The Big 10 Tournament enters the Quarterfinal stage where one upset is brewing. The number one seeded Michigan State Spartans are on upset alert against a team that plays their best ball in March.
In the later window, expect Wisconsin to handle the poor-shooting UCLA offense while Michigan deserves our trust against Purdue in a game that is bound to go down to the wire.
The Big 10 tournament is always tough to predict and plenty of Cinderella runs are made at this time of the year. Think about Ohio State as the five-seed in 2021 or Penn State as the ten-seed in 2023.
This could be the Badgers' year to win their first Big 10 Tournament title since 2015 when Frank the Tank and Sam Dekker were dominating the conference. John Tonje is a bucket getter and Wisco’s defense has been elite over the course of the season.
With losses to Oregon, MSU, and Penn State over their last ten, this team has their flaws but stacks up well against a UCLA team that doesn’t shoot the ball well and comes into this game cold, not playing since last Saturday in Los Angeles.
Cronin’s squad has won their last two games but are shooting just 70.5% from the line and 35.4% from deep. Compared to Wisco’s 83.6% from the line and 35% from beyond the arc, I’ll take the Badgers to win this Big 10 battle.
I’m not giving up on the Wolverines and Dusty May just yet. In his first Big 10 tournament game, he will face a Purdue team that finished the year strong with three wins against UCLA, Rutgers, and USC and a loss to Illinois.
With that being said, Purdue isn’t an active team on the defensive end, which is where Michigan really struggles. Although May’s team got pounced against their rival last week, May’s experience winning the conference title in 2023 with FAU and then going on to a Final Four run gives me hope that the stage won’t be too big here.
I also expect Tre Donaldson and Danny Wolf to show up against a Boilermaker team they split the season series against.