The Big Ten is one of the power five conferences in college basketball and has players that can be labeled as the best in the country on about every team. This creates a buzz around the conference tournament and shows the players and coaches how much it means to win it. This year ten out of the fourteen teams were projected to make the NCAA tournament, this number of teams in the field just shows how deep and how tough the conference was this year. The race for the conference title this year was crazy and made every single conference game have huge importance. Wisconsin, Maryland, and Michigan State all tied with the best conference records of fourteen and six. Wisconsin won the tiebreakers and were to take the one seed in the conference tournament, leaving Maryland to take the second seed, and Michigan State taking the third. The Illinois Fighting Illini finished fourth overall in conference one game back of the three tied up top with a record of thirteen and seven in conference play. These top four seeds were to receive the double bye in the conference tournament. Out of the conference, about seven or eight of them were locks but a few were fighting for a bid in March Madness and the conference tournament was crucial to make their case, teams such Indiana and Purdue were really relying on the tournament. The cancellation of March Madness and this tournament was also huge for seniors and big players to show the country who they really were and improve their stock for the NBA draft. A big name, Ayo Dosunmu, a sophomore guard out of Illinois promised Illini nation he wouldn’t leave until they achieved national attention and they danced. They did receive plenty of attention, but unfortunately no one danced this year. Instead of proving himself in the conference tournament and March, NBA teams must look at what he did his freshman year and the regular season this year. It is up to Dosunmu now whether or not we wants to declare for the draft. The Big Ten conference tournament is place where teams and players can really show who they are and what differences they can make, but unfortunately that did not happen this year as college basketball was cancelled as a whole.
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