The Big Ten Tournament commences on Wednesday with the bottom four in action.
The Wolverines draw their first ever double bye (a concept with a short history), and their first bye of any kind in five years. The B1G Tournament darlings the last couple years, Michigan has kind of made a thing about playing and winning a bunch of days in a row. Which bodes well for tournaments and TOURNAMENTS ARE WHAT THIS ENTIRE SPORT AND ALL OTHER SPORTS ARE COMPLETELY DECIDED BY SO IF WE ARE GOOD AT TOURNAMENTS THEN WE ARE ACTUALLY JUST GOOD.
Anyway, Thursday puts everyone in action except the top four - Michigan, Purdue, Wisconsin, and Lou Anna’s Thundering Turds. Michigan will get whomever comes out of Northwestern/Illinois vs Iowa. We did get boat raced by Iowa in our only meeting, so that is not ideal. Of note, Hollis’s Homies will play the winner of Indiana - Ohio State, with Izzo’s Moronsorliars having provided 25% of Indiana’s Big Ten wins.
Ideally, Michigan meets Perles’s Boys in the finals on Sunday for a third crack at things, revenge tour and shit, etc, etc. But I’m not going to be heartbroken if Engler’s Warriors exit early. Other potholes are present of course, with chalk lining up a likely rematch with the Boilermakers on Saturday. They will be looking to avenge that beatdown Michigan imposed way back when those weird early Big Ten games hit the schedule.
Look, things do not appear stellar for Michigan with that regular season finale, but they literally almost never have looked good going in to this week. What’s nice is that they are operating from a much better position seed-wise than they have in a long time, and they have a rested defensive juggernaut waiting to emerge from an injury.
And this team deserves your respect. MAAR, Mo, and Duncan exit, and they have the greatest start in program history and the most regular season wins in program history. Ya, I’m sorry you couldn’t talk shit to your family veterinarian, your UPS store manager, or the janitor in your office building. I promise you I’m as pissed as you, but there are bigger things to worry about…as well as a possibility of still talking shit to all of them on Sunday.
This is when the magic happens. When some guy the casual fanbase has never heard of drops a double double. When someone gets hot for a few weeks. This is it. This is when we burn the boats.
