Big Ten Tourney Bracket/Release
Via U-M Media Relations—check below the release for the full bracket. Michigan will play the winner of Northwestern/Minnesota on Friday at 6:30 EST, televised on BTN:
BIG TEN RELEASES 2012 MEN’S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT BRACKET
Michigan State earns fourth No. 1 seed; Michigan, Ohio State and Wisconsin round out top four
The Big Ten announced on Sunday the bracket for the 2012 Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament, which will be played Thursday through Sunday, March 8-11, at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Michigan State is the No. 1 seed for the fourth time in tournament history and the first time since 2009, finishing the conference slate with a 13-5 record. No. 2 Michigan (13-5), No. 3 Ohio State (13-5) and No. 4 Wisconsin (12-6) also earned first-round byes.
The tournament will tip off at 11:30 a.m. ET on Thursday, March 8, as No. 8 Iowa (8-10) takes on No. 9 Illinois (6-12) on BTN. The second game of the day features No. 5 Indiana (11-7) and No. 12 Penn State (4-14), also on BTN.
Thursday’s second session tips off at 5:30 p.m. as No. 7 Northwestern (8-10) takes on No. 10 Minnesota (6-12) on ESPN2. The first day of games wraps up as No. 6 Purdue (10-8) takes on No. 11 Nebraska (4-14) also on ESPN2.
The second day of the tournament tips off with Michigan State squaring off against the winner of Thursday’s Iowa/Illinois game at Noon on ESPN. The second contest of the day will have Wisconsin playing the winner of the Indiana versus Penn State matchup at approximately 2:30 p.m., also on ESPN. Michigan will face either Northwestern or Minnesota at 6:30 p.m., while Ohio State will take on the winner of Thursday’s Purdue-Nebraska game at approximately 9 p.m. The last two games of the day will be broadcast by BTN.
Big Ten Tournament semifinal games will be played on Saturday, beginning at 1:40 p.m. on CBS Sports. The championship game tips off at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday and will also be broadcast by CBS Sports.
This year’s tournament marks the fourth time Michigan State has earned the No. 1 seed and the first time since 2009. Michigan earns its highest seed ever at No. 2, claiming a first-round bye for the second consecutive season. Ohio State will have a bye in the first round for the seventh straight season. The Buckeyes have won the last two Big Ten Tournament titles and three all-time, marking the most of any team. Wisconsin earns the No. 4 seed for the fifth time and for the third time in the last four seasons. With the No. 4 seed, the Badgers also earn a first-round bye for the 12th consecutive season.
Since the first Big Ten Tournament in 1998, six teams have captured the event’s title with Ohio State claiming three titles, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan State and Wisconsin each owning two tournament trophies, and Purdue winning one tournament title. Tournament championship games have featured teams seeded as high as first, second and third and as low as eighth, ninth, 10th and 11th. Nine different schools have advanced to the tournament’s championship game.
All-session and single-session tickets to the Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament can be purchased through the Bankers Life Fieldhouse box office, Ticketmaster outlets, www.ticketmaster.com, or by calling Ticketmaster at (800) 745-3000.
TOURNEY BRACKET (click to enlarge)
Does anyone know how easy it is to find tickets down there? I mean I figure the IU and Purdue tickets will be much tougher to find, but just looking for a B1G tourney veteran who knows if there are a lot of excess tickets being sold by scalpers/regular people
Usually you see a lot of empty seats, particularly for earlier round games. I wouldn't imagine it would be extremely difficult to find tickets for a reasonable price, but I've never been, that's just based off of what I've seen from TV.
Buy cheap tix and then get day or all session passes from fans of a losing team. I've got free tix every year and one year I was behind one of the benches 4 rows up.
Whoever makes these brackets for the B1G needs to be slapped. You can't even pencil in the winning teams.
They left the line open...go ahead and write "Michigan" the rest is just semantics.
My basketball history isn't great. Are we one of the two schools that has not played in the final?
We won the 1998 tournament, but it was vacated. Since then, we haven't made it back.
and just for completeness, Northwestern (and Nebraska of course) are the other schools yet to make the B1G Tourney final
We won the tournament against Purdue in the late 90s.
sucks we play during the ND game at Yost Friday...
Northwester could be a tough match up in the second round. They have matched up well with Michigan and their 1-3-1 gave Burke and company some difficulties. They will also probably be playing for their tournament lives. Will be a tough game. Glad Michigan is playing them rather than Indiana or Purdue though. Michigan to the semi-finals I think gets them a 3-seed.
