The Big Ten begins their 2013 Basketball Tournament today in Chicago with four teams rated in the top 10 nationally. Tom Izzo thinks this could be one of the greatest tournaments in the history of Big Ten basketball. Izzo has been then head coach at Michigan State for 18 years now and coached in the league for 12 years prior to that. So he knows what he is talking about. OSU head coach Thad Matta leads a Buckeye team that finished the regular season with a 23-7 record, tied with the Spartans (24-7) for second place in the conference.
Indiana was of course on top of the league with a 26-5 record during the year. Michigan had a chance to upset the Hoosiers this past weekend but failed to make two late shots in the game and lost 72-71, leaving OSU without the trophy that they have dominated the last decade since Matta became the head coach of the program. IU finished third nationally and will not play Thursday along with the other 3 top seeds, Ohio State, Michigan State, and Wisconsin. All teams will play on Friday against the winners of Thursday’s match-ups.
There are four games today starting with Illinois and Minnesota with a noon tip-off. Penn State plays Michigan, followed by Nebraska Purdue and then Northwestern vs. Iowa. Ohio State finished the season ranked 10th overall in the country and will play the winner of the Purdue Nebraska game (6:30pm Thursday) on Friday at 6:30pm.