Big Ten Upsets with Nebraska, Ohio State Wins

And that’s a wrap for the Men’s NCAA basketball regular season. Conference tournaments and bubble talk will now dominate headlines this week.

One team already a topic of conversation is Nebraska (19-11, 11-7). On Sunday, it defeated No. 9 Wisconsin (25-6, 12-6), 77-68, a win that could launch them into the NCAA tournament. Shavon Shields and Terran Petteway paved the way with their 26 points each.

Should Nebraska make it to the Big Dance, it will be its first time since 1998. Part of this year’s success can be attributed to Nebraska sophomore head coach Tim Miles, who said of his team via the Associated Press, “That’s what we want Husker basketball to be about and that’s what we want it to continue to be about. We’ve had a good run, a really good run. But we’re only halfway through the journey.”

Terran Petteway

The Cornhuskers, who have now won their 10th game out of 12, grabbed the fourth spot in the Big Ten Conference tournament. They are 8-8 versus the top 100 including wins against Wisconsin (No. 5 in the RPI), Ohio State and No. 22 Michigan State. Nebraska’s win against Wisconsin, which represented its second versus a top-10 team hadn’t happened since the 1993-94 season.

But is this enough to extend their March play? Nebraska has a bye for the first round of the Big Ten tournament and will likely play Ohio State (or Purdue) in Friday’s quarterfinals. With a win, they should punch their tournament ticket.

As for the Badgers, they ended the season in the No. 2 spot for the Big Ten. They also have a tournament bye and will kick off play on Friday versus either Minnesota or Penn State.

It’s too early for Vegas odds on the Big Ten Conference tournament win but Wisconsin sits at 20/1 to win the Big Dance.

Aaron Craft

Meanwhile, the Badgers weren’t the only team to suffer a disappointing loss on Sunday as Michigan State (23-8, 12-6) fell to Ohio State (23-8, 10-8), 69-67. Playing in his last home game, Ohio State’s Aaron Craft made it a good one, including his key rebound with 25 seconds remaining and his free throw a few seconds later.

He will leave his Big Ten as the conference career leader with 328 steals.

As for Sparty, the team went cold in the game’s last 4:30 and watched Ohio State score the final four points for the win. For the game, Michigan State had 16 turnovers. It had been playing on borrowed time for the season thanks to the injury bug and had lost their last 7 of 11 games.

Both teams will go to the Big Dance with Michigan State entering the conference tournament as a No. 3 seed and a buy. They’ll play the winner of the Iowa vs. Northwestern game on Friday.

Michigan State sits at 12/1 to win the 2014 Men’s NCAA Basketball Championship while Ohio State has 40/1 odds.

In other news from Sunday, Maryland (17-14, 9-9) shocked No. 5 Virginia (25-6, 16-2) in a 75-69 overtime win.

With the loss, Virginia snapped its 13-game win streak; however, it already owned the ACC regular season conference title with hopes of setting a conference record for the greatest number of wins in the regular season.

Now you have wonder if they’ll lose their No. 1 seed for the Big Dance.

Their competition for the coveted seed included Villanova, Wisconsin and Kansas at the start of Sunday but the Badgers also fell in their final game.

Virginia enters Selection Sunday with two top-25 wins (Syracuse and North Carolina) and non-conference victories over Missouri State and SMU–top-100 opponents. It’s hard to remember, but they lost to Green Bay and Tennessee early in the season. As of now, Virginia remains ahead of Duke for seeding.

Regarding the sure thing, No. 1 Florida will take a top seed while the remaining ones look like No. 3 Arizona (West), No. 2 Wichita State (Midwest) and No. 6 Villanova (East), according to NBC Sports.