2/3 Big Ten Tournament Bracketology: Minnesota Tumbles

The Big Ten has operated more like the wild west than a major basketball conference this season, but it’s led to some intriguing and exciting results. It should also set things up nicely for the Big Ten Tournament, especially considering how unpredictable play has been for the league’s top teams.

In light of 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 Friday, February 3, 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.

2017 Big Ten Tournament Bracket (2/3):

Thoughts:

To start, it's worth noting that this projection is still 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, Maryland and Wisconsin maintained their spots as the top two seeds respectively. If the Terps find a way to take down Purdue at home on Saturday, the expectation will be that these two will grab these seeds at season’s end. Additionally, the battle between Northwestern and Purdue looks to be a good one.

The middle of the bracket also looks like it should set up for some great games. Not only would Indiana and Penn State rematch from two nail-biters this season, but Michigan and Nebraska would also face off. Considering how inconsistent those teams have been, that’s probably two great games right there.

At the bottom, Minnesota continues to disappoint and appears slated to play on Wednesday in the Big Ten Tournament for the third year in a row. That would obviously be a tremendous disappointment considering how the team started this season.

We'll have to see how the coming weeks impacts things for the bracket, but it still looks like an exciting race across the Big Ten.