Couch: If the Big Ten wants to prove people wrong in the NCAA tournament, this is the week

Lansing State Journal

You can tell that no one really trusted the Big Ten coming into this NCAA Tournament. Because we celebrated the league over the first weekend for doing what it was supposed to do.

Sure, going 10-5 was slightly above expectations based on seeding: 11-seed Ohio State won a game, as did 10-seed Iowa, which also then stormed back from 25 points down and pushed 2-seed Tennessee to overtime. Good stuff. Didn’t see either coming.

But most of what the Big Ten accomplished in the first two rounds of the tournament simply validated the selection committee’s decision to put eight teams in the draw. Seven of them won a game. The Big Ten had depth. We knew that.

If the Big Ten is to prove people wrong, this is the week. Because the prevailing sentiment is that this is where it ends for 2-seeds Michigan State and Michigan, at the hands No. 1 seeds Duke and Gonzaga, true national title contenders, before the Final Four. And for 3-seed Purdue, against Tennessee a round earlier.

Both the Spartans and Wolverines have tough Sweet 16 draws, too. Texas Tech, Michigan’s next opponent, looked like a bear Sunday evening against Buffalo.

This week is an opportunity to change minds, to show the NCAA tournament selection committee that it didn’t know what it was looking at.

Michigan State's starting five, from left, Aaron Henry, Matt McQuaid, Cassius Winston, Xavier Tillman and Kenny Goins, have the Spartans in the Sweet 16.

Thus far, the only evidence to support the Big Ten being undervalued is a stretch.

The Big Ten’s fifth- and sixth-place teams, Maryland and Iowa, took two of the SEC’s best three teams, LSU and Tennessee, to the wire.

Iowa’s 83-77 overtime loss Sunday to Tennessee further calls into question whether the Vols should have been the No. 5 overall seed in the tournament, ahead of MSU, which was No. 6. Had MSU been the top 2 seed, it would have begun its NCAA Tournament trek in Columbus, Ohio, and then been in the South Regional in Louisville, an easier trip for its fans than East Region host Washington, D.C., and perhaps an easier route to the Final Four, through Virginia instead of Duke.

That said, it’s fair to question whether Duke was actually deserving of top overall seed in the tournament after the Blue Devils escaped Central Florida on Sunday by a single point. Duke doesn’t look quite as daunting as it didn’t before the weekend.

None of the top leagues have separated themselves yet or proven themselves to be frauds. The SEC is 9-3, the ACC 10-2, the Big Ten, again, 10-5.

If the Big Ten gets to 14-6 or somewhere in that realm — if MSU and Michigan were to meet again — then it’ll have a case that its top teams were misjudged all season, right up through Selection Sunday.

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Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.