers over the top-seeded Michigan State Spartans (25-5, 15-11-1 ATS) would have certainly done the deed. Unfortunately for them, the Spartans prevailed quite easily, beating Minnesota 90-76.

The #5 Ohio State Buckeyes (20-9, 14-11 ATS) and #4 Wisconsin Badgers (19-11, 12-15-1 ATS) both desperately needed a victory as well to go dancing. It was all about the defense for both teams as expected. Neither squad shot better than 38% from the field, but in the end, four missed free throws left the door open for the OSU heroics down the stretch. Buckeyes center BJ Mullens hit a mid-range jumper with 0:02 to go to break the 50-50 tie to grab the narrow two-point win that probably sent the Badgers packing for the NIT tournament. In other second round action, the #2 Illinois Fighting Illini (23-8, 14-11-1 ATS) bounced Big Blue 59-56, and the #3 Purdue Boilermakers (22-9, 12-15 ATS) upended Penn State 74-68.

In a tournament that featured a bunch of teams in bubble trouble, it took two teams that are firmly in the field of 65 to produce the best game. Purdue scored seven unanswered points in the final 0:32 of regulation to force overtime against Illinois, and then hit a three-pointer with 0:03 left in overtime to knot the score up at 74 apiece. In a play that closely resembled the Christian Laettner play as a Blue Devil, G Chester Frazier found C Mike Tisdale at the opposite end of the court for a foul line jumper that hit nothing but net to propel the Illini into the tourney final. The Spartans had no problems with the Buckeyes, taking out OSU 88-77.