We have arrived at the last weekend of regular season basketball in the Big Ten and teams still have plenty of jockeying to do to position themselves in the Big Ten Tournament bracket. For Purdue, there are still 4 possible seed they can be attached to: 4-7. Where Purdue ends up ranked come the Big Ten Tournament will be decided by 3 games over the weekend. Let’s break it down.
Currently, Purdue is just outside of the triple-bye territory sitting in 5th place. Here is what needs to happen for Purdue to land
at each of the 4 possible seeds:
4- seed
Purdue beats Wisconsin Saturday and Iowa beats Nebraska Sunday.
This result is regardless of if Illinois loses to Maryland as a three-team tie between Illinois, Purdue, and Nebraska pins the collective group record against each other. Illinois would be 2-1 against the group, Purdue would be 1-1, and Nebraska would be 1-2. This breaks the ties in that order, giving the 4-seed to Purdue anyway.
5-seed
Purdue beats Wisconsin Saturday and Nebraska beats Iowa Sunday.
Again, this result is regardless of if Illinois loses to Maryland as Illinois holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over Purdue.
6-seed
Wisconsin beats Purdue and USC beats UCLA Saturday.
In this scenario, Purdue would be the lone team at 13-7 in the Big Ten.
7-seed
Wisconsin beats Purdue and UCLA beats USC Saturday.
This scenario would favor the Bruins who have the lone head-to-head victory over Purdue, though the jury is still out about if Mick Cronin would still complain about it.
What to Watch
So, as a Purdue fan, here is how you can watch the games if you’re only interested to see where Purdue ends up:
Start with Wisconsin at Purdue – 4:00 PM ET on CBS
If Purdue wins, you can turn off your TV for the evening as no other games can affect Purdue’s seeding on Saturday. Then, after losing an hour of sleep for Daylight Savings, you watch Iowa at Nebraska – 5:00 PM ET on FOX Sunday evening.
If Purdue loses, you can watch UCLA at USC – 9:00 PM ET on FS1 if you can stay up for it and given Purdue hasn’t made you want to go to sleep early to protect that hour of sleep you’re about to lose.
As it stands, Purdue is most likely to slide into the 5-seed of the Big Ten Tournament which means they will go back-to-back seasons where they do not secure the maximum bye (this year is the start of the triple bye). The silver lining is that Purdue may give Braden Smith an extra game against a bottom half Big Ten seed to rack up more assists. If Purdue is the 5-seed, they would have likely been in a 4-5 matchup anyway so why not try and get Braden closer to the NCAA assist record? Only this weekend’s games will tell if Braden gets that chance but let’s hope for some more Purdue victories either way.
