Quick Recap
Michigan won the Big Ten regular season title by beating both Minnesota and Illinois.
Minnesota was able to follow up their Michigan loss by knocking off UCLA at home.
After getting an important home win against Ohio State, Iowa lost all good momentum by losing at Penn State.
That was Penn State's first win since February 11th, and only their 3rd win in the 2026 calendar year.
Michigan State went on the road and got a big win at Mackey Arena, Purdue's 4th home loss of the season. They followed it up with a 13 point win at Indiana.
Nebraska had a good bounce back spot this week, beating Maryland and USC.
Wisconsin split their west coast trip, losing to Oregon and beating Washington. The Oregon loss won't be a great one for their resume.
Oregon has now win 3 of their last 5 games, after being on a 10 game losing streak before that.
Ohio State got a MUCH needed win over Purdue, boosting their bubbly tourney resume. Purdue has now dropped 2 in a row and 6 of their last 11.
Score recap (Away Team - Home Team)
Washington 79 - Rutgers 72
Northwestern 72 - Indiana 68
Minnesota 67 - Michigan 77
USC 62 - UCLA 81
Maryland 61 - Nebraska 74
Ohio State 57 - Iowa 74
Wisconsin 71 - Oregon 85
Michigan State 76 - Purdue 74
Michigan 84 - Illinois 70
Iowa 69 - Penn State 71
Oregon 62 - Northwestern 63
UCLA 73 - Minnesota 78
Wisconsin 90 - Washington 73
Nebraska 82 - USC 67
Rutgers 69 - Maryland 65
Purdue 74 - Ohio State 82
Michigan State 77 - Indiana 64
5 Trends and Observations
1.) Michigan wins the Big Ten
The Michigan Wolverines are your regular season Big Ten champs for the first time since 2021. This felt inevitable over the last few weeks, but it was cemented after Michigan went on the road to beat Illinois by 14, dominating the 2nd half of the game.
In Morez Johnson's return to Champaign, he put up a casual 19 points, 11 rebounds, and a steal on 6/10 shooting while earning Kenpom MVP honors. I don't think the Illinois crowd bugged him at all.
This Michigan team can simply do a bit of everything. I talked last week about how they're a higher variance shooting team, but that still means there are plenty of quality shooting nights, including going 8/22 from 3 against Illinois. When engaged, they can be one of the elite rebounding teams in the country. Their defense is currently #2 in Kenpom, only behind Duke. They're top 5 in both offensive and defensive 2P%, don't foul much, and shut down most off ball action with their switching defense. They're the 50th oldest team in the country per Kenpom D-1 Experience, and they're the 30th tallest team.
Michigan has multiple superstars, and they have 4 players who can be superstars on any given night (Yaxel, Cadeau, Morez, Mara). In addition though, they've been one of the deepest teams in the country all season long, trusting that all 9 players can be "the guy" on any given night. Unfortunately though, that rotation is going to be cut to 8 as LJ Cason suffered a torn ACL against Illinois, an unfortunate ending to what had been a quality season for the sophomore. We wish him a speedy and healthy recovery.
Michigan still has games at Iowa and home against Michigan State this week, not the easiest closing stretch. They could probably lose both and still be a 1 seed, but winning both can put them in position to be the top seed overall.
2.) Minnesota keeps fighting
I plan on writing some sort of "how each Big Ten team" did article after the season. And although Minnesota won't make the postseason, I still think they'll end up with one of the more positive sentiments about their season. Despite being 14-15 overall, they find themselves at a respectable 7-11 in Big Ten play, including wins over Michigan State, Iowa, Indiana, and they just beat UCLA this week.
They've won 3 of their last 4 games, and they hung in there against Michigan, albeit probably was a look ahead game for the Wolverines.
