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Big Ten stamps NCAA Tournament record with flawless Round 1 performance

Paul Harvey

By Paul Harvey

Published:

Big Ten basketball is alive and well, and teams from the conference showed that better than ever in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

This year, the Big Ten sent 8 total teams to the Big Dance. It’s a nice bounce back after the league sent just 6 teams to last year’s field, the lowest for the conference since 2018 (4 teams).

Once the tournament got rolling, those teams lived up to the task of “survive and advance,” though they did a bit better than surviving. Michigan ground out a 68-65 win over UC San Diego, but that was the closest margin of victory for any B1G team in the opening round.

Michigan State, Maryland, UCLA and Oregon all won by 20+ points as the B1G went a perfect 8-0 in the Round of 64. According to BTN host Dave Revsine, it is the most Round 1 wins without a loss for any conference in NCAA Tournament history.

That is certainly a nice feather in the B1G’s cap, especially after the conversation on the national landscape has been about the strength of the SEC this year. The SEC set a new record with 14 teams in the final field, but it is the B1G with the hotter start to March Madness thus far.

With Purdue‘s win on Saturday, the Boilermakers ran the B1G’s record to 9-0 to open the NCAA Tournament while punching their ticket to the Sweet 16. We’ll see how long the B1G can run that mark, but it will be tough moving forward.

As for the national title, no team from the B1G is currently given a major shot to win it all with Michigan State given the best odds in the conference at +3000 per BetMGM. Fans can use the Ohio betting apps to track the top odds throughout the tournament.

The next chance for the B1G to maintain its undefeated start comes Saturday evening when Michigan faces 4-seed Texas A&M. Tip-off for that game is set for 5:15 pm ET on CBS.

Paul Harvey

Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.