The Big Ten’s teams appear pretty settled. But will there be a surprise?
Hello from Michigan City, Indiana. Never mind why.
In fleeing the snowstorm currently coating Minnesota and wisconsin in a heavy blanket of icy, blowing snow, I nearly neglected to get you a Championship Sunday open thread. A thousand pardons. I’m sure you were foaming at the mouth to hear my hot takes on Michigan-Purdue.
Big Ten Men’s Basketball Championship
[1] Michigan Wolverines vs. [7] Purdue Boilermakers
2:30pm | CBS | Mich -5.5 | O/U 139.5
Michigan has wisely
countered Purdue’s time-old “be tall” strategy with their own strategy of “be tall…and athletic.” It seems to work, as the Wolverines have survived Ohio State and wisconsin en route to a finals appearance.
On the other hand, the sky was falling for Boilermaker fans as recently as [/checks watch] well, it’s still probably falling. Our condolences on the 8-loss season; the conference weeps for your crybaby asses. On the other hand, the Boilers have comfortably seen off Northwestern and Nebraska before gritting out a win over UCLA. The bracket worked out about as well as it could for Purdue, and now we’ll watch them valiantly flail at Michigan in the hopes that the Selection Committee will last-minute change their bracket and elevate Purdue to an unthinkable 2-seed.
Ah, the silliness of the very last championship game of the weekend, too late to actually make an appreciable difference, because Very Serious Bracketmakers have already made their Very Serious Brackets.
Selection Sunday LIVE Show
Speaking of!
[…oh, right. I don’t know. Let’s say Michigan, 74-69.]
- When: 5pm CT, Sunday, March 15
- Channel(s): CBS, Paramount+
I mean…that’s pretty much it. CBS then cuts to shots of various teams celebrating. We dutifully print out our brackets and tell you to sign up for OTE Bracketology MADNESS. (Forthcoming, I think.) And we yell about how Miami-Ohio gets left out or something, how Auburn makes it in over a deserving-enough SMU, and how we really should just all watch the NIT and be done with it.
Tune in, if you dare.
And now I’m on my way to South Bend. Look, mistakes were made.
Feel free to ask why in the comments below. I can’t promise I’ll answer now, but I might treat you to a history of Ford Heights, Illinois, or wherever I decide to park my car in suburban Detroit later tonight.
Enjoy the game.
