If one conference sits at the center of the college basketball universe right now, it is the Big Ten. You could make a clever argument and say that the Atlantic Coast Conference is the biggest story in college basketball as we approach the beginning of February, but the ACC is a huge story for bad reasons, not good ones. The Big Ten, however, is the conference poised to dominate Selection Sunday and give member schools a chance to earn a lot of NCAA Tournament win shares. (The Big Ten, like every other conference, receives more money from the NCAA based on cumulative six-year NCAA Tournament appearances and results. The more games won in rolling six-year periods, the more that conference receives each new year.)
It is the dream of every elite basketball conference to get double-digit NCAA Tournament bids. With 10 or 11 teams in the Big Dance, the opportunities for added revenue generation skyrocket. Not every team will go deep into the field, but if most teams win in round one, half make the Sweet 16, and one team makes the Final Four, that is a gigantic windfall for the conference.
The Big Ten could do that this year.
The reason why the Big Ten has a shot at this is that, as mentioned earlier, the ACC is having a nightmarish season. How bad is the ACC? It is very possible that the league could have only THREE TEAMS in the NCAA Tournament. All the frontline bubble teams have struggled massively in the past two weeks. North Carolina State and Virginia Tech are playing their way out of the field and need to stop the bleeding immediately. North Carolina will not make the tournament unless it wins the ACC Tournament or goes on a huge winning streak. Virginia played terrible basketball for multiple weeks. It beat Florida State on Tuesday but is squarely on the bubble. Syracuse moved to the head of the bubble pack but then lost at Clemson. Not one team after the top three (Duke, Louisville, Florida State) is solidifying its position in the field. All the true bubble teams are losing ground.
Even in a down year, the ACC normally gets six teams into the field. If it gets only three, that’s three more bids for other conferences.
When you then realize that the 14-team SEC looks like a six-bid league at best, and that the bubble teams in the Big 12 (Texas, Oklahoma, TCU) and Pac-12 (Washington State, Washington, Arizona State) have a lot of work to do, there could easily be a situation in which the various Power Five conferences leave a lot of bids on the table.
The Big Ten could scoop them up.
Purdue and Minnesota are just above .500, but have a realistic chance of making the field. Ohio State and Michigan are both 2-6 in the conference, but are still in the field as of right now. It’s weird, but it’s real. The Big Ten is hitting the sweet spot in terms of having a lot of average teams but hardly any bad teams — only Nebraska and Northwestern qualify there. Since every game other than a Nebraska or Northwestern game comes against a decent team with decent ratings, every win is good and every loss is not a crusher. Teams are getting rewarded when they win and not punished when they lose. It is the dream scenario for any conference, and it is playing out in the Big Ten.
As long as the ACC and Pac-12 bubble teams continue to stumble, a double-digit bid allocation for the Big Ten remains a legitimate possibility. This is good news for Wisconsin, and good news for Big Ten coffers. We will stay on top of this story in February and all the way up to Selection Sunday at Badgers Wire.