re: Big Ten basketball is the real deal...

huh

They are the best this year. But to be mentioned with the SEC in football they better start cutting down nets. And not have a top 10 matchup on the damn big 10 network today.

"You people just can't let us have anything can you?"

This is part of the reason I started the thread. Big Ten basketball deserves props for being very solid from top to bottom in a way no other league is. I'm also trying to teach you Big Ten fans a lesson on how to be gracious as well. When a league dominates you give them their due. You don't whine and bitch and come up with lame excuses and a boogey man like oversigning or academic standards like Big Ten fans do about SEC football. You guys are the ones that won't let the South have anything. Football success? "You cheat, oversign, are abusing poor young athletes". A thriving auto industry? "You deflated wages by voting against the UAW union and ruining American manufacturing by recruiting foreign automakers". Heck, a Southerner or Southern institution could find the cure for cancer and Midwesterners/Northerners would find some reason to criticize or de-legitamize the discovery and claim the South cheated or abused someone to get it.

I thought it was overrated last year, but it's ridiculous this year. The championships thing is stupid. MSU basically goes to the Final Four every other year, the Bucks had one or two, Illinois 2005 was almost a GOAT squad, etc., etc. Now with Indiana back, Minnesota and Michigan solid, consistent Bo Ryan junkball always there, the depth is like the ACC or Big East in a good year. And MSU and OSU aren't even as good as last year.

Just looking at "unofficial history" it looks as though the Big Ten has been represented in 46% of all Final Fours since its inception in 1939.