BTT Winners by Seed

15 of the 19 winners have been either a #1 or #2 seed.
Gophers will try to become the second #4 seed to cut down the nets.
Mich St will attempt to be the first #5 seed to win.

No 1s - 8 total
MSU 99 & 12
Ill 05
OSU 07, 10 & 11
Wisc 08 & 15

No 2s - 7 total
MSU 00 & 16
OSU 02* & 13
Ill 03
Wis 04
Iowa 06

No 3s - 2 total
Pur 09
MSU 14

No 4
Mich 98*

No 6
Iowa 01 (only team to win 4 games en route to title)

* Later vacated

6 Runner-Ups got there by winning 3 games only to fall short on Sunday.
Ill 99 (#11)
Iowa 02 (#9)
OSU 03 (#8)
Ill 08 (#10)
Min 10 (#6)
PSU 11 (#6)

Good stuff, thanks Ope3.

I guess the theme this year needs to be "Make It To Sunday" instead of "Make It To Friday"?

I'm even ok with "Make it to Saturday", getting to play on CBS is not all that common. Gophers have made it there 4 times I think (98, 05, 08 & 10).

It would be a lot of work but it would be interesting to see how the winners correlated with national ranking. Did Iowa win in a weak year? What about Michigan and the three seeds? Were those years without a "great" Big Ten team (or two) or did they knock off teams with top 5 or 10 national rankings?

I guess my point is that it is easier for lower seeds to win when the top seeds are not dominant teams. With no dominant top teams, this year may be a year for a lower seed (hopefully #4) to win.

SelectionSunday said:

Good stuff, thanks Ope3.

I guess the theme this year needs to be "Make It To Sunday" instead of "Make It To Friday"?

Click to expand...

Yes, because we already made it to Friday.

So, we will be the 2nd #4 seed to win!

Winnipegopher said:

It would be a lot of work but it would be interesting to see how the winners correlated with national ranking. Did Iowa win in a weak year? What about Michigan and the three seeds? Were those years without a "great" Big Ten team (or two) or did they knock off teams with top 5 or 10 national rankings?

I guess my point is that it is easier for lower seeds to win when the top seeds are not dominant teams. With no dominant top teams, this year may be a year for a lower seed (hopefully #4) to win.

Click to expand...

I was curious to look back at the 2001 Tourney, coming in Illinois (#1) and Mich St (#2) were big favorites (and would get #1 seeds in the NCAA), but Iowa did not have to play either of them. Penn St upset Sparty in the Quarters and Indiana beat Illinois in the Semis.

Other personal observations from going to 14 of these events:

It's hard to win as the #3 seed. One reason is they play in the last game on Friday, thus a quick turnaround into Saturday. The #3 has to win 3 games in less than 40 hours. Also, the #3 is often playing a #6 seed that is playing for their NCAA Tourney lives.

It's very rare that anyone enjoys a "home court" advantage, even though in the past it would have seemed to favor Illinois in Chicago and either Purdue or Indiana in Indy. The neutral fans usually compensate to even things out. One exception was Illinois in 2005. That felt like I was in Champaign.