The Big Ten has steadily gained a reputation for being a strong regular season basketball conference that does not get it done in the NCAA Tournament. The first two rounds of the 2022 tournament will not do anything to change that perception.
Sunday proved to be a bloodbath for the Big Ten, with Illinois, Michigan State, and Wisconsin all losing in the second round. The Fighting Illini and Badgers both lost to lower-seeded teams, with Illinois losing by 15 to Houston.
With those results in the book, the Big Ten has just two teams left standing of the nine that received bids. Michigan sealed a Sweet Sixteen trip with an upset victory over Tennessee on Saturday, while Purdue faces Texas later Sunday. The possibility exists that eight of the league’s nine teams could be eliminated by the end of the first weekend.
The conference’s reputation for postseason failure was already well-known, and Twitter gleefully piled on as Big Ten teams fell one by one.
Michigan State is the last Big Ten team to win a championship, having done so in 2000. Since then, the conference has 14 Final Four appearances and seven championship game appearances, but no national titles. Unless Michigan or Purdue pull off a ridiculous run, that does not appear likely to change this year.
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