For years and years, the Big Ten has been known as one of the conferences that consistently comes up short in the NCAA Tournament. However, that has not been the case this year. The conference absolutely steamrolled through the Round of 64 on Thursday and Friday, finishing with a perfect 8-0 record.
Now, with eight teams in the Round of 32, fans of the Big Ten teams remaining will have hope that their team will become the first team from the conference to win a national championship since Michigan State in 2000.
After all, the league is already breaking records this March Madness season. Its stellar showing in the first round set a new NCAA Tournament record, according to Jared Berson.
“The 2024-25 Big Ten is the first conference ever to go 8-0 or better in a single round of the NCAA Tournament,” Berson wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Most of the Big Ten’s wins came in dominant fashion. On Thursday, Wisconsin crushed Montana and Purdue pulled away from High Point for a 12-point win. During the Thursday night slate, UCLA absolutely mauled a helpless Utah State squad before Michigan barely survived (as Michigan does) a valiant upset bid from UC San Diego.
On Friday, Maryland opened the proceedings in the conference by running Grand Canyon off the court. At night, Oregon took an 18-2 lead over Liberty and never looked back in an 81-52 win, Michigan State pulled away from Bryant in the second half and Illinois comfortably kept a pesky Xavier squad at arm’s length in an 86-73 win.
Out of the eight wins by Big Ten teams in this edition of March Madness, seven of them came by double digits. As a result, these teams should all be taking a lot of confidence into the Round of 32.
Now, the tests get much tougher. UCLA and Michigan are both underdogs in their Round of 32 games on Saturday while Wisconsin is essentially a toss up on the betting lines against BYU. However, with the level that these teams have been playing at so far this March, anything feels possible for this group.
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