Further Breakdown: Big Ten Scenarios and Tournament Seeding

With Ohio State's win over Indiana last night the picture for the B1G title and tournament seeding got a lot more interesting with several teams' hopes likely coming down to Sunday's match-up between Indiana and Michigan.  On Monday, I looked at scenarios based on outcomes of three games.  One of those games was the IU-OSU game so now I am looking a little deeper since I can make some stronger assumptions.  The remaining games involving teams with title (and Thursday tourney bye) hopes are:

March 6: UM @ Purdue
March 7: UW @ MSU
March 10: UW @ PSU, UI @ OSU, IU @ UM, NU @ MSU

For the scenarios, I am only considering the yellow-bolded games.  I am now including the Illinois-Ohio State game.  As I said on Monday, the other games are "handle your business" games.  Sure, anything can happen but it just opens up too many (unlikely) possibilities. So here are the eight most likely scenarios and the resulting Big Ten tournament seedings. Teams that take a piece of the conference title are green-bolded.

Scenarios:

A) Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana win

1. IU
2. UW
3. OSU
4. MSU
5. UM

B) Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan win

1. UW
2. IU
3. UM
4. OSU
5. MSU

C) Wisconsin, Ohio State, Michigan win

1. UW
2. UM
3. OSU
4. IU
5. MSU

D) Wisconsin, Ohio State, Indiana win

1. IU
2. UW
3. OSU
4. MSU
5. UM

E) Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan win

1. IU
2. OSU
3. UM
4. MSU
5. UW

F) Michigan State, Ohio State, Indiana win

1. IU
2. OSU
3. MSU
4. UW
5. UM

G) Michigan State, Illinois, Indiana win

1. IU
2. MSU
3. UW
4. OSU
5. UM

H) Michigan State, Illinois, Michigan win

1. IU
2. UM
3. MSU
4. UW
5. OSU

 Bullet Points:

• Again, the Indiana-Michigan match-up will answer most questions.  An Indiana win secures them the outright title and relegates Michigan to a Thursday tournament game.  An Indiana loss opens the door to a three or four-way tie for the crown.
• I have commented on the imbalance of the schedule before.  Of the five contenders, Wisconsin benefits by playing Indiana and Michigan only once.  To their credit, they won both contests which gives them a huge advantage in tie-breaking procedures.
• For Michigan State and Michigan fans, scenarios A, D & H likely set up a tournament rematch between those teams.