As Ohio State basketball fans, we didn’t always get to look forward to a conference tournament. That’s because the Big Ten basketball tournament hasn’t always been around. In fact, when it comes to league tournaments, it’s one of the newer ones.
The first edition of all the hoopla took place in 1998, and to say it’s been a big hit would be an understatement. The NCAA Tournament used to name the automatic qualifier for the Big Dance based on the regular-season Big Ten champion, but now that bid goes to the winner of all the magic that’s taken place between venues in Indianapolis and Chicago on a rotating basis.
This year, the game has been moved from the Windy City to Indy because of COVID-19, and OSU has a good shot to do some damage.
Prior to all of that though, we thought it’d be fun to take a walk down memory lane and look at the complete history of Ohio State in the Big Ten Tournament. Not many programs have had the success the Buckeyes have, so it should be a fun one.