For much of the Big Ten season, the purpose of the journey for non-Wisconsin Big Ten teams was to get into the top four and secure a double bye in the conference tournament, which is unfolding this weekend in Chicago.
Though it looks odd and seems to give lower-seeded teams a disadvantage by playing an extra game or two — while not having the heavy hitters make an appearance until Friday — coaches don’t seem to be against the system.
With the amount of teams in the conference, there is no way to avoid byes and making the bracket look a bit weird, but the double bye takes that to the next level. The conference, upon moving to 14 teams, adopted the SEC’s bracket format and introduced a first round involving seeds 11 through 14. Accordingly, the top four seeds — once given a single-round bye — now get two byes into the quarterfinals. The Big Ten gave an added reward of rest to the four teams who successfully endure the gauntlet of the conference schedule.
Yet, while that double-bye looks great on the surface, there’s always a concern about extended rest: namely, it can turn to rust while a lower-seeded team breaks into the tournanment and gains a chance to develop more of a rhythm. An added game can aid the four teams at the bottom of the conference that play for their lives on Wednesday of tournament week.
Penn State and Minnesota, after wins in the first round, both looked very strong in the second round against higher-seeded teams on Thursday. The Nittany Lions gave Iowa an early trip home, while Minnesota stuck with D’Angelo Russell and the Buckeyes for most of that particular game. Penn State also gave double-bye beneficiary Purdue quite a scare on Friday in the quarterfinals before eventually falling.
With this in mind, is the double bye really a disadvantage for the two lower-seeded winners on Wednesday? It gives the winning teams a two-game head start before getting to the four top teams, while the top-seeded teams just watch, practice, and collect rust. The lower teams are fighting for their postseason lives and every game could be their last, so that motivation exists. Picking up wins gives them another ‘M’ over the bye teams: momentum. This allows them to get off to a quick start against the top teams. In fact, UConn showed a blueprint for this, winning five games in the Big East Tournament in 2011… and then winning out in March and collecting the national championship.
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With this in mind, a pair of teams with the single bye – Michigan and Indiana – got off to quick starts against the top two seeds in Wisconsin and Maryland in the quarterfinals. They rode the momentum of their wins on Thursday and took that into the start of the games on Friday.
However, as the Badgers and Terps — along with Purdue — showed, rest cannot be overrated. Those three teams all took their opponents’ best punches and overcame them.
While there is always talk during the season about getting the double bye and — at the other end of the spectrum — falling into the bottom four, one thing has emerged in the 2015 Big Ten Tournament: the status quo. The top four seeds will square off against each other on Saturday in the conference semifinals. Wisconsin will battle Purdue at 1 p.m. on CBS, and Maryland will play Michigan State following the opener on the same network.
In their only matchup this season, Purdue stuck with the Badgers in Madison, but eventually fell, 62-55, on Jan. 7. Maryland swept the Spartans this season, with a two-point overtime win in East Lansing and a 16-point blowout at College Park on Jan. 17. However, after that big loss to the Terps, Michigan State won 10 of its last 16 games. These matchups should create some close, exciting games going into the final on Sunday.
With this, bubble dwellers in other conferences can rejoice. Despite all of the close games on Friday, Saturday’s matchups are four teams that will get into the field. There will be no at-large theft from the Big Ten this season.
One important reason Purdue should feel very good about getting into the NCAA tournament is that by simply playing Wisconsin again, the Boilermakers’ various “nitty gritty” numbers should improve after having to play 13th-seeded Penn State instead of fifth-seeded Iowa. Purdue could have dealt with at least a few nervous moments on Selection Sunday had it lost to Penn State. Now, the Boilermakers should have no worries whatsoever. Matt Painter has successfully guided this team back to the NCAA tournament, an important accomplishment for a team that endured a very difficult non-conference portion of the season.
What will be a big key in these semifinals? Rebounding. Wisconsin and Purdue both advanced on Friday by snapping down multiple offensive rebounds down the stretch, and Michigan State’s big men ran rings around Ohio State’s post players for much of their nighttime quarterfinal.
The upstarts have been sent home. It’s time for the double-bye crowd — having survived Friday — to light up Semifinal Saturday in Chicago.