Minnesota basically has a 6 man rotation right now, with Kai Shinholster playing somewhere around 10 minutes off the bench. Current players injured include
- Jaylen Crocker-Johnson
- Robert Vaihola
- Chansey Willis
- Nehemiah Turner
- BJ Omot
- Chance Stephens
Crocker-Johnson, Vaihola, and Willis all started the first game of the season. Despite the plethora of injuries, Niko Medved has still figured out a way to maximize his healthy players and make Minnesota not a push over.
In their 15 losses, Minnesota only has 3 that would be counted as a blowout - Missouri, Purdue, and Nebraska.
They have 7 losses by 2 possessions or less OR went to overtime. Maybe that's slightly indicative of struggles in crunch time, but also having to play your starters 35+ minutes a game doesn't help.
All that is to say, there's a world where the bounces go Minnesota's way and we're talking about them being some level of a bubble team. Not bad for year 1 for Medved.
3.) Iowa's road troubles
Iowa has now lost 4 of their last 6 games, including road losses to Maryland and Penn State.
On the season, Iowa has the current win/loss splits
- Home: 15-2
- Road: 3-7
- Neutral: 2-0
Iowa has found a lot of success at home, with their only losses at Carver-Hawkeye Arena being to Illinois and Purdue. At home, the Hawkeyes have taken care of business, beating everyone they're supposed to.
However, they've really struggled on the road. Their only true road wins are against Indiana, Oregon, and Washington, nothing the best collection of road wins. They've lost to both Maryland and Penn State on the road, two pretty bad losses. Those two teams have a combined 5 Big Ten wins outside of beating Iowa.
This ultimately comes down to how Bennett Stirtz has to be a superstar, and if he isn't, the supporting cast simply hasn't been able to do enough when not at home. Against Penn State, it was more of the defensive side of the ball, although the Nittany Lions shooting 60% from 3 doesn't help. Against Maryland, Iowa couldn't stop the Terrapins from scoring on the interior.
What this leaves is Iowa with an interesting resume. They beat Nebraska at home, a big boost for them. Their next best wins are Ohio State, @ Indiana, and UCLA. There's a very real scenario where the Hawkeyes will have beaten only 2 tournament teams by the time seeding rolls around.
They do have two gigantic matchups for themselves this week though - Michigan and @ Nebraska. Iowa could lose both and probably still won't have to sweat much come Selection Sunday, but with their two bad losses recently, their projected seed has been plummeting. A win this week would really help stop the slide.
4.) Big Ten Superstars
Above shows the Kenpom Player of the Year standings. Although no Big Ten player has a chance to really win NPOY (and only very few players in HISTORY would've had a chance against Boozer this season), there currently are 5 players in the top 10 for rankings.
- Yaxel Lendeborg - Michigan
- Keaton Wagler - Illinois
- Braden Smith - Purdue
- Jeremy Fears - Michigan State
- Aday Mara - Michigan
The last time that 5 Big Ten players finished in the top 10 was the 2021 season that included Luka Garza, Ayo Dosunmu, Kofi Cockburn, Hunter Dickinson, and Trevion Williams.
This has been an elite class of Big Ten players, and it's part of why I think there should be some optimism about the Big Ten finally being able to bring home a title this season.
Just thinking through what the Big Ten awards could look like, there feels like 7-10 legitimate candidates for Big Ten 1st Team. The surprising thing for people who haven't followed the Big Ten closely this season? It's pretty guard dominant. When the 15 players for the 3 Big Ten teams (or however many players the conference randomly decides to include), the majority will be perimeter players, something that hasn't been common for the Big Ten.
Last year was arguably the best freshman class in Big Ten history. I'm not going to go so far as to say this is the most talent ever in the Big Ten, but I do think history should remember this Big Ten talent kindly.
5.) Big Ten Standings/Bracketology Check In
IT'S MARCH!!!!!!! The best month of the year.
Here is where we currently stand for Big Ten Tournament seedings, and their corresponding Big Ten conference records.
Note - I believe I have the tiebreakers correct, but could be wrong.
