On Sept. 19, when the Big Ten announced its full 2025-26 men’s basketball schedule, it snuck a crucial change to its postseason in the fifth paragraph of the press release:
The 29th Big Ten Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament will be played March 10-15, 2026, at the United Center in Chicago, marking the first Big Ten Tournament to feature an 18-team field.
An 18-team conference tournament! Yes! This was an obvious change that had to happen, and it is almost refreshing that it came about so simply, without years of bureaucratic hemming and hawing. But there’s only so much credit to give, too. A partial Big Ten tournament field, one that cut short teams’ last chance to play themselves into the NCAA Tournament, never should have happened in the first place. You can’t just leave teams out of your conference tournament! That’s one of the key cultural pillars of the sport! Nobody pushing for NCAA Tournament expansion in the name of “access” could justify such a format. Clearly, the logistics weren’t that hard to figure out.
That would be true even if the Big Ten had going-nowhere programs routinely stinking out the bottom of the standings. It rarely has — and definitely doesn’t now. That’s another reason to change the conference tournament structure, one you can bet some coaches must have fed back to the league office along the way: Everyone is good now.
Fifteen of the 18 teams below are ranked inside KenPom’s preseason top 60; no Big Ten team will start the season outside the top 100. This has been roughly the case for several seasons, even before the B1G added four of the Pac-12’s most storied schools. The idea of ending your year ranked, say, 50th in adjusted efficiency, and not even having a shot to play in the actual postseason, is completely absurd. This is, naturally, exactly what just happened to Nebraska. The Cornhuskers didn’t qualify for their conference tournament but were in at-large NCAA Tournament contention. Insane!
The same situation could have happened this year. Barring another dominant SEC campaign, this could end up being the best, most competitive conference in college basketball. Time to preview it!
Note: This is the latest in a series of power league and mid-major previews we’ll be running in the coming weeks. We skipped this in Buzzer’s first season, but last year found the preview process remains a) fun, b) popular and c) the best way for the author to make sure he knows what guys are on which rosters come November. Team ranks are vague, in broad tiers, and not to be taken super seriously.
Also! If you’d like to hear me audibly discuss at great length the 2025-26 SEC — with probably the most dialed-in Big Ten analyst to ever exist, seriously — check out this episode of the Basket Under Review Podcast with Joe Jackson.
National title contenders
Purdue Boilermakers
Purdue is going to be good again. This is a certainty. It is nice to be so certain.
In an ecosystem dominated by the chaotic, fluttering migration of thousands of players every spring, Matt Painter’s program is still. So many rosters require a creative preview imagination: This guy does this, and this one does this, and the coach plays like this, so here’s how it might all fit together. It gets overwhelming. The variables feel endless.
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