2008 Big Ten Basketball Tournament
Printable & Viewable Bracket Link: 2008 Big 10 Mens Basketball Tournament Bracket
Participants/Overview: The 2008 Big Ten Tournament will pit all 11 conference teams rewarding the winner with automatic entry in the 2008 Mens NCAA basketball championship tournament. With an 11 team format the schools with the top 5 records in conference play start play in the Quarterfinals. The other 6 teams have the daunting task of winning 4 games in 4 days.
At the publish time of March 1st, the Big Ten is a top heavy league. With 4 teams ranked in the top 25, there is a big talent drop off after the 1-4 schools. The 4 schools that have pretty much locked up post season bids regardless of how they finish in no particular order are Wisconsin, Michigan State, Indiana, and the surprise Purdue Boilermakers. The other team likely to earn a first round in the Big 10 tournament is last years winner, the Ohio State Buckeyes. While the Buckeyes are in a good position to get the bye, they are definitely one of the teams on the tournament bubble. It is hard to imagine a conference like the Big Ten only getting 4 teams into the Big Dance, but Ohio State will need some wins down the stretch including against Purdue on the 4th and Michigan State on the 9th to prevent that from happening.
Although there is some separation in the conference standings in terms of wins and loses, the Big Ten tourney normally always sees some Cinderella story emerge, as the tournament final has featured teams seeded 11th, 9th and 6th, while the No. 4 seed has advanced to the championship game on three different occasions. Of the 6 teams playing on day 1, the only 2 dark horses we can maybe see filling this role this season would be the Minnesota Golden Gophers or Illinois Fighting Illini. One team has underachieved while the other has overachieved, but both teams featured sharp schemed coaches who have been there before in Tubby Smith and Bruce Weber
Venue: Conseco Fieldhouse
Sponsor: The Big 10
Dates: March 13h-March 16th
TV: The early opening round game will be televised on the Big Ten Network. The 2 late opening round games will be televised on ESPN2. On the 14th the 2 early quarterfinal games will be televised on ESPN TV, with the 2 late quarterfinal games seen on the Big Ten Network. The Semifinals will be shown on CBS along with the Championship game at 3:30 eastern time Sunday the 16th.
Big Ten Tournament Schedule
March 13th - Opening Round
March 14th - Quarterfinals
March 15th - Semifinals
March 16th - Championship
Click
here for the updated Big 10 tournament bracket
Last Years Winner
Ohio State Buckeyes. The number 1 tournament seed and #1 ranked
AP poll school Ohio State dismantled the number 4 team in the country,
the Wisconsin Badgers 66-49. This victory was the Buckeyes first
Big Ten Tournament title. On the road to the final Ohio State had
very little trouble beating all 3 of its tournament opponents by
at least 10 points. The Buckeyes were lead by Freshmen center Greg
Oden and guard Mike Connley Jr.
Wisconsin didn't shoot well from the floor and committed 17 turnovers. Big Ten player of the year Alando Tucker missed his first six shots and finished with only 10 points. Once the 2nd half hit the Badgers fell behind by as many as 19 points and never really had a shot to comeback.
This was the rubber game of the series with each team winning on its home floor in the regular season.
The Buckeyes entered the 2007 tournament on a 17 game winning streak and extended it to 22 wins but fell one game short of the national title losing to the Florida Gators 84-75. Three point shooting was the difference in the game as Ohio State only made 4 of 23 attempts while the Gators connected on 10 of 18 three point shots.
Previous Years Big 10 Tournament
Bracket
2007 Champion: Ohio State
2006
Champion: Iowa
2005
Champion: Illinois
2004
Champion: Wisconsin
Off Site Links
Big 10 Conference Official
Website
Conseco Fieldhouse Venue
Website
Start reading up on the rest of the 2008 March Madness tournament addition from MadduxSports.com. Some of the info you can find includes brackets, free picks, and live betting lines. Maddux Sports is the complete source for this years tournament.
