1/7 Big Ten Tournament Bracketology: Nebraska Leads The Field

With Saturday's set of games, the Big Ten has seen a wide array of results through this young season. In fact, there have been enough games that we’re beginning to get an early look at how things could be seeded for this year’s Big Ten Tournament. And if things so far are any indication, expect a wild season.

With that, let's take a look at the Big Ten Tournament bracket.

The concept of the bracket is pretty simple. Each time, BTP will breakdown how the Big Ten Tournament projects as of that moment. For instance, today's bracket will be set as of the night of Saturday, January 7, 2016. I have taken the liberty of looking at the Big Ten records and using the Big Ten tiebreaker scenarios to see where teams land. Things will certainly move, but it’s interesting to see as of this moment.

2016 Big Ten Tournament Bracket (1/7):

Thoughts:

To start, it's worth noting that this projection is early with a capital e. Even a single game can drastically change the bracket’s outlook and with so many important ones over the coming days, expect things to look much different in the near future. However, as mentioned above, it’s still fun to see how things look now.

At the top of the bracket, the one seed is probably the most astounding as Nebraska leads the field. Now, this is a bit flawed as Wisconsin simply hasn’t played as many games as the Huskers, but it’s still noteworthy. Seeing Minnesota in the top four is also pretty amazing given what happened last season for the Gophers.

In the middle, there’s a lot of quality teams battling for position. In particular, if Maryland, Indiana, and Purdue landed in this group, it could set up perhaps the most unpredictable Big Ten Tournament so far. Penn State grabbing the seven seed is also a pretty wild spot considering where that program’s been recently.

At the bottom, it’s no surprise to see Rutgers grab the last seed, but how about Michigan coming in at No. 11? After fans were so hopeful during non-conference play, it has to be disappointing to see Michigan seeded so lowly.

We'll have to see how the next weeks impacts things, but it looks like an exciting race in the Big Ten.