You mean to tell me that the 2020 Big Ten basketball season refuses to calm down or provide expected results in the first week of March, which is also the last week of the conference’s regular season? Get out of here!
Yep, the Big Ten’s nutty 2020 thrill ride remained on brand Tuesday night. Michigan State merely came back from 20 points down to beat Penn State. Rutgers, which had been sliding for several weeks, regrouped to hammer Maryland and tuck away the NCAA Tournament bid which always seemed likely, but which had become a genuinely uncertain and “bubbly” proposition in recent days. Perhaps most surprising of all, Purdue — currently an NIT team — went into Carver-Hawkeye Arena and thumped Iowa on the strength of a 42-25 first-half blitz.
Three games, three surprises — not necessarily the winners themselves, but certainly the way in which they won.
Michigan State coming back from a huge deficit on the road? Maryland no-showing after losing decisively to Michigan State? Purdue — which crushed Iowa earlier in the season at Mackey Arena — annihilating the Hawkeyes a second time, this time on the road, where the Boilermakers have struggled all season? You couldn’t have drawn up a more improbable or plot-twist-filled set of outcomes in those three games. The Big Ten simply refused to be predictable this season, so why should we expect anything else in the last games of the pre-set slate?
The Big Ten Tournament should be a festival of craziness, putting the Madness into March and capping one of the most interesting yet volatile Big Ten hoops campaigns in recent memory.
Sports analysts like to think they know what is going on, that they can sense the trajectory of a team’s development or the arc of a conference’s evolution. They like to tell you (I include myself in this group) that they know what will happen and that certain teams have the advantage.
Sometimes, though, analysts need to realize they have no clue what will happen next. This is one of those times. I would be lying if I told you I knew how the Big Ten race and the Big Ten Tournament will shake out. I honestly don’t have any idea at all.
If you’re honest, you’ll probably admit the same.