Michigan had just dispatched Alabama to advance in the NCAA Tournament when coach Dusty May was asked about his top-seeded Wolverines becoming the latest Big Ten team to eliminate a Southeastern Conference opponent.
“You know, college basketball has been cyclical forever,” May said after Michigan's 90-77 win in the Midwest Region semifinals. “Hopefully this is a long cycle for us in the conference.”
For this year, at least, the Big Ten has snatched
the March Madness spotlight that was locked on the SEC last year.
The Big Ten had a league-record six teams reach the Sweet 16 and now has tied the tournament record with four teams in the Elite Eight, increasing its chances of breaking through for the league's first title in more than a quarter-century. That includes an all-Big Ten matchup in Saturday's South Region title game that will send either No. 3 seed Illinois or No. 9 seed Iowa — which upset reigning national champion Florida in the second round — out of Houston and on to Indianapolis for the Final Four.
No other league has more than one team in this weekend's regional finals.
“The talent in our league is very good,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said Friday, ahead of his team's West Region final against top-seeded Arizona. “I think you’re seeing that here in the tournament. Like very good. I think it’s been about as good as it’s been for a long, long time.”
The results are backing that up.
Only three leagues had put four teams in the regional finals since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985: the Big East in 2009, the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2016 and the SEC last year.
Now the Big Ten has done it, too, after getting three teams to the Elite Eight four other times, most recently in 2014. And the league nearly got five teams there, with Michigan State losing a tight contest with UConn on Friday night.
Last year, all the talk was about the SEC's records of 14 tournament bids and seven Sweet 16 teams. This year, the Big Ten is the standout, with four of its teams having taken out SEC opponents so far — including Purdue beating Texas on Thursday and Michigan's win against Alabama.
It could add a fifth, too, with the Wolverines set to play Tennessee in the Midwest Region final on Sunday.
It shouldn't be a surprise, considering the Big Ten had a national-best six teams ranked in the AP Top 25 entering the NCAA Tournament, while its nine bids were behind only the SEC's 10.
First-year Iowa coach Ben McCollum, who has the program in its first regional final since 1987, admitted he was “curious” as to how difficult his first run through the league would be. His team went just 11-11 between Big Ten regular-season and tournament play, yet here it is, playing for a Final Four spot.
“The good part is it helped a lot of us in the tournament,” McCollum said Friday of the league's difficulty. “I think sometimes it can hurt you too, just because you get beat up a little bit, maybe lose your confidence. It helped us from a process perspective and we continued to grow and get better, and be better and better as long as we focused on that.”
The Big Ten's run marks the second straight year that the two most cash-flush conferences have dominated the tournament. The Big Ten generated the most revenue ($928.1 million) and distributed the most to its member schools ($63.1 million average) for the 2023-24 season, according to tax documents.
That figure outpaced the SEC's $839.7 million in total revenue and $52.6 million in average payout to full members for that same season, which is the most recent year in which all power conferences have filed tax documents. And that only helps when it comes to managing the always escalating costs for staff, facilities and roster building.
“I know our league is incredibly tough,” May said Friday night. “The coaches are off the charts, but I want to give the administrations a lot of credit. There’s a bunch of well-run athletic departments in the Big Ten.”
The only trick now is for the league to get a team to the final Monday night of the season and actually cut down the nets. The Big Ten hasn't had a school win the tournament since Michigan State gave Izzo his lone title in 2000.
“I think the Big Ten Conference is the best conference in the world,” Wolverines senior guard Roddy Gayle Jr. said Thursday. “Obviously we want everybody in the Big Ten to be successful. But just kind of seeing the success that the conference has had in the tournament is really good. And I think it speaks to how good we were in the season to be able to finish first.”
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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
