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ESPN’s preseason bracketology has 9 B1G teams making NCAA Tournament

Andrew Olson

By Andrew Olson

Published:

College basketball season is almost here. Ahead of 2024-25 season’s tipoff, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi revealed his preseason bracketology.

Lunardi has a lot to say about the Big Ten this season. In a lengthy post on X (formerly Twitter), Lunardi pondered if this is the year the conference can end its national championship drought:

”By the time the 2025 national champion is determined, it will have been a quarter-century since a Big Ten team won the NCAA title,” Lunardi wrote in his post. “It is one of those hard-to-believe streaks that’s even crazier when you consider the conference has placed a best-in-the-nation 144 teams in the NCAA tournament since Michigan State hoisted the league’s last trophy in 2000. Twenty-five years later, opportunity is once again knocking for the Big Ten.”

Lunardi has 9 teams from the B1G making the NCAA Tournament. But the B1G could have more teams dancing. Lunardi’s First Four Out is 4 B1G teams.

“… [T]he Big Ten has never lacked for its quantity of contenders,” Lunardi added. “Quality at times is another matter, and it could be again this year as the top Big Ten team on our seed list — Purdue — is only a No. 4. In the meantime, the Big East record of 11 tournament bids (2011) is very much in jeopardy. And the Big Ten is the most likely conference to break it, national championship or not.”

Here are Lunardi’s 9 B1G teams to make the NCAA Tournament:

Illinois

No. 7-seed Midwest vs. 10-seed Memphis

Indiana

No. 5-seed West vs. 12-seed Grand Canyon

Michigan

No. 8-seed East vs. 9-seed Kansas State

Michigan State

No. 7-seed South vs. 10-seed Saint Mary’s

Ohio State

No. 10-seed East vs. 7-seed BYU

Oregon

No. 10-seed West vs. 7-seed Mississippi State

Purdue

No. 4-seed Midwest vs. 13-seed Bradley

Rutgers

No. 11-seed East vs. 11-seed Louisville (First Four)

UCLA

No. 6-seed Midwest vs. 11-seed winner of Dayton/Pittsburgh

Andrew Olson

A former Florida beat reporter, Andrew writes for the Saturday Tradition News Desk.