Maryland Basketball: Big Ten Tournament preview

The Big Ten Tournament gets underway on Wednesday and it’s the most wide-open that the conference has been in quite some time.

The Big Ten was anything but predictable throughout the 2016-17 season. Wisconsin looked to be in the driver’s seat to win the conference, but they lost five of their last seven games and slipped into a second place finish.

Purdue won the Big Ten regular season title and the Boilermakers were the only team to finish with less than five conference losses. Seven teams finished with six to eight losses in Big Ten play, and five teams finished with 10 to 12 losses.

The tight race in the standings and unpredictable play makes for an interesting Big Ten Tournament.

Here’s a run-down of the seven teams on the top half of the bracket:

No. 1 Purdue            No. 4 Minnesota       No. 5 Michigan State         No. 8 Michigan

No. 9 Illinois             No. 12 Nebraska       No. 13 Penn State

Here’s a run-down of the seven teams on the bottom half of the bracket:

No. 2 Wisconsin       No. 3 Maryland           No. 6 Northwestern          No. 7 Iowa

No. 10 Indiana          No. 11 Ohio State        No. 14 Rutgers