Fucking a I just realized that Michigan will be playing in the CCHA Playoffs at Yost on Friday against notre dame.
It won't be televised, so looks like I'll have Michigan Basketball on mute while listening to Michigan Hockey for the second time in three weeks.
I'm not crazy about potentially playing Northwestern again, but we've beaten them twice, there's no reason we can't beat them a third time. I do like the way we've played, particularly THJ and Smot. I like the momentum we have.
Ill and Iowa are in the same boat as NW. and Minn for that matter.
Iowa has Basabe back, i think too.
no easy games in this conf.
This is our highest BTT seed ever - even the '98 team that won it (before being vacated) was only #4.
We are probably going to be directly responsible for whether or not northwestern gets into the big dance
Be sure to tune into Pardon the Interruption to see Wilbon seethe in hatred after Michigan derails NW's first NCAA trip ever.
Mmmmm.....your tears are delicious.
Although a NW win against us would lock up a bid. They can still make it if they take care of business against Minnesota assuming no random teams win conference tournaments and bubble teams don't make runs in their conference tournaments.
I think they are going to have to consider Northwestern since they are clearly looking at Connecticut which has an identical record (in a weaker conference) and Texas. Granted Connecticut has higher SOS and RPI but they have been trending downward while Northwestern has played good and great teams close.
NU is going to be sweating come Selection Sunday if they only beat Minnesota.
Of course would rather we take care of business and make it the Semifinals.
I just found out a way to edit the bracket, so I made a printable version where you can you pencil in the winning teams.
another chance to crush Northwesterns dreams!
Don't hate on northwestern. I want to see them get in, especially jon shurna. Also since we've already crushed their dreams twice it will be hard to do it a third time.
white out. (Not the lame kind in East Lansing)
Don't like that we might have to play Northwestern for our first game. They took us to overtime twice. We probably should have lost the first game. I'll be rooting for Minny to upset them in the first round.
I think we gotta root for Minny. Playing a team for the 3rd time after needing OT both of the other times, when they'd likely be playing for a chance for their first ever NCAA bid, etc.
(But it would be great to make Wilbon seethe just a little more.)
only thing that sucks is we are on big ten network. IF we win the first game i will have to watch the 2nd game on the cpu,i live in North Carolina,acc games overlap CBS,BULLSHIT.GO BLUE!!!
Anyone know how they actually determined who the 1, 2, and 3 seeds were? I'm kind of interested since we all have the same conference record.
It comes down to record against the next ranked common opponent, which, in this case was Wisconsin. MSU went 2-0, "we" went 1-0 and OSU went 1-1 against the Badgers. Thus, the MSU, UofM, OSU 1-2-3 seedings.
Wisconsin knocks OSU to third, but the reason we are second and MSU is first is because of Purdue. We split Purdue for a .500 winning percentage against them, while MSU won both for a 1.000 winning percentage. Wisconsin is not the tiebreaker for us and MSU because while they won 2 and we only beat them once, it is still a 1.000 winning percentage against them.
How did Penn State end up as #12 and Nebraska as #11? They had the same conference record and split their head-to-head games. Nebraska was 0-5 against Michigan, MSU and Ohio, while Penn State was only 0-4 (only played MSU and Ohio once each). That should be enough to give Penn State the #11 seed, right? I know it's not a huge deal, but it's bothering me. Can someone explain this to me?
It goes by percentage, not overall record. So a 0-1 or 0-2 are both the same. You do that for each team and go down until you have one where they differ.
Would anyone else rather be the #3 seed over the #2 seed (in terms of matchups?)
Personally, I'd rather play Purdue or Nebraska vs. Northwestern or Minnesota.
I know Purdue beat us, but Nebraska is terrible and Northwestern could've beat us twice. They're playing for their tourney lives and it's hard to beat a team 3 times (especially when the first two went to OT). Minnesota is a better team that they're given credit for.
I think we beat all 4 teams, and it doesn't really matter...but I'd rather have the #3 Seed matchups over the #2 seed matchups...
Damn, we start driving for Florida on Friday. Anyone know a radio station in Pennsylvania and West Virginia that will broadcast the game??
The 2 seed always plays the 7-10 winner, in pretty much any bracket. If seeds hold, it's 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, and 4-5 in the Quarterfinals.
I was coming at it from the backend...if you know what I mean.
I love how the release says "since the first tournament in 1998," which has been 14 years, but then lists only 12 winners. The wins of Michigan in 1998 and Ohio in 2002 are quietly ignored.