With the Big Ten Tournament starting this week, the Iowa Hawkeyes are seen as one of the favorites to win the tournament. According to statsowar, the Hawkeyes have the highest probability of taking home the Big Ten Baseball Tournament championship with a win probability of 26.5%.
Big Ten Baseball Tournament Win Probabilities
1. Iowa 26.5%
2. Rutgers 26.2%
3. Maryland 24.3%
4. Illinois 7.9%
5. Michigan 6.8%
6. Indiana 6.1%
7. Purdue 2.2%
8. Penn State <0.1%— parker (@statsowar) May 23, 2022
The Hawkeyes currently sit third in the Big Ten rankings behind regular-season winner Maryland and second-place Rutgers. Iowa finished the season with a 33-17 overall record, going 17-7 in conference play.
The Hawkeyes enter the Big Ten Baseball Tournament fresh off a sweep of Indiana. Iowa thrashed Indiana in each of the series’ first two games, 30-16, and 12-0 before winning the final game 2-1 in their final series of the season.
Iowa is a team that is getting hot at the right time. They’ve only lost four games in the month of May and haven’t lost a series against a Big Ten opponent since Illinois in early April. In fact, the Hawkeyes won each of their final six Big Ten series.
Iowa’s portion of the Big Ten bracket includes No. 2 seed Rutgers, No. 6 Penn State and No. 7 seed Purdue.
Iowa will play sixth-seeded Penn State for the first time this season in the first round at 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning. It’s the first appearance in the Big Ten Baseball Tournament for Penn State since 2012. The Hawkeyes need to take care of business against Penn State to help their at-large NCAA Tournament chances.
After that, it’s a likely date against second-seeded Rutgers. The Hawkeyes took two of three from the Scarlet Knights in their late April series.
From the looks of it, the Big Ten Baseball Tournament championship will be a slugfest between Maryland, Rutgers, and Iowa. According to statsowar, Rutgers has the second-best chance to win the Big Ten Baseball Tournament with a 26.2% win probability and Maryland has the third-best chance with a 24.3% win probability.
[mm-video type=playlist id=01fvdcxf97xrgg1awc player_id=none image=https://hawkeyeswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]
Contact/Follow us @HawkeyesWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Iowa news, notes, and opinions.
Follow Jacob on Twitter: @Jacobkeppen
Let us know your thoughts, and comment on this story below. Join the conversation today.