Bubble could decide between Big Ten, Big 12 supremacy
The precarious situation on the NCAA Tournament bubble could be what decides whether the deep Big Ten or the brutal Big 12 get the most teams into the 68team field come Selection Sunday.
The Big Ten headed into the semifinals Saturday with seven teams with a spot reserved: Michigan, Ohio State, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Purdue and Rutgers. The league’s biggest rival likewise has seven sure things with Texas set to play Oklahoma State in its title game Saturday night: the Longhorns and Cowboys along with Baylor, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, West Virginia and Kansas — assuming the Jayhawks navigated a COVID-19 outbreak that bumped them from the Big 12 Tournament.
That leaves bubble-dwelling Maryland and Michigan State to potentially break the tie.
The Terps (16-13) let a chance for a statement-making win against the fourthranked Wolverines slip away with a 79-66 loss Friday. It had significant NCAA Tournament ramifications, even if the headlines were about Michigan coach Juwan Howard’s ejection following a few choice words with Maryland counterpart Mark Turgeon.
Still, the Terrapins coach spoke afterward as if they were certain to make the NCAA Tournament field.
“We’ve come a long ways. Nobody can deny that,” Turgeon said, “but to have Selection Sunday and our team is going to be called — I think six weeks ago, nobody would have believed that. I’m proud of this team.”
If they do make the field, it may have come at the expense of Michigan State. The Terps beat the Spartans (1512) one day earlier in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament.
If the Spartans make it, they can point to five wins in the final eight games, including three against top-5 teams Michigan, Ohio State and Illinois — the latter in back-to-back games at the Breslin Center.
“In fairness, this has been three weeks from hell,” Spartans coach Tom Izzo said, “but it’s also been three of the more exhilarating weeks of my coaching career, when you can beat some of the teams we beat and you play the way you did and you earn them. We grinded it out. We did it the right way.”