Were we always this fired up about regular season titles? I guess I always thought of the Big Ten tournament champion as the Big Ten champion. I felt that way in '98, when Michigan won the inaugural Big Ten tourney. College basketball is a game predicated on tournaments. I'm pretty sure Kentucky didn't cut down the nets Sunday afternoon and declare themselves the regular season National Champion. In March, nobody cares about regular season championships. Nobody that is except a banner-starved fanbase that just wants to hang something from this century and get a ring for the fingers of a couple of un-recruited kids from Indiana.

Banners really mean something around here. We've hung our fair share, as well as unceremoniously taken a few down. The 1986 Big Ten banner and 1989 National Championship banner have remained. But that's getting to be an awfully long time ago. I can remember thinking it was a long time ago when I was here as a student. For a college student today, those banners might as well be from 1956.

But there will be fresh cloth to hang from the rafters now. 2012 Big Ten Champions.

It took this…