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Big Ten Tournament Recap: Regular-Season Champion Buckeyes Make It a Clean Sweep
By Sharon Crowson
Correspondent
When the Big Ten Tournament was over, top-seeded Ohio State was the one team left standing. But the road to the tournament championship was not easy. Not easy at all. In the semi-finals, the Buckeyes got by a scrappy Wisconsin team, 82-73, in a game that was closer than the nine-point final margin would suggest. In the championship game, Ohio State did not take the lead for the last time until Jantel Lavender sank two free throws with 1.9 seconds left in the game to give the Buckeyes a 66-64 lead. Even then, they could not breathe easily until the final buzzer when Iowa’s Kamille Wahlin launched a 40-footer that had the correct distance but was off the mark.
To paraphrase Geno Auriemma in another context, in the final analysis, Ohio State won because they had Lavender and no one else did. Lavender, who impressed with her class after the final horn as much as with her play before it, dominated both teams and was an easy choice as tournament Most Valuable Player. In the three games she averaged 27 points, including a tournament-record tying 35 in the championship game. Over the same span, she averaged 8.8 rebounds a game and shot 50 percent from the field despite being the focus of everyone’s defense.
The Big Ten As I See It: With a Mess of a Regular Season, Post-Season Chances Are Tough to Predict
By Sharon Crowson
Correspondent
As the season winds down, eyes turn to the NCAA tournament and who will get to play and who will have to watch.
With the mess that has been the Big Ten this season few things regarding the postseason are certain. But the situation is slowly becoming less clouded and some almost educated guesses can be made.
Though tournament berths aren’t doled out by conference, the Big Ten normally winds up with five bids, and their Number Five RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) ranking and Number Two strength of schedule ranking should get them at least four this season. Historically, no team that finished under .500 in the regular season has ever gotten an at-large bid and that isn’t going to change this season. The large majority of teams that finished at .500 did not get bids and there likely won’t be any .500 teams getting eitherin this year.
The Big Ten As I See It: Weekend Upsets Show There Are No Truly Bad Teams in the League This Year
By Sharon Crowson
Correspondent
If obscure records were kept, the Big Ten likely set one on Sunday. The bottom five teams in the standings all played teams currently in the top six. All five second division teams upset their first division counterparts.
The league coaches have said all season that there is great parity in the conference this year. That can be a code for overall mediocrity but, in this case, it doesn’t appear to be so. Ohio State may be the only team in the league capable of competing with top teams nationally, but there are no truly bad teams in the Big Ten this season.
