The final weekend of the Big Ten race is finally here, and it is shaping up to be the wildest finish in recent memory. As of Friday, March 3, the expanding Big Ten standings are shown below in Table 1.
All 14 Big Ten teams have just one game remaining and, remarkably, exactly half of the conference has eight losses, with Rutgers sitting below the pack with nine losses. Due to this unprecedented parity in the middle of the league, there are still a large number of Big Ten Tournament scenarios in play. As I have been doing all season, I use math to break it all down.
Big Ten Tournament Odds
The updated Big Ten Tournament seeding odds are shown below in Table 2.
A very small number of things have been clarified over the past few days. Purdue was able to beat Wisconsin on the road on Thursday evening to claim the undisputed Big Ten regular season title and the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten Tournament. Ohio State will be the No. 13 seed and Minnesota will be the No. 14 seed.
In addition, Penn State, Wisconsin, and Nebraska are locked into the No. 10, No. 11, and No. 12 seeds, with the Cornhuskers most likely earning the No. 12 seed. Everything else is still very much in the air.
Michigan State Seeding Possibilities
Just a few days ago, Michigan State's odds for the No. 3 seed were about 1-in-2,000, and the odds for the No. 4 seed were less than 2%. But a rash of upsets has pushed the Spartans' seed odds up across the board. As Table 2 shows, the odds for the No. 3 seed are now 3% and the odds for the No. 4 seed are up to 20%.
Figure 1 below breaks down Michigan State's seeding odds depending on whether or not the Spartans beat Ohio State on Saturday.
