The Big Ten’s postseason football dominance has extended to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament — at least through the regional finals. The conference won its third consecutive College Football Playoff title in January, and on Friday it became the fourth league in NCAA Tournament history to send four teams to the Elite Eight.
Iowa, Illinois, Purdue and Michigan all will play for a spot in the Final Four this weekend after Sweet 16 victories. One Big Ten representative is guaranteed to make the Final Four: Saturday’s winner between Iowa and Illinois in the South Region final.
“The talent in our league is very good,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “I think you’re seeing that here in the tournament. Like very good. I think it’s been about as good as it’s been for a long, long time. I think the influx of international guys, our league is like a corporation now, with 18 teams.”
It’s the Big Ten’s longtime programs that continue to hoist the conference banner this postseason. All four schools still dancing joined the conference in the 1890s. No. 9 seed Iowa (24-12) advanced to the Elite Eight for the first time since 1987 after beating fellow Big Ten foe Nebraska 77-71 on Thursday night. The third-seeded Illini (27-8) earned their first Elite Eight berth since the program’s trip to the 2005 NCAA title game with a 65-55 win against second-seeded Houston. Iowa and Illinois face off at 6:09 p.m. ET Saturday in Houston.
No. 2 seed Purdue (30-8) earned its second Elite Eight trip in three seasons and third since 2019 with a last-second 79-77 win against No. 11 seed Texas in a West Region semifinal. The Big Ten tournament champion Boilermakers will battle top-seeded Arizona (35-2) at 8:49 p.m. ET Saturday in San Jose, Calif.
No. 1 seed Michigan (33-3) became the final Big Ten squad to earn an Elite Eight trip after dismantling Alabama 90-77 on Friday at the United Center in Chicago. The Wolverines became the first Big Ten team to sweep the conference road schedule in 50 years and claimed the regular-season title with a 19-1 mark. They will play No. 6 seed Tennessee on Sunday afternoon.
Michigan State (27-8), which was the No. 3 seed in the East Region, rallied from an early 19-point deficit but lost to second-seeded UConn, 67-63, on Friday night. Nebraska (28-7) was the South Region’s No. 4 seed and notched its first two tournament wins in school history before falling to Iowa. Wisconsin (24-11), Ohio State (21-13) and UCLA (24-12) bowed out during the tournament’s first weekend.
“It’s, in my opinion, the best basketball league out there,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood said. “We’ve got tremendous fans. We’re a league that the fans are very informed, very intelligent, very passionate. You go on the road, almost anywhere you go, and you got a sellout crowd. The games are more like events. They’re bigger than just kind of a game. They’re events.”
Last year, the SEC sent four teams to the regional finals, with eventual champion Florida and Auburn reaching the Final Four. The ACC accomplished the feat in 2016, when North Carolina, Notre Dame, Syracuse and Virginia qualified for the regional finals. The Big East was the first with four regional finalists, with current members UConn and Villanova and former members Louisville and Pittsburgh in 2009.
Big Ten teams have lost seven consecutive national title game appearances, with the conference’s last champion coming in 2000, and that streak may extend another year. But in light of its postseason success this year, the league’s depth is inarguable.
“The good part is it helped a lot of us in the tournament,” first-year Iowa coach Ben McCollum said. “I think sometimes it can hurt you too, just because you get beat up a little bit, maybe lose your confidence. It helped us from a process perspective.”
