The Big Ten men’s basketball regular season is finished, which means the Big Ten Tournament bracket is now set and will get underway in Minneapolis, Minnesota with the bottom four seeds playing each other on Wednesday. Ohio State (19-12, 9-11) ends up as the 10-seed and they will play 7-seed Iowa (18-13, 10-10) at 6:30 pm on Thursday.
The Buckeyes and Hawkeyes have only played once — a 79-77 win for the Hawkeyes in Iowa City.
The good news for both teams is that they are not on Purdue’s side of the bracket, as the winner of Thursday’s game will play 2-seed Illinois Friday at 6:30 pm.
Ohio State is also 0-1 against the Illini this season, losing their only matchup 87-75 in Columbus.
Purdue is the tournament’s 1-seed. They will enjoy a double-bye and won’t play until Friday, as will 2-seed Illinois, 3-seed Nebraska, and 4-seed Northwestern.
The Buckeyes closed the regular season with a 5-1 mark since the firing of head coach Chris Holtmann, which included a 73-69 win over Purdue to get the ball rolling.
Ohio State wrapped up its regular season on Sunday with a 73-51 win at Rutgers. It was the Buckeyes first win on the road against the Scarlet Knights since 2021. Sophomore guard Roddy Gayle led Ohio State with 14 points.
Under interim head coach Jake Diebler, the Buckeyes have reeled off four wins in a row in Big Ten play for the first time in three seasons. One of those wins was a 78-69 win over Nebraska, who Ohio State would likely meet in the semifinals should they make it that far.
The Big Ten Tournament will get underway Wednesday night at 6:30 pm with a matchup between 13-seed Rutgers and 12-seed Maryland. That will then be followed by 11-seed Penn State against 14-seed Michigan. Both games will be available only via the Peacock streaming platform.
All-session tickets for the 27th edition of the tournament are available for purchase at the Target Center box office or online at AXS.com. Single session tickets will go on sale Monday at 12 p.m. CT. All ticket purchases are subject to AXS and facility fees. For more information on this year’s tournament, visit the Big Ten Tournament Central page at bigten.org/MBBT.
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