Triple Byes
- #1 Michigan (17-1) - CHAMPS
- #2 Michigan State (14-4)
- #3 Nebraska (14-4)
- #4 Illinois (13-5)
Double Byes
- #5 Purdue (12-6)
- #6 Wisconsin (12-6)
- #7 UCLA (11-7)
- #8 Iowa (10-8)
Single Byes
- #9 Ohio State (10-8)
- #10 Indiana (8-10)
- #11 Minnesota (7-11)
- #12 USC (7-11)
- #13 Washington (6-12)
- #14 Northwestern (5-13)
No Byes
- #15 Rutgers (5-13)
- #16 Maryland (4-14)
- #17 Oregon (4-14)
- #18 Penn State (3-15)
Below is where bracket matrix and Torvik has current Big Ten teams, at the time of writing.
Note - The first number is the current seed on bracketmatrix.com. The second number is based on barttorvik.com TourneyCast, updated through 2/22, which focuses more on predicting final bracket, not saying what it'd be if it ended today. It runs 10,000 simulations based on the projections to average out the seed for each team. Included next to each team's name and seed will be their WAB, Wins Above Bubble.
- Michigan - 1 Seed - 1 Seed - #1 WAB
- Illinois - 2 Seed - 2 Seed - #11 WAB
- Michigan State - 3 seed - 3 Seed - #5 WAB
- Nebraska - 3 Seed - 3 Seed - #6 WAB
- Purdue - 3 Seed - 2 Seed - #12 WAB
- Wisconsin - 7 Seed - 7 Seed - #27 WAB
- Iowa - 8 Seed - 7 Seed - #36 WAB
- UCLA - 10 Seed - 9 Seed - #37 WAB
- Ohio State - 11 seed - 10 Seed - #39 WAB
- Indiana - 11 Seed (3rd to last in) - 11 Seed (Last 4 in) - #51 WAB
Team of the Week
Michigan Wolverines
Stop me if you've heard this before. Michigan went on the road against a top Big Ten team and won by double digits. They've now done that to Michigan State, Purdue, and Illinois, but this time it was to clinch the outright Big Ten title.
Player of the Week
Hannes Steinbach - Washington
@ Rutgers
- 37 minutes - 24 points - 16 rebounds - 1 assist - 3 blocks - 1 steal
- 9/11 2s (81.8%) - 0/2 3s - 6/7 FTs (85.7%)
Wisconsin
- 33 minutes - 22 points - 11 rebounds - 1 assist - 1 block - 2 steals
- 8/10 2s (80.0%) - 0/1 3s - 6/9 FTs (66.7%)
Week Schedule
Note - All times listed are in Eastern Standard Time
How is this the last week of the regular season already???
Game(s) of the Week
- Michigan State @ Michigan - Sun 3/8 - 4:30 - CBS
- Indiana @ Ohio State - Sat 3/7 - 5:30 - FOX
Tuesday, March 3rd
- Oregon @ Illinois - 9:00 - Peacock
- Nebraska @ UCLA - 11:00 - FS1
Wednesday, March 4th
- Minnesota @ Indiana - 6:30 - Big Ten Network
- Ohio State @ Penn State - 7:30 - Peacock
- Maryland @ Wisconsin - 8:00 - FS1
- Purdue @ Northwestern - 8:30 - Big Ten Network
- USC @ Washington - 10:30 - Big Ten Network
Thursday, March 5th
- Michigan @ Iowa - 8:00 - Peacock
- Rutgers @ Michigan State - 8:00 - FS1
Saturday, March 7th
- Wisconsin @ Purdue - 4:00 - CBS
- Indiana @ Ohio State - 5:30 - FOX
- Northwestern @ Minnesota - 9:00 - Big Ten Network
- UCLA @ USC - 9:00 - FS1
- Washington @ Oregon - 11:00 - FS1
Sunday, March 8th
- Penn State @ Rutgers - 12:00 - Big Ten Network
- Illinois @ Maryland - 3:00 - FOX
- Michigan State @ Michigan - 4:30 - CBS
- Iowa @ Nebraska - 5:00 - FOX
